Sex Work and Violence: The Female Refugees Trapped in Malawi’s Growing Settlement
Tears roll down her face as she takes off her glove. Her hand is covered by a pale, mottled burn scar. Her digits are stiff and deformed.
She resorted to sex work to survive soon after she arrived alone at Malawi’s Dzaleka settlement in 2015, having fled there from Burundi.
On the night before Christmas in 2022, a client declined payment. When she blocked the doorway, he took a scalding saucepan of beans and threw it at her, scalding her hand and chest.
Living conditions in Malawi has become more challenging, with financial decreases by foreign aid groups resulting in most consuming food only one time a day.
At the same time, the opportunities of moving to countries in the west have been diminished from small to unlikely.
I see other people going, who are in good health … I ask myself, ‘Why is it that I don’t get helped like others?’
After being deserted by her mother, Francine lived in Burundi with an family member involved in politics, who was killed in 2014.
Traumatized by her past, the 29-year-old mother of children aged two and nine believes her life would be at peril if she returned to Burundi.
She doubts why she has never been considered for resettlement.
Malawi, one of the world’s least developed countries, has a background of welcoming refugees.
Dzaleka camp was built on the outskirts of the capital, Lilongwe, in 1994. The packed camp, which has become an urban slum, was designed to host 10,000 people.
Now, more than 58,000 refugees reside there. About 60% of them are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), from where up to 200 more enter monthly.
Malawi’s “resettlement law” prevents refugees from residing lawfully or earning outside Dzaleka, making them especially at risk to funding cuts.
Aid money have been reduced to 50% of what is needed for food.
All of the years that we have been here, UNHCR has never thought about us
The economic pressures have led to a increase in sex work, abuse at home cases and children taking things.
Anne, a mother of seven, still assists and thinks that she sees four to six people of domestic violence a week, double the number of two years ago.
Malawi is looking into building a new camp near the Tanzanian border. However, Anne and other refugees say they want to stay in Dzaleka.
The government is also considering changing the law to allow refugees to work outside camps.
Judith fled Lubumbashi in the southern DRC in 2016, after gunmen killed her parents. Just 14, she was left looking after her three younger siblings.
She had to turn to sex work and has a four-year-old child with an missing parent.
* Names have been changed to protect their identity
