Violence against refugee women
Women migrants and refugees experience different forms of violence that intersect and occur on a continuum exposing them to interlocking cycles of violence in different settings of their migration experience. These experiences of violence compound each other, so that having been victimised in one instance may render women vulnerable to further violence in another setting. In a destination country like South Africa, the political, economic, and social structures of violence embedded within the asylum context and the conditions for refugee reception intersect with gendered power hierarchies to create specific insecurities for women refugees. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the vulnerabilities of women refugees.
HEARD researchers, in collaboration with Refugee Social Services and Refugee Pastoral Care, interviewed women refugees in Durban, South Africa to better understand the extent of sexual and gender-based violence against refugee women and how policies might contribute to or mitigate these.
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