Ms Melanie Hoewer:

This highlights the importance of women's voices. The track record of aid agencies going into refugee camps shows that the choice of personnel plays a significant and crucial role. In some cultures there is a difficulty of male aid agency personnel talking to women. I recall a case in a situation I worked in that women did not get space to voice their concerns on sanitary installations such as bathrooms, which were subsequently located in isolated areas without any lighting. The incidence of rape was recurrent. That problem would have been solved very easily if both male and female aid workers had access to male and female refugees. Lessons have been learned from the aid programmes and I hope we will continue to learn from experience.