Bentiu - When armed conflict broke out in various parts of South Sudan, Unity State situated in the northern part of the country, was among the worst affected areas. Thousands of people lost their lives in the fighting and many more, including women and girls, were forced to flee.

Thousands of them found refuge in the United Nations Protection of Civilians (POC) site in Bentiu.

Today, the Bentiu POC site home to an estimated 97,000 people is the largest camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in South Sudan.

Rebecca Nyakuy Nhial, a mother of three, has been living in the site since 2014 when she and her family were displaced from their hometown, east of Bentiu, when fighting started. Like many women in the POC site, Rebecca carries the burden of caring for her children all alone and doing the housework.  This includes having to frequently go outside of the POC site to gather firewood to use for cooking and for sale to support her family.  

Leaving the camp, sometimes for a whole day, to collect firewood can be a dangerous endeavor. Women and girls face a high risk of gender-based violence, including rape, often perpetrated by armed men.

“Going out to the bush to collect firewood used to bring a lot of trouble for us,” says Rebecca, “but we had no choice, it was a means to survive.”

As part of its efforts to promote the economic empowerment of IDPs like Rebecca, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) team in Bentiu is working with women, engaging them in alternative income-generating activities. This effort is aimed at reducing the risk of gender-based violence by changing participants’ economic circumstances and livelihoods options, so that they are no longer compelled to exit the camp as frequently to collect firewood.

Through consultation with the women’s forum in the PoC site, IOM identified small-scale businesses such as tea stands, bakeries and embroidery businesses to support. To start with, ten women, including Rebecca received training in entrepreneurship and were provided with in-kind livelihood starter kits to help get their businesses off the ground.

This initiative forms part of a broader project that is working with women’s groups in the PoC site to help them start small businesses and a host of other activities to promote women’s participation in decision-making within the PoC site.

In Bentiu PoC site alone, IOM’s Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) has helped 28 women establish income-generating activities.

“Ideally, we’d like to reach as many women as possible,” says IOM South Sudan’s CCCM Project Officer, Devanne O’Brien. “But with the scale of the need within the site, it’s important for us to start small, with a small number of women, so we can really understand how the project is working before bringing the best practices forward to replicate the process with another cohort of women.”

Project beneficiaries are also participating in trainings on the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA), facilitated in coordination with protection partners. These trainings come at empowerment from a different angle: by ensuring that women are aware of how to identify and report SEA perpetrated by humanitarians, they are in a better position to advocate for themselves and other IDPs in holding humanitarians accountable for abuse.

“I am relieved that we no longer have to worry about going out to collect firewood and face the dangers of the bush,” says Rebecca.

IOM’s Camp Coordination and Camp Management Women’s Livelihood activities are funded by the European Union Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (USAID/BHA).

This article was written by Liatile Putsoa, IOM South Sudan Media and Communications Officer