In a what it hopes is a call to action for Canada and other countries to do more to salve and rectify the horrifying consequences of gender inequality faced by female refugees around the world, Oxfam Canada has released a report addressing gender-specific challenges.
I shall leave the reading to you, should you care to confirm that we–humankind–are not not exactly doing a bang-up job of making this world a better place.
Women walk through the Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, last Friday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Janice Dickson
The report is filled with terrifying facts.
Did you know, for example, there are currently at least 68.5 million displaced people around the world–more than at any time in history?
How about this? Someone is driven from her or his home every two seconds.
And according to the Oxfam Canada study, women have it worse than men. (Gee, what a surprise.)
The study, authored by Brittany Lambert, a women’s rights policy and advocacy specialist at Oxfam Canada, says women do not receive the gender-specific help they need–things like adequate access to sexual and reproductive health services, too often seen as a “second-tier” priority when people are forced to flee their homes because of conflict.
Britanny Lambert researched and authored the Oxfam Canada report.
The study found that 25 to 50 per cent of maternal deaths in refugee camps are caused by unsafe abortions and related complications and last year 500 women and girls died during emergencies every day from pregnancy and childbirth complications because, Lambert says, sexual and reproductive health and rights weren’t a priority.
The report says Canada needs to do more, especially in light of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s self-proclaimed feminism.
“Currently, Canada’s international assistance funding is out of step with its ambition to be a world leader on gender equality and feminist aid and foreign policy,” the report says.
Still, Lambert says, Canada is making “great strides in the right direction.”
Another glimmer of hope: Lambert says the refugee and humanitarian crises around the world–at the very least, or maybe at the very most–provide the opportunity to confront the underlying root causes that have resulted in the gender inequality.
I spoke by phone with Lambert on Tuesday at her Oxfam Canada office in Ottawa.
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