Prostitution and Violence: The Women Caught in Malawi’s Growing Shelter

Tears stream down the refugee’s face as she pulls her glove. Her dominant hand is scarred by a pale, mottled injury mark. Her digits are rigid and misshapen.

Francine turned to sex work to make ends meet soon after she came by herself at Malawi’s Dzaleka settlement in 2015, having fled there from Burundi.

On December 24 in 2022, a client declined payment. When she stood in the doorway, he took a very hot saucepan of beans and hurled it at her, injuring her hand and chest.

Daily existence in Malawi has become increasingly hard, with financial decreases by global organizations resulting in most consuming food only one time a day.

At the same time, the chances of moving to countries in the west have been lowered from small 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 shot in 2014.

Affected by her trauma, the adult mother of children aged two and nine believes her life would be at peril if she returned to Burundi.

She questions why she has never been reviewed for resettlement.

Malawi, one of the world’s least developed countries, has a tradition of accepting refugees.

Dzaleka camp was built on the perimeter of the capital, Lilongwe, in 1994. The overcrowded camp, which has become an urban slum, was designed 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 arrive monthly.

Malawi’s “resettlement law” prevents refugees from legally living or working 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 economic pressures have led to a surge in sex work, domestic violence cases and children theft.

Anne, a mother of seven, still helps and estimates that she sees four to six cases of domestic violence a week, twice the number of two years ago.

Malawi is looking into 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 absent father.

* Names have been changed to protect their identity