HIGHLIGHTS
SGBV reported in 50 per cent of sites assessed in Borno by protection actors.
Protection risks faced by women are directly related to access to assistance and prior skills.
Cash-based livelihood assistance needed in Yobe to support women who are finding ways out of extreme food insecurity and displacement.
Women facing high risk of abuse in Borno displacement sites
In recent months, three new assessments of the protection risks faced by the affected people living in Borno State have become available, all of which expose the increasing vulnerability of women.
Higher number of female-headed households
Displacement and conflict have destroyed traditional hierarchies and resulted in a large number of female-headed households across the North-East, increasing the burden of responsibility shouldered by women. In terms of the traditional household and community structures of the region, this leaves these households without the traditional support networks. In some households, the strict Islamic tenet of kulle - which prevents women from leaving the home in search of a livelihood - is still practiced.
Related to this, links were found between gender and livelihoods, especially negative livelihood strategies. IDPs and host community members are having to resort to increasingly risky activities in order to meet their basic needs. Assistance delivery outside of Maiduguri and its environs is sporadic at best, and female-headed households are more likely to be food insecure.2 An increasing number of women and girls in newlyaccessible areas of the state have resorted to high risk coping strategies like transactional sex in exchange for money or food in order to feed their families. Women and girls in the camps of Maiduguri are also increasingly resorting to survival sex, most notably in relation to food distribution within the camps or in order to secure permission to leave the camps that restrict IDP movement.
Traditionally, women have the role of collecting firewood for the household, and many are continuing this as a livelihood strategy, selling a bundle of 15-20 sticks for 100 naira (50 US cents). Reports of women being attacked and raped while carrying out this task are increasing, and in the newly-accessible areas where Boko Haram still have a marked presence, there have been reports of women being killed and/or abducted.