A new survey by the Population Council and a consortium of other research organizations has found that 50% of children living in all refugee settlements in Uganda have either experienced physical, emotional, sexual or all three forms of violence.
Uganda which is the continent’s largest refugee host is home to nearly 1.7 million refugees of which 54% are children so researchers launching findings of this survey on Thursday called upon policymakers to intervene by ensuring that these children are rescued from such experiences as only a few access help when violated.
According to Stella Muthuri, the CEO of the Baobab Consortium that brought together the different researchers, 43% of girls and 50% of boys in the thirteen settlements experienced violence.
Speaking to URN, Dr Gloria Seruwagi who is the Lead charge of research uptake said they found that though girls were more vulnerable to sexual violence, males were affected too with 53% of boys reporting experiencing their first incident of sexual violence before age 18 after they arrived at the settlement.
The refugees including those from South Sudan, DR Congo and other countries were asked whether certain experiences had happened to them in the past 12 months while in the 13 settlements that exist in the country. While both boys and girls were violated, when asked whether they sought help after the incidents, 5% of girls confirmed disclosing and seeking help. None of the boys reported seeking help and for the girls, only 2% got a form of help after disclosure.
With this, Seruwagi says the perpetrators of this violence will continue harming the children as their silence benefits them.
Lydia Najjemba Wasula the focal person in charge of ending violence against children in the Gender Ministry said this data comes in handy to direct programming as the country operates with no evidence specific to refugee settlements.
She said Uganda did a Violence Against Children (VAC) survey in 2018 but refugee settings were excluded. However, she notes that the new data is alarming, noting that although it’s almost similar to what they found, they never understood that the magnitude of violence was this high.
Najjemba worries that the challenge with refugee settlements is that all the multiple sources of violence are happening many times at the same time and yet these youngsters have to at the same time deal with the mental distress associated with conflict and displacement.
However, under this survey, several solutions have been recommended and interventions tested.
Dr Bonny Wandera, a researcher at the Africa Population and Health Research Center reveals that some of these interventions including psychosocial support are being tested in Kiryandongo in schools that have a majority of refugees. Also, the research team has trained para-social workers from within the refugee communities to build trust for intervention, especially in areas like sexual violence where it’s often frightening for one to disclose.
Officials from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) called for the upscaling of these interventions to even settlements that have not been involved in the pilot.
