Prostitution and Exploitation: The Women Caught in Malawi’s Expanding Settlement
Tears stream down Francine’s* face as she removes her glove. Her hand is scarred by a faded, uneven scarring. Her fingers are stiff and unnaturally bent.
She began sex work to make ends meet soon after she came by herself at Malawi’s Dzaleka shelter in 2015, having travelled there from Burundi.
On Christmas Eve in 2022, a customer wouldn’t pay. When she blocked the doorway, he took a very hot saucepan of beans and threw it at her, burning her hand and chest.
Life for refugees in Malawi has become much more difficult, with funding cuts by global organizations resulting in most consuming food only one time a day.
At the same time, the prospects of moving to countries in the west have been diminished from slim to unlikely.
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 deserted by her mother, Francine lived in Burundi with an family member involved in politics, who was gunned down in 2014.
Traumatized by her past, the young mother of children aged two and nine believes her life would be at danger if she returned to Burundi.
She wonders why she has never been selected for relocation.
Malawi, one of the world’s most impoverished countries, has a background of accepting refugees.
Dzaleka camp was built on the outskirts of the capital, Lilongwe, in 1994. The packed camp, which has become an shantytown, was meant to host 10,000 people.
Now, more than 58,000 refugees reside there. About 60% of them are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), from where up to 200 more enter monthly.
Malawi’s “encampment policy” prevents refugees from legally living or being employed outside Dzaleka, making them especially vulnerable to funding cuts.
Financial support have been cut 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 stealing.
Anne, a mother of seven, still volunteers and believes that she sees four to six victims of domestic violence a week, two times 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 considering 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 brothers and sisters.
She had to turn to sex work and has a four-year-old child with an man who left.
* Names have been changed to protect their identity
