Prostitution and Exploitation: The Ladies Stranded in Malawi’s Expanding Refugee Camp
Weeping flows down her face as she pulls her glove. Her right hand is scarred by a faded, uneven burn scar. Her fingers are unbending and misshapen.
She resorted to sex work to make ends meet soon after she arrived alone at Malawi’s Dzaleka refugee camp in 2015, having journeyed there from Burundi.
On Christmas Eve in 2022, a client wouldn’t pay. When she blocked the doorway, he grabbed a boiling-hot saucepan of beans and threw it at her, burning her hand and chest.
Living conditions in Malawi has become much more difficult, with budget reductions by international donors resulting in most consuming food only one time a day.
At the same time, the prospects of relocation to countries in the west have been diminished from limited to remote.
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 abandoned by her mother, Francine lived in Burundi with an uncle involved in politics, who was shot in 2014.
Affected by her past, the adult mother of children aged two and nine believes her life would be at risk if she returned to Burundi.
She questions why she has never been selected for resettlement.
Malawi, one of the world’s most impoverished countries, has a background of welcoming refugees.
Dzaleka camp was built on the edges of the capital, Lilongwe, in 1994. The densely populated camp, which has become an impoverished area, was meant to host 10,000 people.
Now, more than 58,000 refugees stay there. About 60% of them are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), from where up to 200 more come monthly.
Malawi’s “encampment policy” prevents refugees from residing lawfully or earning outside Dzaleka, making them especially vulnerable 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 financial strains have led to a rise in sex work, abuse at home cases and children theft.
Anne, a mother of seven, still helps and thinks that she sees four to six cases of domestic violence a week, double the number of two years ago.
Malawi is planning building a new camp near the Tanzanian border. However, Anne and other refugees say they want to stay in Dzaleka.
The government is also evaluating 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
