ABSTRACT
In the late-1980s, Anders Johnsson, a senior legal advisor in UNHCR, candidly remarked that ‘Women make up half, if not more, of the world’s refugees, yet since the UNHCR was established in 1950, little has been done...to deal with them as women in a particular situation and with particular needs’ (Johnsson 1989, 222). Johnsson attributed this lack of attention to the ‘exclusively male-oriented’ exercise of treaty making that both figuratively and literally made refugee women “invisible”. Even the then High Commissioner Jean-Pierre Hocke had to admit it. In a visit to an Afghan refugee camp where women were the majority, he did not see women. The UN Decade for Women presented a critical opportunity for refugee advocates to lobby UNHCR to end this institutional legacy.
