Humanitarian Response for Internally Displaced Women and Children in North-East, Nigeria

Abstract

The insurgency created by Boko Haram in the North-Eastern Region of Nigeria has displaced over 2.7 million people. From 2009 to the present day, millions of women and children are forced to seek refuge in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe state. The focus on women and children is because women and children account for the majority population in the displaced camps. IDP camps provide a place of refuge for people however, critics have recognized the local and international communities' failure to improve the camps' conditions especially for the women and children. This thesis focuses on the humanitarian response to women and children in IDP camps in North-Eastern Nigeria. In this thesis, I intend to explore the unique roles of different actors in curbing the challenges of women and children in IDP camps and analyze why the needs of the women and children are not fully met. Furthermore, I examined the role of the stakeholders who contribute to the development and functioning of available IDP camps. These include the Nigerian government, the executors of the projects designed to provide aid to the women and children in the camps, the international community, NGOs, and grass root organizations. This study analyses the stakeholders' different perspectives on the limitations of addressing the issues of women and children in IDP camps.