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New research shows that mobile phones may not be as beneficial to displaced people as previously thought. Using video diaries, where displaced people in Somalia recorded their mobile phone use, researchers found that women, in particular, are being exploited by employers who fail to pay them using mobile money. Professor Jutta Bakonyi from Durham University explains that phones facilitate migration and keep people connected, and digital networks also control Somalia's extensive mobile money system. However, a lack of awareness of how to operate the phones and the software loaded on to them make the phones' users vulnerable to the money being taken, and even to extortion and exploitation.

Photo: A woman in a camp in South Africa checks a phone Credit: Getty Images