It has also been reported that unaccompanied girls are often captured by combatants and civilian men alike and used either as forced labourers by families in need of domestic workers or as 'wives'. Women and girls must also cope with little or no support system with unwanted pregnancies and raise children from acts of rape. Severely ostracised, these women and girls are forced to leave their homes for the relative safety of refugee camps. In Sierra Leone, as in the rest of the world, women and children make up the majority of refugees and internally displaced persons. Life in the refugee camps is only slightly better than the hardship and terror these women left behind.
Services are as basic as possible and focus on nutrition and the supply of antibiotics.
Boredom is a common ailment of refugee women, as well as men. There are usually no educational or training facilities for these women and their children. Access to health services for their children and themselves is limited to essential medicine for malaria, cholera and diarrhoea. Contraceptive availability is rare, while women and girls are further victimised by sexual and physical violence in refugee camps. Some go from a life of decision-making and relative economic independence to a life of total dependency.