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95–424PDF 2015

AFRICA’S DISPLACED PEOPLE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JULY 9, 2015

Serial No. 114–86

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Ms. Catherine Wiesner, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, U.S. Department of State ............................. 2

Mr. Thomas H. Staal, Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, 

Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development .............................................................................................................. 10

Mr. John Stauffer, president, The America Team for Displaced Eritreans ........ 35

Ms. Ann Hollingsworth, senior advocate for government relations, Refugees 

International ......................................................................................................... 47

Ms. Natalie Eisenbarth, policy & advocacy officer, International Rescue Committee .................................................................................................................... 54

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Ms. Catherine Wiesner: Prepared statement ........................................................ 5

Mr. Thomas H. Staal: Prepared statement ........................................................... 12

Mr. John Stauffer: Prepared statement ................................................................. 38

Ms. Ann Hollingsworth: Prepared statement ........................................................ 50

Ms. Natalie Eisenbarth: Prepared statement ........................................................ 57

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 82

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 83

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: Prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 84

Ms. Ann Hollingsworth: Refugees International Field Report ............................ 86

Ms. Natalie Eisenbarth: Report on Integrated Community Case Management 

at the International Rescue Committee ............................................................. 94

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith: Statement of the U.S. Committee for 

Refugees and Immigrants .................................................................................... 97

(1)

AFRICA’S DISPLACED PEOPLE 

THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:08 p.m., in room 

2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing will come to order, and good afternoon, 

everybody. Sorry we are starting a few minutes late. Without objection, I am going to put my full statement in the record, and in conversations with our ranking member, she will likely make a statement shorter than we normally give, both of us, because there are 

a whole series of votes likely to be happening, and it is important 

to get to our witnesses. 

Last year, nearly 60 million people were displaced worldwide. In 

fact, one out of every 122 people on Earth today is yet either a refugee, internally displaced in their home country, or seeking asylum 

in another country. In sub-Saharan Africa, there are more than 15 

million displaced people. Of that total, 3.7 million are refugees, and 

11.4 million are IDPs. These disruptions of normal life in Africa are 

caused by conflicts such as in Somalia, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 

Mali, Burundi, Western Sahara, and elsewhere. These disruptions 

not only affect those who are displaced, but also the people in 

whose communities these displaced people are relocated. 

African refugees and internally displaced people face numerous 

issues from security in the places in which they seek refuge, to 

death and mayhem trying to reach places of refuge, to conflict with 

surrounding populations to warehousing that consigns a generation 

to be born and live in foreign countries. 

Today’s hearing will exam the various issues displaced people 

face, and the U.S. response to these conditions in order to determine the effectiveness of our Government’s efforts to help and to 

determine whether course corrections are necessary. The terrible 

plight of African refugees has been much in the news in recent 

months because of the deaths of thousands trying to reach Europe 

across the Mediterranean and attacks on refugees in South Africa 

reportedly caused by xenophobia. 

So I, without objection, will put my full statement in the record. 

I yield to Mr. Cicilline for his opening. 

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Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to you 

and our Ranking Member Bass for calling this important hearing 

today. And thank you to the witnesses for the testimony that you 

will provide. 

The level of conflict and displacement around the world today is 

astounding, and the shocking number of 15 million people displaced in Africa is heartbreaking. Some of the conflicts that have 

upended people in Africa such as in Darfur, the DRC, and Somalia 

have gone on for decades, and we now face entire generations of 

children and their parents who have been born and raised away 

from their homelands. Many of these displaced persons have never 

lived outside of an IDP or refugee camp. They lack access to basic 

necessities and have little schooling. 

Aside from the obvious tolls those conflicts have, they also have 

a lasting impact on generations of Africans. The United States is 

one of the largest donors to the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees, as well as provides millions of dollars every year in bilateral 

humanitarian assistance, but needs still outpace global donations. 

So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses what more we can 

do to make certain that the needs of IDPs and refugees are being 

met, and thank you again for the testimony you are about to provide, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

I would like to introduce our first two panelists, and I thank 

them for taking the time to be here and for their work and their 

dedication. 

Beginning first with Ms. Catherine Wiesner, who is Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, 

Refugees, and Migration, a position she has held since February 

2012. She oversees the Offices of Assistance Programs for Africa, 

Multilateral Coordination and External Relations, and International Migration. She has also served as Principal Director to the 

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs in the 

Department of Defense. Previously she worked for UNICEF, the 

International Rescue Committee, UNHCR, and Save the Children. 

Then we will hear from Mr. Thomas Staal, who is currently the 

Acting Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID. He has worked for 

USAID since 1988, beginning in Sudan as an emergency program 

officer. He worked in the USAID regional office in Kenya managing 

food aid and project development throughout eastern and southern 

Africa. More recently, he served as the USAID Mission Director in 

Ethiopia. Before joining USAID, Mr. Staal worked for World Vision 

as their country representative in Sudan. 

Catherine, if you could begin. 

STATEMENT OF MS. CATHERINE WIESNER, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, BUREAU OF POPULATION, REFUGEES, AND MIGRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ms. WIESNER. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member 

Bass, and members of the subcommittee for the opportunity to describe today what the State Department’s Bureau of Population, 

Refugees, and Migration is doing in Africa to protect and assist African refugees and other persons of concern on the continent. 

3

We should note that today is South Sudan’s Independence Day, 

and it is a painful reminder of how conflict can undo progress and 

shatter hope. Instead of celebrating, South Sudan is embroiled in 

a humanitarian crisis that is the worst in Africa and one of the 

worst in the world. 

In a year that set new records for displacement, Africa has not 

been spared. Today, we count 41⁄2 million sub-Saharan refugees, 

and more than 11 million internally displaced. Burundi is the newest emergency. Some 150,000 refugees have already fled, fearing 

that political violence and intimidation could escalate into mass 

atrocities. 

Mr. Chairman, as you noted, conflict continues to stalk Nigeria, 

South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan, the 

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, and Libya, and for 

each country afflicted, there are two, three, four neighboring countries struggling to stop the violence from seeping across their borders and to host thousands and thousands of refugees. The vast 

majority of refugees flee to areas that are underdeveloped, remote, 

and difficult to reach. Moving civilians out of harm’s way and providing life-saving assistance is expensive and it can be dangerous. 

Refugees often join vulnerable migrants on the move, lured by 

predatory smugglers taking advantage of lawlessness in Libya and 

elsewhere. 

The humanitarian organizations that we support are stretched 

incredibly thin, but they are doing heroic work, standing up for humanitarian principles and finding creative ways to get around obstacles and to save lives. 

U.S. leadership and our diplomatic and our financial support for 

these organizations are vital. Humanitarians are innovating and 

using new technology, such as biometric registration, cash transfers, and remote e-learning to improve services. Our Safe from the 

Start initiative is keeping more women and girls safe from genderbased violence. 

On recent trips to Africa, I have seen the scale of the crisis we 

face, and I have also seen the importance of the aid that we provide. I was in Ethiopia a few months ago, which hosts more refugees than any other African nation. Refugees come from Eritrea, 

Sudan, South Sudan, and Somalia, and are found in camps on 

nearly every one of Ethiopia’s borders, as well as in all its major 

cities and towns. 

Many refugees set off for Europe and the Gulf states, despite the 

efforts of the government and humanitarian agencies. They know 

human smugglers may abuse them, kidnap them for ransom, or 

abandon them to die in the desert or drown at sea. It doesn’t stop 

them because they would rather risk death than stay behind in 

places where they have no hope for any kind of future. 

I just returned from Niger, one of the most impoverished countries in the world. Boko Haram’s rampages have chased more than 

100,000 people across the border from Nigeria, and displaced an 

additional 50,000 inside Niger. Many are scattered in villages 

where food is already scarce and insecurity restricts access. But 

agencies are responding creatively with cash transfers and vouchers and assisting all those in need based on vulnerability. 

4

For pastoralist refugees from Mali, the Niger Government has 

set aside an extensive zone where they can move with their animals, allowing for greater self-sufficiency, and also dignity. In 

Niger and elsewhere, investments made in schools, clinics, and 

clean water for refugees and host communities alike contributes to 

local development while fostering peaceful coexistence. 

We work closely with USAID and our diplomatic colleagues to resolve conflict. In the meantime, aiming to ensure that there is a 

safe place of refugee and that aid reaches internationally-accepted 

minimum standards. We and USAID are also working to develop 

greater coherence between relief and development assistance, particularly for protracted crises. Durable solutions can seem elusive. 

Al-Shabaab’s atrocities have set Kenya on edge, and while U.S. diplomacy has worked to prevent Somalis from being forced back prematurely, they still get branded wrongfully as potential terrorists. 

Darfuris in Chad still need protection and struggle to achieve 

self-reliance. Political stalemate on the Western Sahara has left 

Sahrawis languishing for far too long in Algeria. And the Ebola epidemic has delayed efforts to bring Ivoirian refugees home from Liberia. And yet there are bright spots: Tanzania and Zambia are allowing more refugees to stay permanently, and some to become citizens. Some 19,000 African refugees will find new homes in the 

United States through our resettlement program this year. 

My Bureau expects to program nearly $800 million across the 

continent of Africa this fiscal year, channeling our funds through 

leading humanitarian organizations, such as the U.N. Refugee 

Agency, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Organization for Migration, and a range of other aid 

groups. Even with this record amount, we cannot claim to be meeting all of the needs, even at the most basic level. We can, thanks 

to the generosity of Congress, confidently say that we are saving 

many lives, and we are assisting millions to live in greater dignity 

and with hope for a better future. 

Thank you, again, for holding this important hearing, and I look 

forward to any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wiesner follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Wiesner, thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. Staal. 

STATEMENT OF MR. THOMAS H. STAAL, ACTING ASSISTANT 

ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, 

AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. STAAL. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify 

today, and for your continuing support for USAID’s assistance to 

the displaced throughout Africa. 

As my colleague Catherine has just mentioned, we are grappling 

today with the largest global displacement in recorded history. 

Whereas in the past, natural disasters triggered mass movements 

of people across Africa, terrorism and ethnic and sectarian strife 

are now increasingly driving record numbers of people from their 

homes. Across Africa, the most vulnerable are the hardest hit—in 

the midst of power grabs by armed forces, governments, and terrorists. Women are facing new levels of terror, rape, and forced indoctrination. Children have been stripped of their innocence and inflicted untold tortures by armed groups. 

But amidst these horrors, there are countless affected individuals 

in search of peace: The girls from Chibok, Nigeria, lucky enough to 

escape the grips of Boko Haram, Imam Omar; Archbishop 

Dieudonne and Reverend Guerekoyame, from the Central African 

Republic, who are bringing communities together to heal the scars 

of war and find faith in the power of forgiveness; the children of 

Bor in South Sudan who continue to learn in their native Dinka 

through our mobile literacy programs. Their courage and resilience 

in the face of brutality reminds us why we must continue and to 

do more to help. 

Despite resource, access, and security constraints, we are doing 

everything possible to reach Africa’s displaced people with life-saving assistance. For instance, in South Sudan, we are the largest 

humanitarian donor. Since the current crisis began in December 

2013, we have provided $1.2 billion in food, shelter, clean water, 

health care, and psychological support to the people. As fighting 

rages on, more than 40 percent of the country now faces life-threatening hunger. Our humanitarian aid is an essential lifeline for 

those who are suffering from this senseless violence. 

In Nigeria, we are making sure displaced and host communities 

have access to health care, vaccines and clean water. We are also 

supporting informal education centers for displaced children. And 

thanks to the flexibilities provided to—in our food aid accounts, we 

have provided food vouchers to over 100,000 Nigerians in conflict. 

And with these vouchers, they can buy healthy foods in the local 

market, which helps to combat malnutrition and restart economic 

activity in these war-ravaged areas. 

We are also committed to protecting women, children, and other 

vulnerable groups. For instance, we are providing health and psychosocial support to victims of gender-based violence in South 

Sudan, and to survivors of Boko Haram’s abuses in Nigeria. In the 

Central African Republic (CAR), we worked with UNICEF to negoVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:00 Sep 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\070915\95424 SHIRL
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tiate the release of 3,300 boys and girls from armed groups and reintegrate them back with their families. 

We know that the plight of displaced people will not lessen unless we address the root causes of violence and state fragility at the 

heart of Africa’s displacement crisis. That is why we are investing 

in peace building, promoting inclusive governance, and expanding 

educational and economic opportunities for Africa’s most 

marginalized communities. Our Office of Transition Initiatives is 

addressing the conditions that have allowed extremists like Boko 

Haram to flourish. 

Through innovative sports and radio programs, we are working 

with local communities, especially young people, to overcome feelings of exclusion and the lure of extremism. We have harnessed 

conflict early warning tools and engaged in concerted diplomacy 

through the interagency Atrocity Prevention Board to address 

flashpoints of instability. 

In CAR, the Complex Crisis Fund, and other programs have 

proven critical in preventing genocide and mass atrocities, expanding the space to safely provide humanitarian assistance, facilitating 

the conditions for peaceful transition. USAID has provided $7.5 

million to promote community dialogue, especially between groups 

of different faiths in CAR, and we are reviving local media networks to provide accurate information and dispel rumors that are 

spreading fear. And we have launched the CAR Peace Partnership, 

which is providing several million in private donations linked with 

$7 million of USAID funding to support CAR’s transition over the 

next 5 years. 

