جلوگیری از خشونت علیه زنان و دختران در اردوگاه و پناهگاه های پناهندگان و آواره ها Preventing violence against women and girls in refugee and displaced person camps: Is energy access the solution?

1. Introduction Humanitarian emergencies, developing from conflict and other disasters, are at present occurring in several regions of the world, including Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia [1,2]. The UN Refugee Agency estimates there are currently more than 65 million displaced persons worldwide as a result of these emergencies [1]. It is well established that the intensity and prevalence of gendered violence increases in emergency settings, and present crises therefore indicate the ongoing need to consider the role of energy in preventing such violence. My purpose here is to re-examine this role of energy from a feminist framework, by bringing the literature on energy, refugee settings and gendered violence into conversation with the broader literature on women, sexual and gender-based violence and emergencies, and the emerging literature on the causes and prevention of men’s violence against women and girls. immediate human needs, including food, shelter, and water, become compromised or are unable to be met, and can require humanitarian relief or aid. Emergencies can occur in a number of forms and from different causes, including natural, technological, conflict causes, can be complex, rapid or slow, or ‘permanent’ in the case of on-going poverty in deprivation [3]. That’s to say, emergencies may occur as conflict or genocide, political events and disruption, or as a result of a tsunami or famine, which are natural emergencies. The existing literature on energy as a solution to gender-based violence in emergencies has largely focused on fuels and stoves in refugee camp settings in SubSaharan Africa [4–9], in addition to several studies examining other contexts, including Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal in comparison with Africa [10], and lighting interventions in camps for people displaced by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti [11]. As such, I focus my analysis of the potential role of energy for preventing gender-based violence specifically in the context of emergency responses in camps for refugees or displaced persons. While the term gender is used in a variety of ways, including to denote sexual difference between male and female bodies, although this use is not without significant critique [12], I employ it as an analytical tool to unpack and understand social relations. Gender is therefore understood here as a set of meanings associated with bodies and identity, constituted through social practices, and which structure social relations, often unequally [13]. Moreover, I understand gender to be dynamic, and to operate differently in different cultural contexts and places. Gender-based violence can be defined as “any form of violence used to establish, enforce or perpetuate gender inequalities and keep in place unequal gender-power relations” [14]. Violence against women and girls is one form of gendered violence, specifically directed against women and girls as a result of the performance of their gender, or expectations of their gendered role in society, and with the intention of subjugating women. However, the two terms are not interchangeable, as gender-based violence includes other kinds of violence which may be directed toward people as a result of their gender or sexual diversity, or masculinity. Gender-based violence takes many forms, not only those that are physical, and can include psychological, reproductive, verbal and economic coercion, abuse and harassment [15].