The Middle East, prone to conflict and disasters, is the host of the largest internally displaced populations in the world, with more than seventeen persons experiencing displacement in 2021. Therefore, providing practical, sustainable, culturally appropriate and acceptable sexual, reproductive and menstrual health services for women and girls should be integral to responses to internal displacement. This document identifies gaps, challenges and current responses in the Middle East and provides recommendations for improvement in the answers in the context of the Middle East.
Andisheh Jahangir holds a Master of International Public Health from the University of Sydney. She has worked with an NGO, WoMena, based in Denmark and Uganda, in Menstrual and Reproductive Health and with the WHO Country Office in Iran. Currently, she works with Relief International, an International Humanitarian NGO in Iran.
This paper was written by the author for the 2022 Summer School on Internal Displacement in the Middle East – “Crisis, Displacement and Protection” – run by the Middle East Research Network on Internal Displacement, the Lebanese American University Institute for Migration Studies and the Internal Displacement Research Programme at the Refugee Law Initiative.