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Tears stream down the refugee’s face as she pulls her glove. Her dominant hand is covered by a pale, mottled injury mark. Her digits are unbending and unnaturally bent.

She began sex work to survive soon after she came by herself at Malawi’s Dzaleka settlement in 2015, having fled there from Burundi.

On December 24 in 2022, a client wouldn’t pay. When she blocked the doorway, he seized a boiling-hot saucepan of beans and hurled it at her, burning her hand and chest.

Daily existence in Malawi has become increasingly hard, with financial decreases by global organizations resulting in most consuming food only one time a day.

At the same time, the chances of resettlement to countries in the west have been lowered from slim to distant.

I see other people going, who are in good health … I ask myself, ‘Why is it that I don’t get helped like others?’

After being left by her mother, Francine lived in Burundi with an family member involved in politics, who was killed in 2014.

Haunted by her trauma, the 29-year-old mother of children aged two and nine believes her life would be at risk if she returned to Burundi.

She questions why she has never been considered for relocation.

Malawi, one of the world’s least developed countries, has a long history of hosting refugees.

Dzaleka camp was built on the perimeter of the capital, Lilongwe, in 1994. The densely populated camp, which has become an impoverished area, was intended to host 10,000 people.

Now, more than 58,000 refugees reside there. About 60% of them are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), from where up to 200 more enter monthly.

Malawi’s “shelter rule” prevents refugees from legally living or working outside Dzaleka, making them especially at risk to funding cuts.

Financial support have been reduced to 50% of what is needed for food.

All of the years that we have been here, UNHCR has never thought about us

The economic pressures have led to a increase in sex work, abuse at home cases and children taking things.

Anne, a mother of seven, still volunteers and believes that she sees four to six cases of domestic violence a week, twice the number of two years ago.

Malawi is looking into building a new camp near the Tanzanian border. However, Anne and other refugees say they want to stay in Dzaleka.

The government is also reviewing changing the law to allow refugees to work outside camps.

Judith fled Lubumbashi in the southern DRC in 2016, after gunmen killed her parents. Just 14, she was left looking after her three younger family members.

She had to turn to sex work and has a four-year-old child with an absent father.

* Names have been changed to protect their identity