We may not have stopped the violence in CAR, but we have been 

able to improve security conditions, allowing people to begin to return home, laying groundwork for peace. These efforts, and many 

more, are helping Africa’s displaced to rebuild their lives, restore 

tolerance in their communities, and realize their aspirations for a 

more peaceful and prosperous future. 

We thank the subcommittee and its members for their longstanding support, which makes these efforts possible. Thank you 

very much, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Staal follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Staal, for your leadership 

and for your testimony today. 

Let me ask you if I could, especially since you did work with 

World Vision in the past, and both of you might want to speak to 

this. You know, Africa is a continent of faith, and from my travels, 

sometimes the faith community, for whatever reason, is not included as robustly as it should. I know you know that, and I am 

wondering if you could just tell us when it comes to IDPs and refugees, is there a plan, an aggressive effort to try to build on the 

economies of scale that would be provided? 

To give an example, I was in Jos a few years ago with Greg 

Simpkins, and while we were there—it is a place where Boko 

Haram has slaughtered many people. We went to fire-bombed 

churches while we were there. We met with Archbishop Kaigama 

and also met with the Muslim leadership who worked very, very 

closely together. And then we went to an IDP camp that was grossly underfunded and in great need. The Jubilee Campaign was providing some funding, and, as a matter of fact, one of the men I met 

there who actually had a gun put to his head, an AK–47, and was 

told to renounce his faith in Christ, he said: No. I am ready to meet 

my Lord, and they blew his face off, and you could see the results 

of that. They left him for dead. We brought him here courtesy of 

the Jubilee Campaign. He testified in 2172. You could have heard 

a pin drop, you might recall, when he testified about what he had 

been through. 

But at the IDP camp where I met him, it was with great regret 

that they were not getting the kind of help that they need. And, 

you know, I brought that to the attention of the Embassy. I hope 

that there has been an effort to try to reach out and do that. You 

did point out some of the numbers, and I know, you know, it is always, do you have the budget? Do you have the wherewithal? Is 

Congress providing enough? It is a shared responsibility. 

So if you could speak to that. These IDPs that are scattered, and 

you put that in your testimony so that people who are already poor 

are taking on more, you know, desperately poor people and traumatized people at great sacrifice. So if you could speak so that, I 

would appreciate that. 

And my second question would be on the budget. Is the budget 

sufficient? Are we providing enough? Do you feel that there are 

unmet needs that you would be doing if you had the money? Today, 

Ann Hollingsworth from Refugees International, will speak about 

her personal observations to the Sudanese refugee population in 

Chad. As she points out, in her view, it is an underreported story, 

and she goes to great lengths to talk about the cuts that WFP has 

made in early 2014, of a dramatic 50 percent cut, up to 60 percent 

in some areas, in food rations for Sudanese refugees in Chad. 

She does point out later on about the self-reliance approach, 

which I think is a very innovative and good idea, provided there 

is an infrastructure that can accommodate that, and that is part 

of what her concern is, that there is not that infrastructure to accommodate a self-provided approach. If you could speak to that as 

well. 

And then apparently we are not going to have votes until 4:30. 

So we are not as rushed as we thought we would be. 

21

One of the areas that I think is absolutely transformational, I 

know you believe it as well, because USAID is totally committed 

to it, and that is the first 1,000 days of life from conception to the 

second birthday, and the scaling up programs that are going on. In 

Nigeria I have met and been to places, camps and to healthcare facilities, where stunting, and you know it, is a huge problem. And 

if the child and the mother get, as you know, sufficient supplementation, good nutritious foods, stunting almost goes away. Not in all 

cases. The child’s immune system is bolstered big time, and I don’t 

know if you know this, but I actually authored three laws on autism, including the Combating Autism Act, and most recently, the 

Autism CARES Act. 

And three studies show that if a woman has folic acid in the first 

month of the pregnancy, after that it has an almost negligible impact, but the first month it brings down the risk factor of autism 

by 40 percent, which is absolutely transformational. As we know, 

WHO attests to, we are talking about tens of millions of kids, children, throughout Africa who are autistic and on the spectrum, and 

a very simple innovative inclusion. And I know Uganda and others 

have already supplemented, or put into their flour and other 

things, the right amount of folic acid. 

So my question is about that first 1,000 days of life. In 2010, I 

met with seven first ladies of Africa at the U.N., and they gave 

powerful presentations, but they don’t always have the wherewithal to make sure that that unborn child and that mother, right 

until the second birthday, get the help they need. And then the 

next 25,000 to 30,000 days of that life will be exponentially improved, immune system strengthened, ability to resist malaria and 

its consequences. So I am wondering in the refugee population, the 

IDP population, what are we doing to scale up that first 1,000 days 

of life initiative? 

Mr. STAAL. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for those questions. 

Critical questions, and, in fact, on your first question, working with 

faith-based organizations, just this morning I was actually on the 

panel over at the Religion and Sustainable Development, focusing 

on humanitarian assistance, meeting with a number of faith-based 

organizations. 

That is an increasingly important part of the work there. Unfortunately, some of the conflicts in Africa are sectarian conflicts, and 

so the role of faith-based organizations has unique challenges, but 

unique strengths, and their strengths are that they have networks, 

they have credibility in the local community, they have systems to 

get out the word through their churches, mosques, and so on, and 

actually we have been—I don’t say that maybe ‘‘surprise’’ is not the 

word, but happy to see that they are actually able to work together 

in many cases. You know, the case of Central African Republic 

where the Muslim imam, Catholic bishop and a Protestant leader 

have been working very closely together. In fact, the Islamic relief 

organization has their offices in the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) 

building. They provided offices for them. So you are seeing that. 

And increasingly, we are trying to work through those organizations. South Sudan is another major example of that where we 

have really reached out. 

22

Now, they may also be involved in the conflict. So there are concerns of partiality. There are concerns sometimes that they are too 

closely linked with Western organizations. You know, it is good 

that Catholics have reached back through CRS, for instance, but on 

the other hand, sometimes local organizations say you are too 

closely linked. So that is something that they have to overcome and 

that we work with them on, and important to build that local capacity. But definitely, that is a major focus for what we are doing. 

I have met with the religious leaders in northern Nigeria from both 

sides as well, and they can play a crucial role there. 

On your question about the budget, we have a robust budget 

thanks to Congress. We are the largest humanitarian assistance 

providers throughout Africa and the world. The needs are huge, as 

you and others have said and so we are increasingly looking, first 

of all, to make sure that every dollar is well spent, and then, are 

there ways that we can tweak our programs to make sure they are 

even more effective and more efficient? 

Some of the food aid efficiencies that we have been able to do by 

some local purchase or vouchers have actually been able to reach 

600,000 more people with the same amount of money over the last 

year because of that. 

In the camps, Dadaab and Kakuma in Kenya, through working 

with UNHCR, they now do fingerprinting of all the refugees. That 

has reduced the number of beneficiaries by 20 percent, because 

there were a lot of people that shouldn’t be getting the assistance 

or were double-counting and so on, and that is saving $1.5 million 

a month right there. 

So, we are able to stretch those dollars. And then at the same 

time, we are working very closely with other donors to make sure 

they are upping their stuff, and with what you might call nontraditional donors. 

I made a trip to Chad a few months ago with the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Emiratis and the Qataris to try to increase their support, not only in the Middle East, but also in Africa. So we are 

making some progress, but it is a huge demand, and I think we 

also need to go to more creative methods. Such as how do we get 

the private sector to be more involved? In the Central African Republic, we have a peace partnership bringing in the private sector, 

but I think it is not just about corporate social responsibility. We 

need to find ways to make it attractive for investment in those 

communities, and I think that is something that is a challenge for 

us and the international community to work on. 

Mr. SMITH. On that first 1,000 days, is that——

Mr. STAAL. On the first 1,000 days—yes. Thank you. That is so 

critical. 

That is part of the reason that we have recently, over the last 

couple of years, put a lot of thinking and research to develop improved products, especially for those young children in the first 

month and in the first year. With these ready-to-use supplemental 

foods and ready-to-use therapeutic foods, we have redone our famous CSB, the corn/soy blend, so that it is now more fortified with 

the right kind of vitamins and minerals, especially addressing the 

kids at that age, and working, not only through our humanitarian 

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culture programs, to make sure that countries are properly fortifying the flour that goes through their normal commercial sectors. 

There is iron fortification and other types of things to address some 

of those very issues. Critical. Thank you. 

Ms. WIESNER. I think my colleague Tom has said most of it, but 

just to add on the question of working with religious communities, 

when I was in South Sudan at the IDP site inside the UNMISS 

peacekeeping base in Bor, I met with a pastor who was still in 

touch with his colleagues of other ethnicities who were living outside of that base, and the level of violence between communities in 

South Sudan has been so shocking, but it is heartening when you 

find people like that who are determined to overcome that violence. 

And a number of the religious leaders who actually have resided 

inside these camps have been helpful in mitigating some of the 

intercommunal tension. So, part of the increasing focus on recognizing the role of frontline humanitarian responders has been that 

the first people usually to provide aid are from within local communities they are from the country themselves. 

Even the national staff of some of the international organizations 

that we fund are, in fact, from those communities. And so I think 

making sure that we understand the important role they play and 

invest in that is quite important. 

On the budget, Tom has also said it, but there is no question 

that this is an extraordinary period of humanitarian need, and that 

the resources are not keeping pace, but I think the bottom line is 

that the U.S. Congress has been generous and that the U.S. is generally paying its fair share. So I think the partnership that we 

could form would be to do some of this outreach that Tom has 

talked about to other states, to the private sector, even for private 

giving. A lot of the money that is raised from private individual donors generally goes toward natural disasters, which is really important and wonderful, but we would like to see if we can increase 

that type of interest in some of these conflict-related situations and 

bring more donors into the field. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ranking Member Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. A few questions I 

wanted to ask you, I was thinking about what you were saying in 

terms of the first 1,000 days, and it made me think of how difficult 

it is, frankly, to be pregnant here in Washington, DC, if you are 

poor, let alone in an IDP camp. So I wanted to know what we were 

doing in terms of family planning for those women who do not 

want to be pregnant because they are in a refugee camp, and, you 

know, whether it is direct U.S. dollars or U.S. collaborating with 

NGOs. What are we doing to provide family planning services in 

IDP camps? 

Mr. STAAL. It is so critical to provide all the options for the local 

women in terms of family planning for those who want it. When 

I was working in Ethiopia, I visited not only local communities, but 

the IDP camps. Often they are living in the local community, to improve the skills, if you will, of the local health providers so that 

they can counsel young women on what their options are, and then 

provide those services at the community level. It used to be you 

had to go all the way to a hospital. Now, in many of these counVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:00 Sep 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\070915\95424 SHIRL
24

tries, through our interventions, they are able to provide that at 

the local community level. 

Ms. BASS. But what about in the IDP camp? Are you referring 

to IDP—when you say ‘‘community,’’ you are referring to the camp 

itself? So while we provide the food assistance and all, I am just 

wondering, in the camp? 

Mr. STAAL. Yes. Through our food assistance and through our 

healthcare assistance, we then also provide various family planning 

methods to the women. First the counseling on what their options 

are, and then the actual——

Ms. BASS. Birth control? 

Mr. STAAL. Birth control, condoms, things like that. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. Thank you. 

Ms. WIESNER. And we also support UNFPA which provides reproductive health services to displaced people, and they have been 

working on improving their emergency services to make those 

available sooner in an emergency including for adolescents. 

Ms. BASS. So I was thinking about, you know, every few days on 

the news, we see the folks who are dying at sea leaving Libya and 

going to Europe, and I was wondering what kind of collaboration 

are we doing? 

Ms. WIESNER. Well, first of all, two of our key partners, the U.N. 

Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration, 

are highly engaged in this challenge. And so we do support both 

of those organizations to work with countries of origin, with countries of first asylum, with countries of transit, and as well as the 

work they do in Europe where people arrive. So, one of our priorities is to promote the role that they play because they operate 

based on a set of very important humanitarian principles. 

But it is a very complex challenge. Migration is not something 

that can be stopped. It is not something that necessarily should be 

stopped. People who are fleeing violence and persecution need to 

have the opportunity to seek protection. Even people who are just 

seeking better economic opportunity for their families will always 

continue to do so, and, in fact, can be a benefit to the societies that 

they travel to. 

The challenge is in making that migration safe and orderly, and 

so, I think that is what Europe is grappling with right now is how 

to create more legal avenues for migration, how to crack down on 

unscrupulous smugglers who take advantage of people, and also, to 

address the root causes that are causing people who would not otherwise choose to move from doing so. And that is a responsibility, 

I think, of the global community because of the humanitarian dimensions of this crisis. But it also is a very specific responsibility 

of states, because ultimately, immigration laws and policy are the 

responsibilities of states. What we always advocate at PRM, from 

a humanitarian perspective, is that human rights must be respected, even as countries seek to implement laws and secure their 

borders. 

Ms. BASS. You know, you mentioned 19,000 African refugees in 

the United States. Where are they? 

Ms. WIESNER. Where are they coming from or where are they 

going to? 

Ms. BASS. Both, actually. 

25

Ms. WIESNER. So 29 different nationalities benefit from that program, which means they are coming from all over the continent. 

Ms. BASS. So are they connecting—when they come to the United 

States, are they connecting with family? We have had the situations in the past whether they were refugees from Somalia or other 

countries or the Sudan, so is it that type of situation where they 

are not connected to family here or they are? 

Ms. WIESNER. It is both. And Somalia is one of the largest populations that we do resettle, and some of them are coming to join 

family who have come previously; others are coming purely based 

on their own claims to asylum. 

