Abstract

Over eighty percent of the world’s refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP) are women and children, spanning over one hundred countries and found in emergency shelters and IDP camps (camps for internally displaced persons). Internally displaced women and children are more at risk of assess due to some prevailing factors increasing the plight of women and children.Reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) show that Nigeria has the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa occasioned by insurgency related to violent onslaught led by Boko Haram, ISWAP, Fulani Herdsmen and other unclassified bandits. Available data show that Nigeria is a country where the population of those presently under the age of 15 years make up almost half of the entire 200 million people (about 46 percent). The current total for children under the age of 5 stands at nearly 31 million with at least 7 million babies born each year. Also, a little over one in three of Nigeria’s whole population lives below the poverty line, among children this proportion surges to 75 percent.More than 2 million of the Nigeria population have been uprooted from their homes due to violent insurgency with over 10 percent reported missing, out of which more than 70 percent are women and children. Women and children in IDP camps are exposed to sexual exploitation, rape, molestation, restricted movement, poor sanitation, hunger, diseases, etc.
This study explores the application of risk management as a strategy to help advance the safety of vulnerable women and children in high risk areas and regions.Risk management is the methodical application of management processes, practices, and actions to the task of assessing, analyzing, evaluation, and control of risk in an activity.It involves the identification, analysis, assessment,and control by using any or combination of the strategy of avoidance, minimization, elimination or transfer of the risks.The risk management approach will involve qualitative methods for data collection through interviews, scooping review of journals and other serials, and visiting affected communities, regions, refugee shelters and IDP camps.Risk management has been established to give competitive advantage in military operations in counter-insurgency, and therefore, will be mobilized in this study as innovative procedure in safeguarding the well-being of women and children against violent security challenges.
Three themes for presentation will be deduced from the innovative implementation of risk management in safeguarding women and children from violent insurgency in developing countries. The first theme will focus on identifying the risk factors associated with the plight of women and children in compromised and vulnerable zones and regions and establishing risk assessment strategies. The second theme will be aimed at establishing the vulnerable areas, IDP camps, refugee shelters and procure relevant records on women and children. The third theme will be the implementation of the risk management procedure, establishing key advantages, highlighting possible challenges and mediating factors.