Gender and Migration
Week 7
Gendering the Crisis: Mass Distress Migration and Refugees
Mass Distress Migration: movement of large numbers of people at a time of crisis, a time of mass distress. Distress could be caused by intl war, civil war, persecution of a particular group, flood, famine, earthquake, drought etc. Last four often considered ‘natural disasters’ ‘acts of God’, first three to do with human action. However, increasingly argued that floods, famines and earthquakes result also from human action, or at least the severity that they take does. Example: floods (built environment), famine (no overall shortgage but problem of distribution - Sen).
Different labels attached to those moving.
Refugees
Refugee is a legal definition, denoting somebody who has crossed an international border having a well-founded fear of persecution and unable to rely on their own government for protection. Technically, only a refugee if have been granted asylum in another country. Refugees can expect registration, some form of protection, aid or camp provision, and are internationally visible.
Displaced Persons / Internal Refugee
Those who have left their home, usually having lost their livelihood, but remain within their country of nationality. Similar causes apply as in the case of movement across international borders - conflict, armed violence, drought, flood, famine. Less clear who is responsible for them, don’t have agreed rights, may be invisible. NGOs increasingly likely to be heavily involved. Argued by some that the term internal refugee would be more appropriate, and could offer legal rights.
Over 15 million refugees worldwide. Unknown millions of displaced persons - many more than number of refugees. Africa alone has 5 million refugees and at least 16 million internally displaced people, or internal refugees.
1951 UN Convention and its 1967 protocol, ratified by most states, lay down rights of refugees and responsibilities of nation states.
UNHCR has had exile oriented approach, setting up and administering refugee camps, some of which are very long-standing. For example, there have been large UN run refugee camps in Palestine since 1948 (literally state-less people). Three generations: of people who have known no life except the camp. Increasing ngo intervention there. Also long-standing camps in Lebanon.
Old problems where repatriation begun or complete: Cambodia, El Salvador, Namibia, Nicaragua, S. Africa, Mozambique
New problems and new approaches: Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq, Kosovo, Chechyna, Afghanistan. Trying to prevent people having to move in the first place. Where they do, going for self-sufficiency in the camps, rapid return to communities of origin. New initiatives: safe haven idea (Kurds in Iraq), peacekeeping forces (US went into Somalia, UN and NATO into Bosnia), war crime tribunals as a disincentive to human rights abuses (?), human rights monitors.
Recent contributing factors: collapse of old world order in cold war, which has left regions heavily armed, exacerbated by global arms trade. State dissolution (eg. USSR), less interest by superpowers in intervening, ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing is about a calculated and deliberate strategy to create refugees.
‘Ten years ago there were almost eight million refugees. By 1996 this number has almost doubled: 15 million around the world. The majority are women and children. The growing number of refugees is neither a temporary problem nor the random product of chance events. It is the predictable consequence of human rights abuses around the world’.
(Amnesty International Report on Refugees: Human Rights Have No Borders, 1997)
In the midst of this many states, particularly northern industrialised states, are becoming adept at instituting procedures to avoid their obligations under international law. The richest countries in the world host a minority of the world’s refugees - only about 15%.
The concept of asylum seeker is being increasingly contested, and a new category of ‘economic migrant’ is in use. UNHCR: ‘States are increasingly taking steps to obstruct the arrival of asylum seekers, to contain displaced people within their home-land, and to return refugees to their country of origin’.
Measures include: rejection at the border (papers declared invalid, sent back to a country passed through to seek asylum there); sanctions on carriers, visa requirements that are very difficult for asylum seekers to fulfil (eg. Colombia). Asylum seekers are routinely detained, often for very lengthy periods in the US and Canada, while their application is processed. A new status of temporary protection has been introduced, inaugurated in Germany for people fleeing the civil war and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. Not the same rights as refugees.
Refoulement is common: returning refugees to countries where life or freedom is threatened.
We’ll come back to these debates next week, when we look at Fortress Europe.
Discussion Questions
What sorts of responsiblities should states have?
to offer legal status
to provide facilities and services for refugees
to provide financial support for refugees
to provide counselling and support for trauma
to provide education and training to facilitate entry into employment
to facilitate return
Why not have applications made to a global body, such as the UNHCR?