Ms. BASS. Could you list a few other countries? Like the top five, 

maybe, would be helpful. 

Ms. WIESNER. We will get back to you with the precise figures 

on the top five. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM MS. CATHERINE WIESNER TO QUESTION ASKED

DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE KAREN BASS

In FY 2014, the top five African nationalities admitted to the United States 

through the Refugee Admissions Program for resettlement and the number of refugees for those nationalities were: 

1. Somali—9,000

2. DR Congolese—4,540

3. Eritrea—1,488

4. Sudanese—1,315

5. Ethiopia—728

Ms. BASS. And then I can’t remember which one of you mentioned providing psychosocial—I think it was you, Mr. Staal—mentioned providing psychosocial services. And were you referring to 

Nigeria? 

Mr. STAAL. Yes. 

Ms. BASS. So who are the providers and how is that done? 

Mr. STAAL. It is a combination of organizations—some of them 

are U.N., like UNICEF, especially for children who are affected, either directly through the release from captivity, or just from the 

displacement, and then some of our NGOs as well. In fact, we 

make sure that every grant that we provide through our OFDA 

programs includes the protection aspect as a component. 

Ms. BASS. And are they social workers? Do you know what kind 

of providers they are? 

Mr. STAAL. It is a combination of things. Most of them are probably not trained social workers. Some of them are, but there is a 

lot of other things too. Even things like we provide what we call 

safe spaces for the children in the IDP or refugee camps, so that 

there is a tent that is just for children to go and play, and maybe 

have some kindergarten——

Ms. BASS. I am just curious as to how they deal with all the different cultures that they encounter, you know. What kind of backgrounds and training that they——

Mr. STAAL. It is critical to involve the local community themselves, and find people in the community that you can provide 

some training, maybe they already have some, and work with them 

to help to bridge that gap. Yes, so critical. 

26

Ms. BASS. And then, finally, you were talking about our involvement in CAR, and you were talking about the conflict, the Muslim/

Christian conflict, and are we involved in any conflict resolution? 

And we are able to fund faith-based organizations directly. Correct? 

Mr. STAAL. Yes. 

Ms. BASS. We fund both Christian and Muslim? 

Mr. STAAL. Yes. Thank you very much. In CAR, we have several 

programs that are definitely focused on conflict prevention, youth 

engagement, and directly involving faith-based organizations, both 

Christian and Muslim, primarily through international organizations that have international faith-based or Western or Muslim 

groups who then have local groups that they work through there. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

Mr. STAAL. And we are seeing some real positive movement 

there. Thanks. 

Ms. BASS. Excellent. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Cicilline. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 

to our witnesses. I think as was mentioned, we are living at a time 

of really unprecedented refugee and displaced persons. I think the 

number is close to 60 million, according to the United Nations. And 

you spoke a little bit about what we are doing, both what the U.S. 

is doing and what we are encouraging others to do, and in light of 

the magnitude of the challenge, is the United States doing enough? 

Should we be doing more? Are there additional things we could be 

doing to support the refugees and internally displaced persons? 

And at the same time, what success are you having? You said you 

have been in conversations with some potentially new donors. I 

think the last report by the U.N. was that if you look at the humanitarian crisis in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, 

and a few others places, that international donors so far are only 

providing about 26 percent of the need, which means obviously 

three-quarters of the need is not being met. Would you talk a little 

more about the conversations that are being had with other countries and the likelihood that they will do their part in responding 

to this crisis in different places around the world? 

Mr. STAAL. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline. An important question. As 

I said, the need is so huge, and there is a combination of things, 

and we have seen some positive movement from, especially the 

Middle Eastern countries. As I mentioned, I was in Chad, and as 

a follow-up to that, I know that several of them have now put some 

money into supporting some efforts in Chad. In Somalia, actually, 

they are doing quite a bit of work with local organizations. Part of 

the issue is we don’t always know what they are doing, and a big 

issue is trying to sort of help them to understand the need to cooperate, with the coordination systems that other international donors work with in. 

So we have a cooperation now with the Organization of Islamic 

Cooperation to build their networks. They have asked for training. 

They want to understand the system better and work with us more 

closely. So that is a critical aspect. 

And on the first part of your question, trying to address those 

psychosocial needs are so important. Actually, there is an interVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:00 Sep 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\_AGH\070915\95424 SHIRL
27

agency group called the Atrocity Prevention Board. Maybe you 

have heard of it, chaired by the NSC and involving a number of 

U.S. agencies in helping us to make sure that that is an important 

aspect in all these situations, looking at our U.S. Government efforts and making sure that we are doing that. This has helped us 

to get support for those kind of efforts in CAR and in other countries, and to marshal our resources and efforts in a coordinated 

fashion across the interagency. 

Mr. CICILLINE. So if I could just follow up on Ms. Bass’ question 

with respect to the psychosocial services. I mean, we have spent a 

lot of time focused on the necessities of food and water and shelter, 

but would you speak a little bit about the unmet need as it relates 

to more of the kind of counseling and mental health interventions 

and psychosocial services because—particularly children are coming from horrific unspeakable experiences of violence, and feeding 

them and being sure they are housed and have clothing is a base, 

but there are obviously huge needs. Would you speak a little bit 

about what the level of unmet need is in that area and what we 

could be doing better? 

Mr. STAAL. That is such a critical question. In any disaster situation, people become more vulnerable to all kinds of predators, to—

vulnerable to a number of protection issues, especially women and 

children. But, unfortunately, one of the phenomenon of the recent 

events in Africa, as I mentioned, is more related to sectarian and 

ethic violence and terrorist violence rather than just natural disasters. And we are finding that those issues of atrocities, especially 

against women and children, are worse than ever, and so we are 

having to increase our efforts. That is why, as I mentioned, all of 

our OFDA grants include protection as a feature of what we are 

trying to do, especially counseling for children who have been affected. 

UNICEF is the main provider there, but Save the Children, obviously, and other organizations that we work with. Gender-based violence is such a huge problem. We are seeing in South Sudan, you 

have probably seen some of the U.N. reports and so on that it 

seems to be done not just drunken soldiers, but really a systematic 

process of atrocities. I think we saw that years ago in the Balkans 

as well. And when you have these kind of sectarian or ethnic 

issues, it becomes even worse. 

Ms. WIESNER. I would add in terms of the question of unmet 

needs, that I think one of the areas where we have really seen 

some ground lost is in the inclusion of education services for all 

ages of children, preschool, primary, and secondary education, 

when they are in situations of displacement, when budgets are 

stretched, and as you said, the focus tends to then go toward very, 

very basic lifesaving activities, education doesn’t always make the 

cut. And that is really something that I think is disheartening to 

the humanitarian organizations themselves. They want to be able 

to provide those services. They know the importance of it for everything from psychosocial support to the future for these populations 

for the countries that they come from, education is critical, and I 

would certainly put that in the category of one of the often unmet 

needs. 

28

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Just a couple of follow-up questions. On the question 

that I posed earlier about Chad, again, Ann Hollingsworth makes 

an impassioned plea, including in her recommendations that donors and WFP must immediately increase food rations to 2,100 

kilocalories per day for vulnerable Sudanese refugees, until such 

time as assistance can be adjusted in line with region-wide households, economic assessments. And, again, she talks about having 

just been there along with Michael Boyce, her colleague, and I am 

wondering what we are doing vis-a`-vis that situation, if you could 

be specific? 

Secondly, you mentioned, Mr. Staal, about the Atrocities Prevention Board, and, of course, the international community, including 

and especially the United States and the U.N. missed it with 

Rwanda when the genocide could have been mitigated, maybe even 

stopped, years ago. Infamously missed it. The famous facts. I held 

hearings on it at the time, and soon thereafter. 

Yesterday I had a bill on the floor on Srebrenica, and I actually 

had the translator at one of my hearings in the 1990s who was 

there when the Dutch peacekeepers gave over to Mladic ́ the okay 

to take out some 6,000 Muslim men, and 8,000, of course, were 

slaughtered within a 4-day time period, and the 20th anniversary 

for that, as we all know, is on July 11, and I have been to re-interment ceremonies at Srebrenica, moved to tears by the families who 

lost loved ones, who were butchered and killed simply because they 

were Muslims. It was genocide. And that is what our resolution reiterated again yesterday. 

But it brings me to your point, Mr. Staal, about the Atrocities 

Prevention Board, which sounds good and may be doing a wonderful job, but as we all know, according to UNHCR, in the 2014 Global Trends report in the past 5 years, at least 15 significant conflicts 

have started, or re-ignited worldwide. And eight of those have been 

in Africa, as you know, and both of you know so well. And I am 

wondering, you know, what role the Atrocities Prevention Board is 

playing. We are planning a hearing to hear about that sometime 

in the latter part of September. We will ask them to give us a 

sense of what kind of day-to-day work they do. But maybe you 

could shed some light on that. 

And finally, the TIP Report. As you may know, I am of the author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 which created 

our strategy, our landmark effort to prevent, prosecute, and protect, protect the victims, of course. The TIP Report is a month late, 

and I am always worried when it is late, because it may be because 

Secretary Kerry broke his leg and wants to personally unveil it. 

And he is a little busy in Iran. 

But, again, there are multi-taskers and there are people who 

could take—I am always worried, especially with regards to this 

hearing, every refugee camp, IDP camp I ever go to, I ask questions about trafficking and what is in place to ensure that no young 

girls or boys, or women, even, in their 20s or 30s are trafficked into 

a horrible outcome. And I am wondering if you could speak to that 

effort, because I know you are doing much on it. You always do. 

29

But just if you could elaborate and provide some insights to the 

subcommittee, particularly with all these new IDPs and refugees. 

And before that, I do want to note that Albert Puela is with us 

today. He is Member of Parliament from the DR Congo. I met Albert on our way to Goma several years ago looking into, you know, 

the peacekeeping effort there. But Albert is a Member and he won 

reelection, and Albert, thank you for joining us. 

Please, if you could answer the——

Ms. WIESNER. Yeah. I will say a few words about Chad and then 

turn it over to Tom who has been there. It is an excellent report 

from Refugees International, I think, because it lays out the challenges. Chad is a somewhat unique situation. Sometimes it is politically sensitive to promote self-reliance of refugees, because it 

raises questions about land access, the right to work, vis-a`-vis local 

populations, and a host of other issues. In Chad, the government 

is actually quite keen for refugees to become self-reliant, and it is 

more a challenge of the environment, the development funding, the 

development actors. So it is important also to recognize that some 

of these protracted issues are very context-specific in terms of what 

the solutions are. 

On trafficking, thank you for asking those questions, every time 

you go to camps because we ask the same ones. And it is certainly 

part of the protection role of UNHCR and other actors who work 

there to ensure that children and vulnerable populations are not 

trafficked out of camps, are not recruited into armed groups, and 

any number of other threats that could face them. So thank you 

for raising those questions when you do travel. 

Mr. STAAL. Thank you very much. As I mentioned, I was in Chad 

a few months ago and visited a couple of places around the country, including the southern area where the refugees were coming 

across from the Central African Republic. Chad remains, actually, 

a pretty large beneficiary of our Food for Peace Program. We have 

been putting normally over $50 million a year worth of food aid 

there and some other humanitarian assistance. And we continue to 

stay committed to that. So that is going to be important. But as 

you say, at some point, the refugees need to find a way to either 

go back home, but if that is not possible, to find a way to become 

part of the local economy. 

The Atrocities Prevention Board, what we have been able to do 

is then bring all the U.S. agencies together to focus on an issue. 

So, for instance, in the CAR, where we don’t have a USAID mission, we were able to get support for some of our conflict prevention 

and youth engagement programs working with faith-based organizations. We got support for that across the interagency, and then 

were able to use some of the funds that were generously provided 

by Congress for a country where we don’t normally have an aid 

program. 

In Burundi in 2013, we saw that this was going to be a difficult 

place and that things were not going in the right way. So, again, 

we were able to put in additional resources there toward things 

like youth engagement especially, some civil society support, and 

help with developing their election system. Now, that doesn’t mean 

you won’t have a guy who is going to try to run for president even 

30

though—the term limit issue. But the technically the election system is working much better. 

So those kinds of things with the Atrocity Prevention Board, we 

are able to get support to do some of those kind of things that we 

think are critical. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Clawson. 

Mr. CLAWSON. Sorry I was late. We get to be double-booked here, 

so sometimes it is hard to get everywhere at once. So I am sorry 

I missed your opening. Certainly no disrespect in any way. 

I want to ask a general question, and then I will let you all continue with the train of thought that you have had here. When I 

think about Africa, all the displaced because of these wars, because 

of dictators, layered in with all the disease and other things that 

we have to fight with, and then masses of people heading north, 

and we see them, you know, you go to northern Spain, you see 

them in the plaza. I mean, you see them everywhere. Right? Because folks are trying to get where they are safe and can eat. We 

all understand that. 

And, but we are Americans. We are way over here. USAID, you 

know, is on site. State Departmentis working. Do we have influence to change the course here? I mean, on a general level? Are we 

secondary to Europe here, or can we really play the lead and can 

we get the herd moving in a different direction, or are we just 

fighting to tread water? Does my question make sense to you all? 

Is this winnable, or do—or is this winnable only by the Europeans, 

I guess? 

Ms. WIESNER. So we did address this a bit, and I think the 

first——

Mr. CLAWSON. And I apologize for the repetition. 

