Arab Human Development Report 2009: Gender: Chapter 4: The Personal Insecurity of Vulnerable Groups

This chapter considers the situation of people from or in the Arab countries who have no personal security at all. These groups abused and coerced women,victims of human trafficking, child soldiers, internally displaced persons and refugees—are acutely vulnerable to threats arising from discrimination, exploitation or displacement. Such groups merit a particular focus because their situations lie beyond society's field of vision. Often hidden from the public eye, they are victimized in their own families and societies or abused as little more than slaves or left uprooted in places where their lives have taken them. They have little power to defend their own rights and few champions to defend those rights for them. Their insecurity lies beyond the pale of mainstream society, which offers them virtually no personal protection.