Sex work and abuse: the women trapped in Malawi's growing refugee camp

"Tears stream down Francine's* face as she pulls her glove off. Her right hand is covered by a pale, mottled burn scar. Her fingers are stiff and unnaturally bent. Francine turned to sex work to survive soon after she arrived alone at Malawi's Dzaleka refugee camp in 2015, having travelled there from Burundi. On Christmas Eve in 2022, a client refused to pay. When she blocked the doorway, he grabbed a boiling-hot saucepan of beans and threw it at her, scalding her hand and chest."

"with funding cuts by international donors resulting in most eating just once a day. At the same time, the chances of relocation to countries in the west have been reduced from small to remote after the US stopped accepting refugees (apart from white South Africans that US officials falsely claimed were facing white genocide. Francine says she has never been considered for relocation Since 2021, the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, has proposed almost 9,000 people as candidates for resettlement."

"After being abandoned by her mother, Francine lived in Burundi with an uncle involved in politics, who was gunned down in 2014. She injured herself escaping through a window, and still shakes and twitches as she recalls the gunshots. Haunted by her trauma, the 29-year-old mother of children aged two and nine believes her life would be at risk if she returned to Burundi and wonders why she has never been considered for relocation."

Refugees in Malawi face worsening conditions as international funding cuts leave most people eating just once a day. Resettlement opportunities have fallen sharply after the US largely stopped accepting refugees, with far fewer people relocating to western countries. UNHCR named almost 9,000 resettlement candidates since 2021, and 3,703 left Malawi, about 80% to the US, while only around 450 are expected to relocate to Australia, Canada and New Zealand this year. Francine arrived in Dzaleka camp from Burundi in 2015, turned to sex work, suffered severe burns in a 2022 attack, and fears returning home because of past political violence and trauma.

Read at www.theguardian.com