Ms. WIESNER. That is okay. No, the first thing to say is that migration has existed forever, and will continue to do so. I think what 

is so concerning today is the scale, the nature of that migration, 

the number of deaths that we are seeing. We learn about the 

deaths when we know about boats drowning in the Mediterranean. 

There are also people dying in the desert before they ever get to 

the shores of Libya, and we don’t see a lot of that. 

I was in Niger recently, and there is a town in the north of Niger 

called Agadez, where the International Organization for Migration 

predicts 100,000 people will move through that town this year on 

their way to Libya. And this is an impoverished country that is already hosting refugees from Nigeria and Mali, and is now sort of 

the target of attention from Europe and elsewhere as a very important transit point. It has, again, historically, throughout the years, 

been an important crossroads for trade and migration. And, in fact, 

west Africa has freedom of movement. So it is not illegal to travel 

to Niger. What is illegal is to be smuggled into Algeria or Libya 

and then across the Mediterranean. So all this to say it is a very 

complicated challenge, and certainly those whose are fleeing from 

war and persecution need to be able to do so and need to be able 

to find protection. 

I think what some of our investments do, and can do, and do do, 

is improve the situation for people in their home countries and in 

their countries of first asylum. When people leave Eritrea for EthiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:00 Sep 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\_AGH\070915\95424 SHIRL
31

opia, they should have some opportunity to make a life for themselves and we have worked very hard on improving the conditions 

of camps there. The option to travel across the sea should not be 

the only one that they see for themselves. 

But you also, when you interview those migrants, find that some 

of them are paying huge amounts of money, actually, to take those 

journeys. They are saving up thousands and thousands of dollars 

to be able to take that risk on behalf of their families. 

Mr. CLAWSON. Can I jump in just for a second. Do the Spaniards, 

French, and Italians, among others, see it the same way as what 

you just explained? 

Ms. WIESNER. Well, the European Union is a collection of member states, and we—so I think you have, you know, a very wide 

range of views within the European Union. There are certain states 

that are quite generous in accepting refugees for resettlement that 

provide great benefits to those who arrive in their countries, and 

others who have different policies. We do have a policy dialogue 

with the European Union. We call it the Platform on Refugees, 

Asylum, and Migration, where we get together regularly to discuss 

at the diplomatic and the policy level, and compare notes. 

We are also a destination country for migration here in the 

United States, and it is a different set of conditions and a different, 

you know, group of people that are seeking to reach the United 

States. But there are some similarities in figuring out how you can 

appropriately secure your borders, but also allow those who are 

seeking protection to have the opportunity to do so. 

So we are engaged in dialogue with the European Union, but we 

also see that there is a certain prerogative that they have to address this situation. We do urge always that they work with the 

U.N. Refugee Agency, with the International Organization for Migration, and other groups that can assist them with best practices 

in handling migration challenges. 

Mr. STAAL. Thank you, Mr. Clawson. Part of the issue that we 

are trying to address from the USAID side is the root causes of the 

migration. You are not going to stop everybody. As Catherine was 

saying, migration and refugees have gone on forever. But a lot of 

those drivers of the displacement are rooted in the local community. Sometimes it is economic. It is political. It is violence. It is 

a number of other things. So a lot of our programs are trying to 

help with conflict mitigation, and again with youth engagement. A 

lot of it involves young people who are not finding jobs. So partly, 

it is to give them a sense of hope that there is something going on. 

And, you know, that is economic issues and so on. It is also good 

governance. What we are finding is most of this displacement happens from fragile states. And the way we define fragility is, number 

one, the ability of the government to provide services, whatever it 

is supposed to provide, everything from electricity and water and 

schools and security. But it is also the legitimacy and the credibility of the government. It is those two factors. 

So a huge part of our program is to try to address those drivers 

of fragility that will then hopefully reduce the lure of extremism 

and the desire for people to leave and find something else. 

Mr. CLAWSON. So if leadership is not trustworthy and equitable, 

which means opportunity for everyone, then we are really fighting 

32

an uphill battle here, and when the rich get everything and everybody else gets nothing, then why stay? But what I hear you saying 

is, you know, we are working at humanitarian level and a governance level, and what I am saying is if the Europeans don’t get in 

the game on that, then it just feels like a long putt for Americans 

to solve problems, and I am, on how you all describe the issues, 

having been to a lot of these countries, I think I agree, and certainly admire what you all do, and the kinds of sacrifices your folks 

make for this region. 

Mr. STAAL. Thank you very much. It continues to be an issue, 

but the Europeans are involved. Right after this hearing I am 

heading up to New York to meet with the Brits and the EU and 

several of the other Europeans, in this case specifically about 

Yemen, but a similar issue, and we meet regularly about issues in 

Africa as well. So they are involved. 

Mr. CLAWSON. Are they doing their fair share? 

Ms. WIESNER. What I was going to add, we are certainly the lead 

humanitarian donor in the world. I oversee our international migration policy office at PRM, and in these dialogues that we have 

had over the last few years with the European Union, I think what 

we have seen is that other parts of the Commission that have responsibility for home affairs, for immigration policy, have started 

to realize that their investments in Africa and other sources of migration need to go beyond just law enforcement, and address some 

of the same root causes that Tom was talking about. 

And that is what has been really interesting, and, you know, 

there was a $1 billion trust fund recently established by the European Union, and when I talked to the head of their mission in 

Niger and said: Is this going to go beyond just counter-smuggling 

and trafficking, which is important, to address some of the root 

causes and create opportunities for people in their home countries, 

they said that is certainly the intent. 

So I think you are seeing an evolution in the thinking, too, as 

the problem has gotten so much larger and more visible to really 

try to understand the complexity of it and realize that it requires 

more investment on various fronts. 

Mr. CLAWSON. Thank you for letting me have so much time. I 

yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Clawson. 

Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

You know, sometimes I don’t feel like we put enough pressure on 

the EU. Because if you are going to talk about root causes, I mean, 

you are talking about their former colonies. And they have a level 

of responsibility to this, and they don’t step up enough. And it 

seems like, to me, we need to put a little extra pressure. 

Anyway, I neglected to ask about African refugees who have been 

going into Israel. And I wanted to know, one, if you could speak 

to that and to what extent we are working with the Israeli Government. 

I was recently in Israel in May, and, at that point, when I was 

there, it was an issue. And I am not referring to Ethiopians. I am 

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33

ugee problem in Israel and how we might be working with the 

Israeli Government around that. 

Ms. WIESNER. Sure. Yes. So, previously, we had been quite focused on the situation of sub-Saharan Africans moving through the 

Sinai to Israel and how they were both treated in the Sinai and 

received in Israel. When a wall was built on that border, that particular phenomenon has subsided somewhat. 

But we have continued to receive reports and express our concern to the Government of Israel about the treatment of sub-Saharan Africa asylum seekers in Israel. Both the detention practices 

as well as the accessibility of the asylum system are two things 

that have been part of an ongoing dialogue with that government. 

Ms. BASS. What countries are they coming from, and how are 

they held? I mean, I have seen a couple of photographs, but I don’t 

know much about it. It is not talked about very much. There is not 

a lot of news coverage about this. 

Ms. WIESNER. My understanding is that it is a lot from the Horn 

of Africa—Somalis, Ethiopians, and Eritreans, among others. 

Ms. BASS. And do you know in what kind of situations they are 

in? Do you know what I mean? Is it a camp? Is it like an IDP 

camp? Or what is the physical setting? And do you have any idea 

on the numbers? 

Ms. WIESNER. We will definitely get back to you with the numbers. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM MS. CATHERINE WIESNER TO QUESTION ASKED

DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE KAREN BASS

According to the Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) of Israel’s Ministry of Interior, as of April 1, 2015, Eritrean and Sudanese nationals constituted 

92 percent of the 45,711 individuals seeking asylum and refugee status in Israel. 

These individuals have been classified in official Israeli government documents as 

‘‘infiltrators’’. Of these, 33,506 (73 percent) are from Eritrea, while 8,637 are from 

Sudan (19 percent). In addition, there are 2,984 individuals from the rest of Africa; 

their countries of origin are not delineated by PIBA, but past groups seeking protection in Israel have includes those from the Cote d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ms. WIESNER. Most migrants and asylum seekers live in cities. 

There aren’t really camps. But there has been a problem of detention of——

Ms. BASS. So maybe that is what I am referring to, because what 

I saw was not a city. 

Ms. WIESNER. It was probably one of the detention facilities. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. I do have one final question. When it comes to U.N. 

humanitarian appeals, UNHCR appeals and the like, have you detected any diversion of prioritization for African crises, especially 

with Syria, Iraq, ISIS, Yemen? And you will be talking about 

Yemen at the U.N. very shortly. Is that diverting money and 

prioritization away from these other crises? Is there a relative loss 

of capacity because of that? 

Mr. STAAL. That is a difficult question. I don’t know that I have 

seen diversion, but, certainly, the multiplicity and the demands 

across the world are having an impact everywhere. But I haven’t 

34

seen that they are getting a higher percentage of their appeals 

than other countries. But it is a huge demand across the world. 

Mr. SMITH. But even as those appeals are formulated—and I 

have had conversations with UNHCR for 30 years on this, over 30 

years—they have a need, but they also do an expectation about 

what they think they might be able to get, rather than just going 

with the need, and then if they fall short, at least they tried for 

what they truly needed. 

So I do worry that we never know what the real calculation 

would have been had it been all needs-based, I would just say. 

Mr. STAAL. I know that is an important factor that we have to 

look at. 

Ms. WIESNER. Yeah, we have also had this dialogue on going 

with UNHCR, and they do now do needs-based budgeting, so there 

is a sense of, you know, what the full scope of the needs are 

against what they are receiving. 

But you are right; because they don’t ever receive the full 

amount that they feel they need, they have to make decisions about 

what to allocate to different country operations, and that can be 

hard. It is why they appeal for as much flexible funding as possible, to be able to balance out between different areas. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Anything else you want to add? 

If our subcommittee could be of any help, please let us know, and 

we will do our level-best. 

Mr. STAAL. Thank you very much. 

Ms. WIESNER. Thank you very much for this hearing. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

I would like to now welcome our second panel to the witness 

table, beginning with, first, Mr. John Stauffer, who served with the 

Peace Corps in Eritrea from 1966 to 1968, teaching English and 

science to rural middle school students there. In 2003, after the 

worst of the repression within Eritrea, he joined with one of his 

star Peace Corps students, who was an asylee, and founded a group 

called The America Team for Displaced Eritreans, which was established in 2010. He now assists Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in the U.S. and around the world through resettlement services, policy advocacy, and lifesaving interventions. 

We will then hear from Ms. Ann Hollingsworth, who joined Refugees International in January 2014. In her role as senior advocate 

for government relations, she leads Refugees International’s advocacy efforts within the U.S. foreign policy community. Previously, 

she represented the International Crisis Group at Washington policy audiences. She provided political and strategic analysis and covered all crisis group areas of reporting, with primary responsibility 

for advocacy and research for the Africa portfolio. She has been a 

panelist at a variety of foreign policy events, including with the 

State Department, Brookings Institution, and the Tom Lantos 

Human Rights Commission. She also served in the office of U.S. 

Senator Ernest Hollings. 

We will then hear from Ms. Natalie Eisenbarth of the International Rescue Committee, who is a policy and advocacy officer at 

the IRC, based right here in Washington. In this capacity, she 

leads IRC’s policy and advocacy toward the U.S. Government on 

35

issues related to the organization’s work in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Ms. Eisenbarth focuses specifically on humanitarian responses in 

South Sudan, Central African Republic, Somalia, and Kenya. She 

has completed research and factfinding missions in South Sudan, 

CAR, DR Congo, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Mali. Prior to 

joining the IRC, she worked at InterAction, facilitating its policy 

advocacy on international humanitarian missions. 

Ms. BASS. May I say a word? 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. I yield to Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

I just wanted to acknowledge that we have been joined by 

Nokuthula Sithole. She is Miss South Africa USA, and she is running for Miss Africa USA. I just wanted to acknowledge her being 

here. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. And we are joined by Congressman Mark Meadows 

of the subcommittee. 

Mr. Meadows? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your leadership on 

this effort and continuing to highlight what for many of us is just 

an unbelievable travesty and difficult thing to swallow. I mean, I 

know for me and my family this particular issue has been something that dates back some 25 years. And so I just fully support 

you, not only in this effort, but thank each of the witnesses for 

being here. 

Certainly, your testimony goes a long ways to touching even children. Both my son and my daughter getting involved really came 

from hearing compelling testimony that happened right here on 

Capitol Hill many years ago. And so, hopefully, young people will 

get engaged and continue to fight for those that, many times, they 

can’t fight for themselves. 

So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And look forward to 

your testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Stauffer? 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN STAUFFER, PRESIDENT, THE 

AMERICA TEAM FOR DISPLACED ERITREANS 

Mr. STAUFFER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and subcommittee 

members and staff, for conducting this important hearing, and I 

am honored to participate today. 

Again, I am John Stauffer. I am president of The America Team 

for Displaced Eritreans, which is a small, U.S.-based nonprofit that 

assists refugees and asylum seekers from Eritrea, located in northeast Africa. We maintain a Web site at EritreanRefugees.org. 

Many years ago, I was a teacher in Eritrea with the U.S. Peace 

Corps. And now, for the past 11 years, I have, along with other 

team members, assisted Eritrean refugees fleeing acute oppression 

and abuse in their country. I can also speak toward the situation 

as it stands in Israel. 

