Survival/coping strategies of women in Internally Displaced People’s (IDPs) camps : a study In New Kuchingoro camp, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

The dearth of information on women in many internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps has established a gap in humanitarian aid, survival, coping and livelihood concerns of women in the New Kuchingoro IDPs camp, in Abuja, Nigeria. This study investigates the survival and coping strategies of women in the New Kuchingoro Internally Displaced Person’s camp, with a view of underscoring women internal displacement in regional and local contexts as a result of insurgency. It addresses concerns as to the humanitarian support, coping strategies, and the current patterns of survival of the women in IDPs camp. The study employed a qualitative approach, which is descriptive, explanatory and ethnographic in design. It adopted, for interpretation of women’s coping and survival strategies, Folkman and Lazarus’ transactional theory of stress and coping, and Chambers and Conway’s sustainable livelihoods, as theories. Findings show that the bulwark of Internally Displaced Women’s humanitarian assistance comes from non-governmental agencies, religious organisations, and philanthropists. There is poor response to women’s survival and coping needs by the governmental agencies which makes the humanitarian aid inadequate and overstretched, subjecting women to festering hardship. Findings also show that their ability to augment their livelihood with commercial activities such as trading outside the camp, is thwarted by security constraints. The implication of this is that the coping and survival strategies adopted by the women in the New Kuchingoro camp are unreliable, as their own effort and contribution to their survival is relatively insignificant. They only contribute a small portion to their daily needs, which means that they must be dependent on the inadequate support of the non-governmental agencies, religious organisations and philanthropists, which they use for micro-scale subsistence farming, to survive. The study reveals that the women augment the assistance received with other livelihood activities like social networking, buying and selling of goods, food preparation, bartering, fish selling, and begging. Through these, they demonstrate their income-generating prowess, basic marketing abilities and enterprises. Findings also show that the women are industrious, business-minded and hardworking women, who can use cash donations for productive livelihood activities. They use the petty funds as capital to acquire raw materials, equipment, and simple tools, which they could use for several productive activities, rather than being totally dependent on humanitarian aid. Nevertheless, the study reveals that women, upon relocating to the camp, are more likely to face overwhelming challenges like lack of shelter, food, clothing, and health services. However, they struggle to overcome these constraints by sharing industry and their micro-scale commercial enterprise. The study concludes that women are insistent on remaining in the IDPs camp until they are assured of security and genuine means of earning a livelihood outside the camp. In terms of humanitarian assistance, the study concludes that state agencies such as National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, and, the National Emergency Management Agency must, as a matter of urgency, engage in and coordinate their activities with the non-government agencies, religious organisations, and philanthropists to solve the many problems confronting people living over long periods in IDP camps.