1.How are processes and experiences of mass-distress migration differentiated by gender?
A majority of refugees, and likely a majority of internal refugees, are women and children. Men more likely to be fighting, have been killed or taken captive, to be the last to leave and the first to return.
Leaving
Women may have less choice to leave
May have less say in time of leaving
In flight likely to have responsibilities for children/elderly
Vulnerable to rape, sexual harassment during flight
The conflict may target women: rape as a way to degrade not only the women but their family, their ethnic group; murder as a way of destroying women’s potential to procreate.
Applying for Refugee Status
Processing of asylum status/documentation treats women as dependants, not applicants in their own right. Males are allowed, encouraged, to speak for women.
Gender persecution not recognised as grounds for asylum. Come back to this next week. May be persecuted for what they do - child outside marriage, sexual relationship outside marriage, espouse women’s rights/ feminism - as well as what they don’t do - failure to uphold religious practices, refusal to marry - as well as for what is done to them - rape.
In Camps
Security in camps - might assume that once in a camp women refugees were ‘safe’ and their basic needs met. Not so.
Sexual favours may be demanded in return for food, services, documents etc
Increased risk of domestic violence: camp activities differ less for women than men
Male roles change more, possible frustration leading to tension, violence
Men may be given privileged access to resources eg. food. Often by women.
Risk moving around the camp from men and personnel
Women generally not consulted about their needs in the camp.
Reproductive factors for women - pregnant, just given birth, low nutritional status, FGM
Family planning may be non-existent or inadequate
More risk from water-borne diseases as collect, security risk in fuel collection
Camp services not culturally acceptable, or safely accessible, or open at right times
Don’t meet women’s needs - gynaecological, sanitary towels, washing facilities
Discrim. in terms of access to ed.
Women as preservers of culture, cultural norms intensified
Women don’t get access to income generating opportunities, credit, training etc.
Internal Refugees - case of Colombia
Conflict - left right origins. But v. complex. Paramilitary, army and guerillas. Drug-related violence. Violence for land. Kidnapping and extortion. Guerillas and paras and army moving around expecting food and shelter, destroying whole villages.
Govt recently introduced law to provide 3 months of emergency services for those displaced in last 12 months. Some move towards recognition of problem and provision.
60% of displaced people are women.
Been targetted as mothers to be murdered.
Displacement is rural-urban. Paper argues that women suffer most at point of destruction and displacement: ‘exposed to unexpected widowhood, threats, clandestine action, flight, the rupture of their territorial bonds represented by primary relationships organised around the private world of domesticity and the loss of a socially and physically familiar environment’. Men seem better able to cope at this point, largely because they participate in public life more and have experienced more mobility beforehand.
During reconstruction, however, women cope better. Not easy by any means, but through cooperation with other women gain access to public sphere, have more opportunities to find work than men - women’s experience in domestic work gives them access to work as domestic servants or laundrywomen immediately, albeit at low rates of pay. Access to ed., leisure and entertainment, women’s organisations etc. Men, on the other hand, cope much less well - their skills in ag. and cattle husbandry don’t translate to the urban labour market, they find themselves more confined to the domestic space. FHHs common after displacement - widowed, abandoned by men, men leaving for seasonal ag. work. Men want to return to rural areas much more than women.
2.Why is a gendered perspective so often absent from policy initiatives to tackle ‘crisis’ migration?
Gender perceived as an ‘add-on’ concern, a luxury welfare need. In crisis situation need to get in quick, when got things sorted out can consider gender. Centrality of gender in development aid not followed through into relief aid. Conceptual problem.
The relations between women and men in the camps have tended to be seen by those administering the camps as private matters in which they should not interfere
Male benevolence is assumed
3.How would adopting a gender perspective alter policy making and planning?
Who makes plans and policies?
Whose voices are heard?
Priorities become pro women
Work with women’s existing initatives
Recognise their needs - gender persecution, security, services, income generating and ed. opportunities, nutritional requirements, gynaecological services, rape and trauma counselling, own documents and status, how fulfil reproductive roles.
Introduce concepts of PGNs and SGNs.