As part of our work, we seek assistance and protection for individuals or groups of refugees in dangerous situations when we are 

contacted by victims or their relatives. We have helped refugees in 

at least 15 different countries in Africa and elsewhere. We operate 

by alerting and then working closely with UNHCR, pertinent local 

36

NGOs, local government officials, or other Eritreans, any of whom 

may be able to help the refugees on an urgent basis. We also assist 

Eritrean refugees who are here in the United States. 

Eritrea is a police state, often referred to as the North Korea of 

Africa. On June 8 of this year, the U.N. Human Rights Council released a 480-plus-page report on human rights offenses conducted 

in the country since independence in 1993. 

In Eritrea, there is extensive, abusive, essentially unpaid, endless military conscription, often characterized by survivors as slave 

labor. Soldiers accused of any infraction or dissatisfaction are often 

tortured. There is total lack of basic human rights, almost no freedom to worship or to congregate, no free speech, and no public 

media. There is ongoing surveillance, threats, and intimidation and 

abuse of the families of those who flee the country. And there is 

acute and extensive torture of those who are imprisoned. 

So it is no wonder that, as a consequence of those conditions, 

thousands of citizens, mostly young people and often unaccompanied children, flee the country every month. Initial destinations 

of flight from Eritrea include Ethiopia to the south, where about 

100,000 Eritrean refugees now reside, primarily in refugee camps, 

most surviving with little to do and no hope for the future, and 

Sudan to the west, where there are also refugee camps, plus many 

urban refugees. Here, life is equally hopeless, and kidnappers and 

human traffickers lie in wait. 

Sudan, in particular, is often the starting point for new and horrific ordeals. Eritrean security police operate freely in eastern 

Sudan and in Khartoum and seek out and haul back to Eritrea 

high-value targets such as government officials and military officers who have sought refuge. The refugees may be kidnapped and 

extorted locally for a few thousand dollars or taken off to Egypt or 

Libya, where they are abused. 

In 2007, Eritreans were paying smugglers to move them across 

Egypt to the Israel border, where thousands entered with the hope 

for asylum. But, by 2009, a system of human trafficking developed, 

not for servitude, but for the purpose of torture, for extortion of 

huge amounts of money. Groups of refugees would be either doublecrossed by their paid smugglers or be kidnapped in Sudan and then 

be trucked into Egypt and sold to rogue Egyptian Bedouins and 

end up in torture camps in northern Sinai. 

The refugees would be tortured continuously and mercilessly to 

extract ransom from their impoverished families in Eritrea or in 

other countries. As torture, molten plastic from burning bottles and 

bags would be dripped onto bare skin, causing excruciating pain. 

Victims were tied and left on the ground under the blazing sun. 

They were burned with cigarettes and electroshock. Women were 

continually raped, often gang-raped, and men were raped as well. 

Victims were threatened with extraction of body parts. 

The victims were forced to call relatives by cell phone, and then 

they were tortured while on the phone so their relatives could hear 

their screams. The torture business became more lucrative, and 

typical ransoms grew from a few thousand dollars to at least 

$30,000 per person. Relatives who managed to raise the funds became impoverished for life. 

37

When the Morsi government in Egypt fell in 2013, the Egyptian 

Army restored its presence in northern Sinai, and the atrocities 

against the Eritrean refugees abated there. 

We learned recently at a conference in Geneva with UNHCR that 

7,000 Sinai torture survivors are presently in Israel. But kidnapping, extortion, and torture of Eritrean refugees continue to occur 

in Sudan, Libya, and possibly other parts of Sinai. Still, there 

seems to be little governmental effort in Sudan and Libya to stop 

it. To the contrary, corrupt security officials often know of the traffic and torture yet look the other way. 

Finally, tragically, many Eritrean refugees are torture survivors, 

from their time in Eritrea or from the period of their flight or both. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again, for considering these observations. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stauffer follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much, Mr. Stauffer. 

Ms. Hollingsworth? 

STATEMENT OF MS. ANN HOLLINGSWORTH, SENIOR ADVOCATE FOR GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. Thank you. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Chairman Smith, 

Ranking Member Bass, and the members of this subcommittee for 

holding this important hearing today. 

Refugees International, or RI, is a nonprofit, nongovernmental 

organization that advocates for lifesaving assistance and protection 

for displaced people in some of the most difficult parts of the world. 

Based here in Washington, we conduct 12 to 15 field missions per 

year to research displaced populations. RI does not accept any government or United Nations funding, which allows our advocacy to 

be impartial and independent. 

I am here today to describe the current situation for the longstanding Sudanese refugees in Chad. My colleague Michael Boyce 

and I went to Chad in May and June of this year, visiting the capital of N’Djamena and then to the east to meet with refugees, host 

communities, humanitarians, development actors, and government 

officials. Our new report, released today, goes into greater detail of 

RI’s key areas of concern: Food ration cuts, as the chairman addressed earlier; and a self-reliance approach, with little funding or 

leadership. 

Given the topic of today’s hearing, I think the Sudanese refugee 

crisis underlines two major challenges that we see today in many 

parts of Africa. The first is that the most basic needs of too many 

vulnerable families are not being met, in large part because humanitarian funding has not kept pace with historic levels of demand worldwide. The second is that protracted displacement is not 

just a humanitarian problem; it is a development problem. Yet development actors are still reluctant to provide the leadership, coordination, and multiyear funding that could give displaced people 

a chance at long-term self-reliance. 

The Sudanese refugee population in Chad is an underreported 

story, a hard thing to imagine 10 years ago when the Darfur crisis 

took center stage. The essential humanitarian support that both 

United States and the U.N. refugee agency, or UNHCR, has given 

to this refugee population over the years is well-documented, but 

there are currently 360,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad struggling 

to survive in a harsh environment with few opportunities available 

for them or for their host communities. 

In early 2014, the World Food Programme, or WFP, made a dramatic 50-percent cut—up to 60 percent in some areas—in food rations for Sudanese refugees in Chad, from the previous allotment 

of 2,100 kilocalories a day to around 800. 

We saw firsthand the effect of these cuts at a food distribution 

inside Am Nabak refugee camp. Both refugees and aid workers told 

RI that refugees, particularly women and children, had responded 

to the cuts with worrying coping mechanisms. Women RI spoke 

with left camps to find what little work they could, often farming 

or making bricks. Sometimes these trips would last for days or 

48

weeks at a time, with children being taken out of school to work 

or to care for their younger siblings while their parents were gone. 

An operational NGO worker that RI spoke with noted an increase 

in cases of sexual violence and exploitation against the Sudanese 

refugee women since the ration cuts began. It was clear that the 

consequences of food ration cuts for the most vulnerable households 

have been unacceptable, and an immediate increase in food assistance for these households is absolutely essential. 

In the longer term, WFP and UNHCR are in the process of executing a new approach to food assistance for Sudanese refugees, 

one in which aid is targeted on the basis of need. The two agencies 

are conducting economic assessments that will divide households 

into four groups, from very poor to better off. Full rations would 

only be provided for poorer households, roughly 60 percent of all 

refugees, according to preliminary data. Wealthier households 

would receive more limited amounts of food or nonfood assistance 

according to their means. U.N. officials project that the transition 

of this approach will be completed by the end of 2015. 

But, at the same time, these cuts are occurring as the humanitarian community in eastern Chad has begun to move toward a 

self-reliance approach for the Sudanese refugees. This approach involves giving refugees opportunities to support themselves financially, trying to strengthen ties between refugees and their Chadian neighbors, and incorporating the refugees into Chad’s domestic, 

health, and education systems. 

In principle, this transition is laudable. However, in eastern 

Chad, the transition faces a major and potentially fatal obstacle. 

The communities that refugees are meant to join are some of the 

poorest in the world, with extremely weak institutions, markets, 

and social services. In the words of one humanitarian, ‘‘Everybody 

is talking about socioeconomic integration, but how do you integrate refugees into an area where people are starving?’’

Humanitarian organizations like UNHCR do not have the staffing, the funding, or the mandates to fix these problems. Development donors and organizations do, yet they are virtually nonexistent in eastern Chad. That is the reality on the ground. 

In refugee-hosting areas, donors and development agencies must 

prioritize efforts to improve water management, agricultural inputs 

and techniques, land management and dispute resolution, and 

women’s empowerment. 

So the way forward: Donors and the WFP must immediately increase the food rations, and I think we covered that earlier. 

Secondly, donors, including USAID and the World Bank, should 

provide dedicated funding to development and resilience initiatives 

in eastern Chad that benefit both the Sudanese refugees and Chadian host communities. 

And just as a sidenote, I appreciated Acting Assistant Administrator Staal recognizing the delegation visit of November trying to 

pull in more Middle East donor dollars. And that was great to 

hear, but obviously we have a long way to go. 

Finally, UNHCR should freeze its budget for core refugee protection and assistance in eastern Chad. Further cuts should only be 

considered once refugees begin receiving long-term support from 

development actors. 

49

In conclusion, I left Chad with profound stories and images of 

Sudanese refugees, both of despair and of strength. I listened to a 

female refugee who grabbed my hand to tell me about her struggles 

to find resources to take care of her mother and the three orphaned 

children in her home. I heard many stories about fears for their future, including how they will find enough food to eat. The 

vulnerabilities of this population are very real, and the international community must return the spotlight to them now. 

Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hollingsworth follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Hollingsworth, thank you so very much for yours. 

And, Ms. Eisenbarth, if you could proceed. I am going to step out 

for a moment, and I apologize. I have read your testimony, so——

Ms. EISENBARTH. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mark Meadows will take it. There is a briefing on 

Srebrenica, which, again, had a resolution on the floor, but I will 

only be about 10 minutes. And I have a lot of questions for you 

folks. But my distinguished colleague can do a better job. 

STATEMENT OF MS. NATALIE EISENBARTH, POLICY & 

ADVOCACY OFFICER, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE 

Ms. EISENBARTH. On behalf of my organization, the International 

Rescue Committee, I would like to thank Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, Mr. Meadows, and members of the subcommittee 

for holding this hearing. 

I would like to request that my written testimony be included in 

the record. 

Mr. MEADOWS [presiding]. Without objection. 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. Thank you. 

The International Rescue Committee, or the IRC, is a global humanitarian NGO with a presence in 22 cities in the U.S. and 40 

countries worldwide, nearly half of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. 

The topic of today’s hearing, displacement, is at the very core of 

the IRC’s mission. We provide emergency relief and postconflict development and help people uprooted by conflict and disaster to rebuild their lives. We share the subcommittee’s deep concern about 

the safety and security of people who have been driven from their 

homes. 

Displacement, whether in one’s own country or across borders, 

leaves affected persons particularly vulnerable to economic shocks, 

at risk of human rights violations, without access to basic services, 

and often puts their physical safety in jeopardy. 

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center estimates that in 

2014 in sub-Saharan Africa at least 4.5 million people were newly 

displaced within the boundaries of their own countries. The U.N. 

Refugee Agency, UNHCR, estimates that nearly 760,000 people became new refugees. 

The majority of these new refugees and IDPs became displaced 

as a result of conflict. The circumstances of conflict-induced displacement often take years to resolve, as the subcommittee and Mr. 

Smith noted before. As the average length of displacement reaches 

17 years, we must make a renewed commitment to help people not 

only survive in the midst of displacement but to regain control of 

their lives and thrive. 

U.S. support for assistance to displaced persons typically comes 

through the main international humanitarian assistance accounts: 

The International Disaster Assistance account for IDP assistance, 

the Migration and Refugee Assistance, and Emergency Refugee and 

Migration Assistance accounts for refugees. Alongside other accounts for food assistance and support for international peacekeeping, these accounts are the backbone of U.S. support for displaced persons. Congress’ support in funding these accounts is invaluable and enables the U.S. to save lives and prevent suffering. 

55

I would like to spend the majority of my testimony devoted to 

what more we can do to aid those in situations of protracted displacement. When people are displaced for years on end, their needs 

go beyond the essential means of survival. To respond better to 

their needs, we must address five critical challenges common to 

most protracted displacement situations in Africa. 

First, there must be a commitment to peace and the protection 

of the most vulnerable. Governments hosting refugees and experiencing internal displacement bear the primary responsibility for 

preserving asylum space and ensuring displaced persons receive 

protection and assistance. 

For its part, the U.S. Government must continue to be vocal 

about the importance of refugee-hosting nations keeping their borders open and fostering an environment that is supportive of protecting and assisting refugees and IDPs. We also need political solutions to violent conflicts in places like South Sudan and CAR and 

other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. President Obama’s visit to 

east Africa later this month is a key opportunity to reinforce such 

priorities. 

Second, the response to displacement must be better suited to 

protracted situations. Assistance from the international community 

is often designed to provide the essentials of survival, which is 

challenged, as Ann noted, but saves lives. It does little to enable 

IDPs and refugees to thrive during what are often years away from 

home. The U.S. Government’s funding and advocacy and support of 

efforts to increase self-reliance—things like supporting education 

for children and young people and adults’ opportunities to work in 

local economies—their very means of self-sufficiency are essential. 

Third, we must take a closer look at the traditional model of delivering assistance to displaced communities and formally recognized camps. Globally, the majority of displaced individuals do not 

reside in formal camps or collective sites. Instead, they are living 

with relatives, with friends, or securing accommodations on their 

own, often in urban settings. Assistance must be tailored to ensure 

that these refugees and IDPs do not fall through the cracks and receive the assistance they need. 

