Source: The New Humanitarian
By Sam Mednick
July 26, 2021
KAYA, Burkina Faso
The women were able to escape deadly attacks by Islamist militants that have triggered one of the world’s fastest-growing displacement crises. But their ordeal, they said, didn’t end there: In places of supposed refuge, local men demanded sex from them in exchange for humanitarian assistance.
Eight displaced women living in Burkina Faso’s northern town of Kaya told The New Humanitarian they were approached for sex by local men – some of them community leaders – who said they were registering people in need of food aid.
Most incidents took place over the past 15 months, the women said in interviews conducted in September 2020 and May 2021.
“I said yes because I was afraid [to say no] and desperate to get on the list [for food aid],” said one woman, who asked not to be named to avoid reprisals.
The woman said she had registered in 2019 with the government to receive food but didn’t receive anything. She said she then met a community leader in charge of registration and had sex with him twice between June and November 2020 because he promised to put her on a list. She never received food, she said, and she still doesn’t know if her name has been added to the lists.
The registration of displaced people in Burkina Faso is managed by the central government and local authorities, which sometimes ask community members to assist with the process. Aid groups, including the World Food Programme (WFP) – the largest supplier of food aid in the country – provide assistance to those whose names are on the lists.
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