In July 2014, a year ago, the UNHCR released a new policy on 

alternatives to camps. The policy sets a vision for UNHCR service 

to refugees, recognizing that while camps are an important tool, 

they remain long after the reasons for their existence have passed. 

As it stands now, the policy does not incorporate how it should 

apply to the IDP populations around the world, which is a critical 

area for attention in the future. 

The U.S. Government should continue to support and enable 

UNHCR to align its practice with the vision in this policy and continuously adapt its own assistance to ensure it is reflective of the 

reality that most displaced communities reside outside camps, and 

it should encourage other international actors to do the same. 

Fourth, we must align better international support based on 

need. Displaced persons are often living in underdeveloped places 

where the host communities alongside whom they reside are themselves quite marginalized and vulnerable. Ann mentioned this with 

respect to the situation in Chad. Addressing the needs of IDPs and 

refugees in these settings provides a unique opportunity to better 

56

integrate their service provision into efforts to assist host communities. 

Ensuring that assistance is targeted to the displaced alongside 

host communities involves a recognition that protracted displacement is not simply a humanitarian issue but also a development 

problem. The World Bank now recognizes displacement as a development issue. Other development donors, including the U.S., 

should be encouraged to align their programming and funding accordingly. 

Fifth, I mentioned the critical humanitarian accounts previously. 

The U.S. must continue to provide this critical foreign assistance—

it is a leader in providing humanitarian assistance around the 

world—and, of course, continuous improvements to aid delivery to 

make it more effective and efficient. 

I would like to close by highlighting two countries in Africa that 

exemplify these challenges. 

First, South Sudan, a country that is today marking its fourth 

anniversary of independence, has been in the grip of violent conflict 

since December 2013. Civilians are bearing the brunt of this violence and often use displacement as a survival strategy. Protection 

is paramount in this case. 

The U.S. Government must continue to advocate to the South 

Sudanese political leadership on the importance of protecting and 

assisting IDPs. Simultaneously, the U.S. Government must continue to support and advocate toward refugee-hosting countries on 

the importance of preserving asylum space while also expanding 

opportunities for refugees to become self-reliant. 

Secondly, the Central African Republic. The IRC has been working in the CAR since 2006. In 2 weeks, we will release a new report 

with the intention of refocusing attention on the needs of the Central African people. 

The IRC’s analysis indicates that, while the international narrative on CAR is one of progress and increasing stability, humanitarian assistance is still desperately needed. However, to effectively 

break the cycle of violence and poverty, as is the case in many 

other African countries, we must take a long-term approach to addressing the challenges that create displacement while also providing the emergency assistance necessary to save lives in the 

short term. 

I appreciate your keen attention to these issues and thank you 

for your time. Look forward to questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Eisenbarth follows:]

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Mr. MEADOWS. I thank each of you for your testimony. 

The chair is going to recognize the ranking member, my dear 

friend, Ms. Bass, for a series of questions. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, Chairman Meadows. I really appreciate 

that. 

Ms. Eisenbarth, it might be that you hand in the testimony that 

you read, too, because I was trying to follow your recommendations, and I think it is different than your written testimony. So 

maybe you could leave us with that——

Ms. EISENBARTH. Okay. Yeah. Of course. 

Ms. BASS [continuing]. You know, as well. 

Well, first of all, I just want to thank the three of you for what 

you do—for what you do and for what your organizations do. Because it is tremendous, lifesaving work. 

I wanted to ask you, Mr. Stauffer, you compared Eritrea to North 

Korea. And, in a way, I think one of the biggest differences is that 

everybody knows about North Korea; people don’t know about Eritrea and what you were describing. 

And, you know, I have your testimony. The people that are here 

don’t have your testimony in front of them, but you have included 

in your testimony some pretty gruesome pictures about torture and 

torture camps. And I think that, obviously, a great deal more attention needs to be brought to the situation. I think Eritrea is very 

isolated, and it is not talked about a lot. So I really appreciate you 

bringing it forward and also, just in terms of your background, the 

fact that you lived there——

Mr. STAUFFER. Yes. 

Ms. BASS [continuing]. That you were in the Peace Corps. 

Mr. STAUFFER. Yes. 

Ms. BASS. So I wanted—one, you might comment on why this is 

a mystery—I don’t think it is just a mystery to me—but, really, 

why Eritrea isn’t talked about, why the situation isn’t highlighted 

there. 

And then you also said that you had information about Israel 

that you wanted to—I wanted to give you time to do that. 

Mr. STAUFFER. Well, first of all, the isolation is pretty much on 

purpose for the part of the regime that is in control. They don’t 

care to invite in any outsiders that might observe what is going on 

or be a proponent or an agitator for democracy. 

There is no oil involved in Eritrea. There actually are security 

issues. They have maybe 700 miles of coastline on the Red Sea. But 

there has been, you know—there has been some flare-ups with the 

press. I have worked with CNN, with Wall Street Journal, and so 

on, and New York Times, but it sort of just goes away then. 

But this recent study by the Human Rights Council, the United 

Nations, is really getting people’s attention. And the word is that 

it will be extended another year. I haven’t seen that officially. 

Ms. BASS. What will be? The study? 

Mr. STAUFFER. The study, the COI, which basically was a team 

of three members who interviewed people outside the country. They 

were not allowed access into Eritrea. And so they interviewed people who had fled the country in many, many different places. They 

were here in Washington, they were in London, and they went to 

66

Ethiopia, and so on. So this is really creating a lot of new awareness and interest. 

I can also say that our organization is just about to release a 1-

hour documentary on the Eritrean situation. And that will be 

launched at West Chester University in Pennsylvania on 8/8, August 8 at 8 p.m. So, you know——

Ms. BASS. Can you let us know—I mean, it would be—that is one 

thing, to do it in Pennsylvania. It would be another thing if it was 

known here in Washington, DC. 

Mr. STAUFFER. Sure. Well, this will be the initial public screening, and, obviously, we would be delighted to—and we are planning 

on, you know, getting some viewership and exposure here in Washington. So we would welcome any help along those lines to make 

this available. 

Because we are working with some networks, we cannot put it 

up on YouTube or Vimeo or anything like that, but we can distribute DVDs. 

Ms. BASS. Well, the chairman said he would be interested in it 

also. 

Mr. STAUFFER. Okay. Well, we will let Greg know, then, as soon 

as we are ready with that. 

With respect to Israel, it is quite a story, actually. As I had mentioned initially around, like, 2007, Eritreans were purposely going 

to Israel. They were paying people to take them, drop them at the 

border, and they would go in and say this will be a nice life. 

And, for a period of a couple of years, it went well, and they were 

fairly well accepted, but then the numbers increased and increased. 

And then, of course, the bad guys got involved, with the torture 

and so forth, and were dropping people at the border after they finished and got their money. 

And so——

Ms. BASS. They were dropping torture victims? 

Mr. STAUFFER. Yes. Yes. If a victim was tortured and then paid— and this is a whole other story. How do you pay $30,000——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. STAUFFER [continuing]. And this is a network where funds—

the way it would work is that the refugee was handed a cell phone. 

‘‘Call your relative, and give the relative this phone number. And 

we want $30,000 from you, okay? So when your relative has the 

money, they need to call this number, and then they will get another number, and you will find a place where you can send the 

money. And don’t try any funny stuff or the guy in the camp is 

going to be killed.’’

So then the money would be sent. Most of the money went to 

Israel, some went to Eritrea, some went to Sudan, some in the 

United States, some was processed through Washington. And it is 

unclear where all of the money was going, but there was a lot of 

it. And we are afraid that a lot of it was going to fund terrorism. 

As you may know, Eritrea is a state sponsor of terrorism, and we 

know that they have trained Somali individuals who are bent on 

terrorism. 

So, anyhow, once they paid, they would be dropped at the border 

with Israel. If they didn’t pay, they would either be forced to continue to do slave labor in the camps or they would be killed, or a 

67

lot of people were saying—and I have some evidence here—that 

there were organs removed from the individuals, which was fatal. 

So, anyhow, the numbers in Israel began to grow and grow, and 

Israel never was wanting to accept them as true refugees and to 

assimilate at all into the society. So Israel banned UNHCR from 

doing RSD——

Ms. BASS. What is RSD? 

Mr. STAUFFER. It is refugee status determination. 

And they said, ‘‘Well, we will do it,’’ Israel will do it. So the numbers continued to accumulate. So the peak population in Israel was 

about 50,000 refugees. Thirty-five thousand were Eritreans, and 

the balance, most of them were Sudanese and some South Sudanese. 

So UNHCR had a presence there, but they weren’t allowed to do 

RSD. 

And then, finally, in 2012 into 2013, they built a wall, a fence, 

along the border with Egypt, so the influx stopped. The refugees 

are—they jailed a lot of them with public statements saying that 

we are going to make their lives miserable so that they will want 

to go back to their own country. So about 5,000 of the Eritreans 

have now left Israel, one way or another. Some of them have ended 

up in Libya and at the hands of ISIS. 

And they have built a big prison toward the south end of Israel, 

where a lot of them are being kept. It is a horrific story. 

They are gradually starting to do some RSD in Israel. We provided a Tigrigna, Eritrean language, translation of the Israeli RSD 

form to help the individuals. So at least they are going on record 

that they have applied for it. 

Ms. BASS. Given that the situation is so isolated, is it possible 

that they are not aware of the torture and what is going on? 

Mr. STAUFFER. Frankly, this is one of the drivers for our documentary, and——

Ms. BASS. What is? The——

Mr. STAUFFER. What you are saying. 

Ms. BASS [continuing]. Torture? 

Mr. STAUFFER. So, for awareness in Israel——

Ms. BASS. Oh. 

Mr. STAUFFER [continuing]. That we will make a Hebrew version 

of this with Hebrew subtitles, which will document the fact—because this is it. I mean, this is a statement that—are you really 

a refugee, or are you an economic migrant just coming in? 

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. STAUFFER. And they call them infiltrators, you know. They 

don’t call them refugees. 

So the number of Eritreans in Israel now is about 30,000. And, 

as I mentioned, 7,000 of them are torture survivors. 

Ms. BASS. And when you say that the 30,000—they are not in 

prison? They are in the general population? 

Mr. STAUFFER. Some of them are in prison. If I had to estimate, 

there are probably around 5,000 in prison. The rest are in the 

south, the southern part of Tel Aviv. That is where the bulk of 

them—they are also scattered around in the country, but most of 

them, they congregate in Levinsky Park in Tel Aviv. 

68

And the whole issue of whether they can work is they get these 

temporary visas, and then the employers can get in trouble, 

though, if the person doesn’t have a visa. And there are no real 

public health benefits available to these folks. 

Ms. BASS. Is there any international observation of the conditions 

in the prison? You say there is no public health—there is no 

health—I mean, there has to be. 

Mr. STAUFFER. I am not aware that there is. There are a couple 

of people from the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants who are allowed access to the prisons. 

I don’t know that the conditions in the prisons are all that bad 

compared to other places, but the point is that they are in prison. 

And, you know, they haven’t really done anything wrong, other 

than cross into the country. You know, these are not lawbreakers 

otherwise. I mean, the Israelis would say they are lawbreakers for 

being illegal aliens, but other than that, no. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

Just one final question. Ms. Hollingsworth, you described refugees being divided by their income, and you said some were better 

off and wealthier. And I just wonder, what does that mean to somebody who is in an IDP camp? 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. Thank you for the question. 

Yes, this household economic assessment, I think, done by World 

Food Programme and UNHCR is a strategy to be more strategic 

with its assistance. And, again, I think that is a laudable effort. 

So I think the strategy here is to look at those who are truly the 

most vulnerable to be able to actually get more assistance to them 

than they are receiving today and lessening the kind of assistance 

for those that—I wouldn’t use the term ‘‘wealthy,’’ but better off in 

the terms of at least having a few more resources available. 

And we saw this, as an example, in one of the refugee camps. We 

spoke with many refugees during our visit, and it was described to 

us how much the vulnerable refugees were leaning on the other 

refugees that maybe had a little bit more to share. Now, again, I 

want to be clear, that is a very small percentage. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman, again. 

Mr. SMITH [presiding]. Thank you. 

Mr. Meadows? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Stauffer, if you get your video done in Hebrew, I will give 

you my personal assurance that we will get as many copies as you 

can provide to the appropriate people in Israel at the very highest 

levels of government to make sure that they are aware of it. 

I think for the vast majority of Americans, the overwhelming majority of Americans, one, they don’t even know that this country exists, let alone the unbelievable, horrific things that you are describing. And the U.S. population, by and large, is a very kind and benevolent; when they see a need, they will reach out. We have seen 

that over and over and over again. And yet this particular issue is 

not one that has been highlighted. 

So, as it relates to both here in the United States, I know the 

chairman and ranking member are very committed to making sure 

that that message gets out, but you have my personal assurances 

69

that from an Israeli perspective I will be glad to make sure that 

the appropriate people get that. 

To give you a perspective, they have a hospital right below the 

Golan Heights that serves Syrian people that come across, and yet 

the Syrians can’t even tell them that they have been served in 

Israel, for fear of retaliation when they return. 

And so I would like to believe that this is a matter of information 

and not just turning a blind eye. So we will work on that. 

Mr. STAUFFER. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me come to you. One of the issues that you 

talk about at the very end of your testimony is a long-term development plan. And for many Americans, that is a real concern. When 

you say long-term development or any foreign aid—you know, I 

share many times that I am big on foreign aid. It does not get me 

votes back home in North Carolina. It is not a positive thing. 

So, with that, how do we target that development aid, where we 

are not in a jobs program or we are in an education program, 

where we are meeting the very basic humanitarian needs and yet 

not in what some people would call nation-building? 

Ms. EISENBARTH. Right. So thank you for that question. 

I agree, from your earlier remark, that the American people are 

quite benevolent. I also understand some of the challenges with 

selling foreign aid back to your constituencies at home. 

First, I would say that foreign assistance on the humanitarian 

side primarily is my focus. But on the development side, there have 

been some very strong accomplishments in terms of making a difference on eliminating child mortality, improving water and sanitation, improving access to health care, including access to 

antiretroviral drugs, prevention of HIV. All of these things are 

strong successes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So when you are talking about that as development, see, many of us would put that more on the humanitarian 

side of it, because, you know, it gets back to what Ms. Hollingsworth was talking about, some are considered well-off versus not 

well-off. 

Ms. EISENBARTH. Right. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, even the well-off folks that we are talking 

about, their annual income is what even the poorest of the poor 

here would—they would be appalled at what wealthy——

Ms. EISENBARTH. Right. 

Mr. MEADOWS [continuing]. Is in some of these nations. 

Ms. EISENBARTH. Yeah. So, when we are talking about development, I would like to think of it as creating efficiencies in the humanitarian system, I think both from the perspective of eliminating, if we can, or at least addressing the causes of displacement. 

So when you have populations, for example, in eastern DRC who 

are continuously facing displacement because of violence, because 

of lack of development there, that we are not just continually meeting basic needs but looking at the long-term causes of the vulnerability of those populations. And so, instead of just feeding—the 

adage of giving a man a fish but then giving a man a fishing pole. 

And so looking at what we can do—of course not creating a jobs 

program, but looking at what we can do to help populations become 

more self-sufficient, particularly from the perspective of commuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:00 Sep 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\_AGH\070915\95424 SHIRL
70

nities that are facing displacement, that are facing marginalization 

by the countries where they are residing, both the host communities that are hosting displaced populations but also the people 

that are displaced there. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. 

And so how do we address the difference between the political aspect of this conflict—because many times it is political, but oftentimes it is also tribal. And so, when we look at it specifically within 

Africa, you look at a different people group. You know, having 

spent a lot of time and being familiar with what is now South 

Sudan, spending time on the ground in Kenya, it is not always necessarily a political conflict, as we see in some of the ones that you 

are talking about. It has bigger underlying issues with regards of 

just whether there is peace in the region. And so we can go in and 

we can supply the development side of things, and yet that gets 

overrun by a different people group. 

So how do we best do that? And/or—and I will give you maybe 

an easier place here—what is the role of U.N. peacekeepers as it 

relates to that? 

Ms. EISENBARTH. So the first question about the role of the political side, perhaps, of the U.S. Government and the political dynamics underlying conflict, I would say that it is not an either/or scenario—people are facing some severe circumstances overseas, as 

you have mentioned, particularly those who are in the midst of the 

crossfire, in the midst of conflict. And so you need to provide humanitarian assistance to meet immediate needs. You also need a 

longer-term approach to help those communities become self-sufficient. But you also need—the U.S. has a lot of leverage, in some 

places more than others, to persuade parties to the conflict to make 

peace, to get over their political differences. 

I think in the case of South Sudan and other places, CAR being 

one of them—from what I know of those conflicts, it is not necessarily at its core a tribal or an ethnic conflict. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Ms. EISENBARTH. It is, rather, those kinds of identities being exploited, if I may, by parties to the conflict to gain popular support 

for their armed movement, in many cases. And so you have to have 

the, like I said, I think there is a lot that can be done on the political side, using the U.S. leverage, to persuade parties to the conflict 

to make peace. 

And I forgot your second question. 

Mr. MEADOWS. U.N. peacekeeping. 

Ms. EISENBARTH. Oh, U.N. peacekeeping. Thank you. 

It is, obviously, a quite complex role that the U.N. peacekeepers 

are playing. It is in constant need——

Mr. MEADOWS. It is interesting that you say that, because I don’t 

see it as that complex. I think maybe the definition of where we 

need to go with U.N. peacekeeping and how it is defined perhaps 

needs to be redefined. Because what we have done is we have had 

a certain model there. 

But we will follow up on that. 

Ms. EISENBARTH. Okay. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And, Ms. Hollingsworth, did you want to comment——

71

Ms. EISENBARTH. Can I just say one last thing, though? 

Sorry, Ann. 

I think it is in need of constant evolution and looking at how to 

improve the system, but it does save lives. For example, in South 

Sudan, you have now, as of Tuesday, the U.N. was reporting 

150,000 people in U.N. peacekeeping bases. And so I will be the 

first to admit that it is challenged and it needs improvements, but 

it does save lives and is a worthwhile investment. 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. Thank you. So, just circling back on development, I actually think Chad is a great example here to be referencing, because when we look at what Deputy Assistant Secretary Wiesner raised in her comments today; Chad actually wants 

the refugee population to be integrated. And so they have made 

small steps to incorporate the refugees into both the education and 

healthcare systems. 

Now, from what we heard and from what we saw on the ground, 

the capacity is definitely not there, but there are discussions about 

the national development plan. There are a lot of things being discussed right now in Chad. And Chad could be great case study, because when we look at, sort of, the political angle to this and what 

the role the host countries should be taking, we have a couple of 

specific recommendations for Chad within our report specifically 

targeted at that. 

Secondly, on your peacekeeping question, we haven’t brought up 

what is going on in Darfur right now, and I wanted to briefly raise 

this, just with the UNAMID context, very briefly. Now, this is in 

no way a perfect peacekeeping mission, but I just want to circle it 

back to what we saw on the ground in eastern Chad, which is 

along the Sudan border. This situation is fluid, and the violence in 

Darfur is increasing. 

The Sudanese refugee population in eastern Chad, while it is 

viewed as being quite chronic—and most of the refugees we spoke 

with had been there for 10 to 12 years—we did meet a refugee who 

had fled 6 days prior and had never been a refugee before. So, basically, a militia group had said they were going to do an attack on 

her village. It took her 15 days to get to the refugee camp inside 

Chad, where her sister was. Her family was scattered. She had no 

idea how she was going to survive and take care of herself. 

This ties back to UNAMID, which is the importance of the protection of civilian capacity that we are looking at right now. And 

access for humanitarian actors has been a longtime problem in 

Darfur. But I did want to note that Darfur definitely has fallen a 

bit off the radar, and the increased violence that is going on in 

there needs to be addressed. And UNAMID really needs to be there 

right now. 

Thanks. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Thank you. 

I will close with this last question. And, I guess, if you can keep 

it as brief as possible, because we have some better questions to 

follow. 

With U.S. involvement in all of these different areas, how do we 

avoid the image of coming in and trying to set up our own governments, whether they be public governments or ones that are controlled by the United States? 

72

Because there is a big pushback with that, they want the humanitarian aspect of it but not necessarily the conflict resolution 

aspect of this. 

So how do we do that most effectively? And can you point to any 

examples where that has worked well, where the host country has 

said, we appreciate you coming in? It has been that fine balance 

of support but yet not so much of control. 

Ms. EISENBARTH. So I think both Ann and I have referenced, in 

terms of restructuring development so that it does become more 

tailored to the needs of displaced populations and better linked 

with humanitarian aid efforts, we both have referenced the need to, 

through perhaps behind-the-scenes diplomacy, using the leverage 

that I mentioned earlier that the U.S. has, getting behind a national development plan, so that it is not the U.S. coming in and 

pushing its way onto the development agenda of host-country governments but, rather, getting behind them using, perhaps, evidence. 

There is a growing body of work that supports the importance of 

using development to address protracted displacement crises but 

working in partnership with host-country governments and their 

own development plans instead of bringing in our own agenda. I 

think that is one example. 

It is happening in Kenya. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Ms. EISENBARTH. There is a lot of opportunity there with the 

devolution process to really partner with the Kenyans. And, obviously, Kenya is one of the leading refugee-hosting countries. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. All right. 

Ms. Hollingsworth? 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. I will be brief: Consultation, consultation, 

consultation. 

In the example of Chad, I think it is important to note that the 

U.N. Security Council endorsed a U.N. Integrated Strategy for the 

Sahel. So I think that is a good angle, as well, when we talk about 

the neighbors being involved with what we want for the individual 

country so, again, it is not just the U.S. Government coming in. 

Thanks. 

Mr. STAUFFER. My experience, of course, is really focused on Eritrea. And I think, there is no prescription other than trying to continue to work on a humanitarian basis and diplomatically and have 

dialogue to see if there is any path forward that will change the 

behavior of the regime. 

But the knee-jerk reaction there has always been that you are 

trying to put us down, you are trying to keep us from being successful, you are trying to support Ethiopia, our enemy, and so 

forth. 

So I would really leave this to the diplomats to figure out if there 

is a way, but I think, not pushing for democracy but rather pushing for improvements in humanitarian behavior. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. 

I apologize to each of you. I have to pop out. But we are monitoring this back in my office. But thank you so much for your leadership. 

73

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Meadows. 

Thank you for your testimonies and your leadership. 

Just a couple of questions, first to Mr. Stauffer. 

As you know, Eritrea is a Tier 3 country in our TIP Report designations—in other words, an egregious violator. In your testimony, 

you have elaborated much more than the TIP Report did in terms 

of the horrific nature of this ransom, of this scheme, $30,000 per 

person, the torture business, as you pointed out. 

My question is, in 1998, I wrote a law called the Torture Victims 

Relief Act. It has been reauthorized four times, and I have a pending bill now to reauthorize it once again. 

There are torture centers, victims centers all over the world. We 

give money to the U.N. Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture for 

their centers, as well. 

You mentioned 7,000 Sinai torture victims currently in Israel. I 

am not sure how many are here and whether or not they are getting the post-traumatic stress help that they so desperately need 

that these centers can provide in a very unique way. If you could 

speak to that? 

Mr. STAUFFER. My understanding is that there is none of this 

going on for these 7,000 in Israel. And that was a topic of discussion with the NGO, the Hotline last week, was about how to get 

mental health attention to these folks in Israel. 

There is the Center for Victims of Torture affiliate in Ethiopia 

that is helping at camps in Tigray, which is in northern Ethiopia. 

But a lot of them, I am sure, in the United States, for example. 

You know, the U.S. brings in Eritrean refugees and resettles them 

officially. And many of these are torture survivors, and they don’t 

really talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it; they don’t 

want to reveal it. So I think there are a lot that are going untreated, and it is a shame. But, you know, if it is an Eritrean, they 

should be screened for torture. That is all I can say. 

Mr. SMITH. I deeply appreciate you bringing that to my attention 

and to our attention as a subcommittee. Again, I wrote that law, 

and I did not know they weren’t getting help either in Israel, and 

I don’t know about getting it here. 

You know, some of the estimates put it at as many as 500,000 

of our asylees in the United States were torture victims, some to 

different degrees of course. And the terrible abuse that you cited 

in your testimony——

Mr. STAUFFER. Yeah. I serve as——

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. Certainly has traumatic PTSD——

Mr. STAUFFER [continuing]. A witness in asylum cases in the 

United States, and I see these declarations month-in and monthout. And exactly. That is why they are asylees. That is why they 

have gone to the trouble of going to Central America and going to 

country to country to country into Texas, because of this mistreatment. 

Mr. SMITH. And they do need to be encouraged to get the help. 

Mr. STAUFFER. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Because it is so deeply repressed. I mean, we have 

held hearings and heard from victims who got not total relief but 

a great deal of relief from the burdens, the sleepless nights, the 

74

chemical dependencies that follow because they just can’t cope with 

what they have been through. 

So I would love to work with you on trying to ensure that our 

Government is doing—and we will contact the Israelis, as well—

make sure that at our centers, at least, there is an outreach to the 

Eritrean community to ensure that they get that help. 

Mr. STAUFFER. Okay. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. We are looking to mark up our reauthorization very 

shortly. So, you know, thank you for bringing all of this to my attention and to the subcommittee’s attention. 

Eritrea signed the torture convention in September 24, 2014. 

And I am wondering what tangible impact that has had with regards to the panel of experts that oversee the torture convention 

at the United Nations. Have they looked into torture by the government or its complicity in torture? 

Mr. STAUFFER. Not that I am aware of. I am not sure how they 

would look into it other than what has already been done with people that have left the country. I mean, you—there is no access, no 

ability to do any forensic studies within the country. 

Mr. SMITH. Because very often, you know, a Special Rapporteur 

can go and visit, do a study, doesn’t have——

Mr. STAUFFER. The Special Rapporteur is not allowed in the 

country. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. If I could, Ms. Hollingsworth, you heard the 

exchange earlier with the panel for the administration and again, 

the subcommittee appreciates you bringing to our attention just, as 

you pointed out, humanitarian organizations like UNHCR do not 

have staffing, funding or mandates to fix these problems, talking 

about Chad and the 360,000 refugees from Darfur that are there, 

and please let us know how we could be even more helpful as we 

go through the appropriations cycle and trying to ensure that our 

response—I remember traveling with Ambassador Williamson, and 

Greg and I have been to Darfur, we have been to camps so—in 

Darfur. We actually met with Bashir and argued with him in Khartoum. It was not a pleasant time. 

But that said, I was with Ambassador Williamson at the U.N. 

Human Rights Commission, when it was still a commission, not a 

council, and the reluctance to call what was going on in Darfur a 

genocide was appalling. They just didn’t want to call it that, and 

if we have taken our eye off the ball prematurely, which we may 

have with regards to Darfur, I think your timely reminder as well 

as with the refugees’ situation is a very important one. If you wanted to elaborate on that at all, please do. 

And then the issue that you raised so well about the food rationing cuts, that needs an immediate response. Malnutrition and the 

undersupply of these important food stuffs, we have got to address 

that. So maybe you could elaborate on that if you would. 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I would 

say that as much as we can during the appropriations process, the 

development assistance is incredibly important through the lens, as 

I have stated, through Chad. When I talk specifically about how 

UNHCR does not have the funding or resources, I think the technical expertise is also an important part of this, and particularly 

when we look at those actors who are able to commit long term to 

75

projects on water, which is so essential to Chad, that is really the 

angle that we view as one of the most essential, as far as development projects. 

Secondly, to the food rations, again, I really appreciate you pushing this with the first panel. We also want to be very clear that 

this is to fill a gap that we saw on the ground. We are not saying 

that the restoration of the 2,100 calories will be forever. This is 

more until the household economic assessments can be done and 

the new assistance strategy can be implemented. And most importantly, Mr. Chairman, once that is implemented UNHCR and others need to very tightly monitor the coping mechanisms and impact 

on what is happening to the population, and to be able to fix that 

as this moves forward. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Can I ask you, are you satisfied that anti-human 

trafficking efforts for the IDPs and the refugees are as robust as 

they could be? 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. We didn’t look into that. So I can’t address 

that today. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. Eisenbarth, in your testimony about the Central African Republic, again, all of it was excellent, but just to ask you a question 

with regards to that, 900,000 IDPs, 460,000 refugees, and you cite 

obstacles that the IRC and other humanitarian agencies are experiencing. Could you elaborate on what those obstacles are? 

Ms. EISENBARTH. Yeah. So as I noted in my testimony, I think 

we are in a better place, overall, in CAR, but I want to underscore 

that we shouldn’t just see the country as on the road to progress, 

that there are still a number of obstacles, and I think primarily the 

one that we are experiencing is addressing humanitarian needs 

outside the capital. The country is still in the grip of some pretty 

serious insecurity, and it is very difficult for humanitarian actors, 

the IRC, others, to access populations that are outside some of the 

main population centers. Bangui, of course, being one of them, but 

other major towns upcountry, and so that continues to be a challenge that befuddles our ability to get access to the populations 

that need humanitarian assistance that have essentially no access 

to basic services. 

Mr. SMITH. As you point out in your testimony, the average 

length of displacement reaches 17 years. Is that African centric, or 

is that an average——

Ms. EISENBARTH. I think it is a global figure, yeah, yeah. 

Mr. SMITH. Global figure. Okay. Is it worse——

Ms. EISENBARTH. It might be, but I can’t say specifically, but I 

think it is definitely indicative of Africa, perhaps, if not worse. 

Mr. SMITH. Just let me ask, finally, if I could of you, Mr. 

Stauffer, what has the ICC done vis-a`-vis Eritrea? You know, we 

know that they have been slow, but they are looking at indictments 

of a couple of Boko Haram people. They have had one conviction 

of a DR Congo person who committed genocide, but it seems to me 

that the ICC could be doing more, particularly with a country that 

has been so barbaric. You called it the North Korea of Africa. And 

what has the AU done vis-a`-vis Eritrea to really bring focus and 

attention——

76

Mr. STAUFFER. Well, I am not aware of anything that the ICC 

has done. Certainly there has been a lot of effort in Europe to raise 

awareness about as much—the situation in Eritrea it is much more 

aware in Europe than it is here, partly because of the many Eritreans that have come across the Mediterranean, but—and there 

has been some really strong advocacy by several folks, several Eritrean folks in Europe to create awareness, but, you know, whether 

the ICC has even taken any, you know, action or whatever internally, I just don’t know. 

And as far as the AU, there has been a process, a thing called 

the Khartoum process where they are attempting to work 

through—mainly diplomatically and maybe some economic aspects 

to stop the flow of people coming out of Sudan, out of Eritrea, moving up to the Mediterranean and so on. But there is, frankly, I 

think, it has been lip service that has been coming from Eritrea 

that they are going to try to stop the departures and so forth. 

And just as a thing that is really gotten things stirred up is that 

the Danes sent in a team into Asmara to try to figure out, we are 

giving all this asylum to Eritreans. Should we really be doing it or 

are things as bad as they—and they came out with a report that: 

Oh, things are getting better and they are working hard on it. They 

should know that going to Asmara is the last place in the world 

they will get the answer to this type of question. And they did not 

get any corroboration for anything good happening when they went 

south in Ethiopia and talking to other people. 

And, unfortunately, the Brits have been trying to utilize this 

flawed report that, you know, things aren’t at bad as they supposedly are in Eritrea. But all indications are that it is business 

as usual, and there has been nothing substantial to change things, 

ICC or otherwise. 

Mr. SMITH. Has the Atrocity Prevention Board acted in an early 

warning prevention capacity? Has it worked? Ms. Eisenbarth? 

Ms. EISENBARTH. I, to be on honest, have not followed their work 

closely. But my organization has been, of course, watching the situation in Burundi. We were active in Burundi long before the current crisis, and of course, are now responding both on the Burundi 

side and the Tanzania side. From my understanding, there was a 

lot of work done by the Atrocity Prevention Board to draw attention to the crisis in Burundi. And so, I think it did catalyze some 

attention. Whether or not it could have done more to prevent where 

we are now with the country, that is my most recent experience 

with the APB, and so that is the best I can say. 

Mr. SMITH. I had asked the previous panel, and maybe you might 

want to respond to it on the first 1,000 days from conception to the 

second birthday. Have you found in IDP settings and refugee protection settings that there is an awareness that, again, if you get 

that from conception that first month, second month, third month, 

if you get that right, that child’s life is exponentially enhanced on 

a myriad of fronts. If you don’t, it is lost. You don’t turn stunting 

around when they are 2. So I am wondering, you know, if you have 

seen an awareness of that? The first amendment I offered that became law here in the early 1980s with the Child Survival Fund, 

a $50 million authorization, and I traveled to El Salvador during 

a day of tranquility between from FMLN and the Duarte governVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:00 Sep 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\_AGH\070915\95424 SHIRL
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ment to see that money used to vaccinate kids against pertussis, 

diptheria, polio, and the like. 

And so I am a big fan of vaccinations. Every dollar spent there 

is transformational as well, and it is right in line with this idea of 

early intervention having a huge impact. And I am wondering if 

you have seen in the first 1,000 days are kids getting their vaccinations as toddlers and as young children, neonates, even, in these 

camps? Is that——

Ms. EISENBARTH. I appreciate your attention to this. I have a 

personal passion for this issue as well. So I appreciate the question. 

The IRC is quite active in malnutrition programming in many of 

the countries where we are working. One program that has proven 

quite effective in terms of delivering first-line treatment and identification of symptoms of some of the leading causes of child mortality has been the Community Case Management Program in 

South Sudan. I will have to get back to you with the exact figure, 

but it has resulted in somewhere on order of 80-percent reduction 

in child mortality by addressing some of these leading killers of 

children early on. 

The IRC is currently doing some research into how we might integrate malnutrition identification and first-line treatment into this 

program. I think particularly in an area like South Sudan, it is 

quite difficult to access, and I think it applies to other countries as 

well, but in South Sudan, it is quite difficult for families to reach 

health clinics, for even humanitarian actors to set up operations, 

formal operations, near where communities are displaced. Having 

a program like the Community Case Management Program, where 

you have community caseworkers going into communities, sometimes, in large part, on foot, to work with communities to address 

some of these leading causes of child mortality is very effective. 

And, again, we are looking to see how we might integrate malnutrition into that. The IRC actually released a report on malnutrition in South Sudan just 2 months ago, and I think it is important, 

from our perspective, to look at some of the ways like this modification to this program where we can improve the humanitarian response, but particularly in a case like South Sudan, the conflict 

there has really set back efforts to address some of the underlying 

causes of children not being able to be well-nourished in their first 

1,000 days, for mothers as well. And it underscores the importance 

of finding a political solution to this conflict, so that we can get the 

communities in South Sudan back on the path to development to 

address issues like access to safe water, access to health clinics, all 

of these—access to food, all of these different drivers of malnutrition. So I can send that report to your staff. 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. Thank you. I did want to take note that 

once the food ration cuts began in 2014, UNHCR did do a nutrition 

survey to look at the impact, and our understanding is the 

takeaways from the results of that survey was the malnutrition 

rates had basically stayed about the same. We saw a little bit of 

a different opinion when we spoke to the refugees themselves, particularly the women spoke about the children, and obviously the 

food concerns of access to food was something that was raised time 

and again. I will say that something we raised in the report is particularly important for what you raise, Mr. Chairman, is the nutriVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:00 Sep 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\_AGH\070915\95424 SHIRL
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tional supplements which have continued, and that has been our 

understanding. The problem is that the children that are receiving 

those nutritional supplements are sharing those with their extended family because the food rations have overall been cut. So 

because they are sharing, it means the recovery for their malnutrition takes much longer. So I think that is an important context 

when we look at the underlying concerns around this. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. About 15 years ago, Greg Simpkins and I were in 

Lagos, and were speaking on human trafficking protection of unborn children, which I am very pro-life. I believe in womb-to-tomb 

protection. And a man came up to me and says: Well, what are you 

doing about autism in Nigeria? And I said: Nothing. Doing a lot in 

my own country. I have no idea you have a big problem here. 

Again, I asked the previous panel about this, and we have been 

working with his NGO ever since. His wife is a medical doctor in 

Lagos. He works for Exxon. And there is such an unmet need in 

Africa. WHO says tens of millions of children are on the spectrum. 

We had a woman from Cote d’Ivoire testify at one of our hearings 

on a global brain health bill that deals well Alzheimer’s, autism, 

and hydrocephalic condition, which is also devastating in Africa, 

and she said there was nothing whatsoever for my child. She now 

is in Ohio and has gotten services which have helped her son. So 

I have been raising it everywhere I go, and I am wondering, again, 

twice jeopardize a child who is in a refugee camp or an IDP camp 

who is on the spectrum may not even be recognized for what he 

or she is suffering, and I am wondering if you have seen any evidence of an awareness of a need to address autism in that setting, 

because they are there? 

Ms. EISENBARTH. I can’t speak to a global awareness of autism. 

I just will say that there is an awareness on the critical importance 

of women, women who are of childbearing age, women who are already pregnant, or who are likely to conceive of also being the 

beneficiaries of nutrition programs. There have been a number of 

efforts in refugee settings to innovate and try to tailor specialized 

feeding programs for women. But in terms of sort of rooting that 

in an awareness of autism, I can’t speak to that. 

Mr. SMITH. Is this something you could just keep in mind as you 

go forward? 

Ms. EISENBARTH. Of course. I will flag it for country teams. 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. I can’t speak to the autism issue, but just 

to support Natalie there on the issue of women’s health issues and 

concerns, one thing I did want to flag that I haven’t had the opportunity to is the issue of—I raised in my testimony women leaving 

camps to find jobs and other things. The issue of getting water is 

particularly important, and one of the female refugees we spoke 

with talked about the daily trek to go find water outside the refugee camp. And unfortunately, much of that water is contaminated. 

So what would happen was she would bring the water back, she 

would get sick, her children would get sick, her neighbors would 

get sick. So this is a healthcare issue that I am sure you know 

quite well, but I think it is important in this context to raise with 

this opportunity. So thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. No. Thank you. Thank you for underscoring. 

79

One final question, and it is on DR Congo. Can you shed any 

light on that refugee and IDP situation? Again, Greg and I were 

there in Goma. It has been a while. And we do have a distinguished Member of the Congress, of the House, with us today who 

deals with that issue as well. If you could, yes, Ms. Eisenbarth. 

Ms. EISENBARTH. I think eastern DRC is actually a perfect case 

study for some of the issues that I have raised in my testimony. 

As I said previously, I don’t know if you were in the room, Mr. 

Smith, but many communities in eastern DRC are facing repeated 

displacement. Often remaining displaced for years on end, and it 

is important to really look at the holistic needs of those communities, that we are not just delivering assistance along the peaks 

and valleys or the conflict crisis situation in eastern DRC, but really taking a long-term approach to addressing needs there. 

We were thankful to see the appointment of Mr. Perriello as the 

new special envoy for the Great Lakes region because, again, looking at some of the underlying drivers of displacement and some of 

the political issues that have been persisting in eastern DRC and 

the region for many years is essential to providing the stability 

that communities need to meet their needs and to thrive. 

Ms. HOLLINGSWORTH. Thank you for mentioning the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo. RI has produced three reports over the past 

12 months. Most recently, it was on looking specifically at the 

USAID programs, 5-year holistic programming for gender-based violence, and that was released. For the purposes of this hearing, 

though, I would like to raise the concerns around refugee support 

versus IDP support in the DRC, and I think the refugees themselves inside the DRC are receiving assistance. It is those 2.7 million or so IDPs that are, quite frankly, neglected at this point. We 

have been championing this for several months to get more assistance directly to them, and we hope you will raise this as well. So 

thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. So thank you very much for your leadership. As you 

come up with ideas that you think we could help amplify or need 

to work on, please let us know. We do have a hearing on Burundi 

scheduled for the July 22, and we really hope to bring some additional focus on that crisis as well. 

Thank you again. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

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SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

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