16
Nov
How Faith can help Refugee and Migrant Women to Heal from Sexual and Gender-based Violence
Forced migration experience is often a traumatic and unpredictable experience. Migrants fleeing their countries of origin rarely expect to encounter the worst hazards, like kidnapping, human trafficking and confinement. In Medenine and Zarzis in southern Tunisia, 15 refugee and migrant women from ten Sub-Saharan countries told me their often harrowing stories. At times, listening to... Read More
5
Nov
The (Real) Truth about Asylum: a UK Perspective
There are many myths surrounding the asylum process, and the people who go through it. One of the first, and often most troubling, is that asylum-seekers who are have entered a country looking for safety – like the UK– are somehow automatically classed as ‘illegal’ as a result. British news reports describe such “illegals” hiding... Read More
18
Oct
SGBV Across Migrant and Refugee Journeys: Early Lessons Learnt from Tunisia
This post originally appeared on the Age of Superdiversity blog hosted by the University of Birmingham and Institute for Research into Superdiversity. It has been slightly modified for publication on Refugee Research Online. My research explores the influence of religion on migrant and refugee women who experienced Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) during their journeys.... Read More
2
Oct
Contempt, Criminalisation, and No Compassion: The UK’s Asylum System
The right to asylum is one of the oldest legal rights in the world and has been recognised by societies as divergent as Ancient Greece to Medieval England. The modern day version of the right to asylum stems from the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and states that ‘Everyone has the... Read More
7
Sep
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Migration, Refugees and Statelessness Interdisciplinary Conference – Tuesday November 19, 2019
Image: Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at Zam Zam camp outside El Fasher, Sudan (United Nations Photo) On Tuesday 19 November, the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, together with the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, will present a one-day conference exploring migration, refugee studies and statelessness. This event builds on the tradition of the Researchers for Asylum... Read More
20
Aug
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The SEREDA Project: A Reflection on Time and Stories
The Institute for Research into Superdiversity at the University of Birmingham is leading the SEREDA Project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, Volkswagen Stiftung and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond through the Europe and Global Challenges Initiative. Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) against refugees is a global challenge that demands urgent attention given the scale of forced displacement, and a problem at the nexus of... Read More
24
Jul
Book Review: ‘Syrian Women Refugees: Personal Accounts of Transition’ – Dr. Ozlem Ezer
“Journeys come in many forms: planned, unplanned, short, long, tiring, comforting, illuminating, legal, undocumented, on foot, by boat, with or without someone waiting at the other end” (Ezer, 2019: 1).” Dr Ozlem Ezer has worked and travelled through several different countries as a scholar, writer, educator, translator, and activist. She specialises in women’s and gender... Read More
16
Jul
A Review of “Making Migration Law: The Foreigner, Sovereignty and the Case of Australia”
Making Migration Law: The Foreigner, Sovereignty, and the Case of Australia Eve Lester, Cambridge University Press, 2018 The state’s assertion of “absolute sovereignty” as the dominant value over any presumed right to migrate from abroad is generally accepted in public discourse, but only dates from the last hundred years or so, according to Eve Lester.... Read More
3
Jul
Refugees’ Right to Physical Security: What does it Practically Mean?
The Law When one reads the term “right to physical security”, a basic understanding of what it means usually flirts with the idea of safety. However, in the legal world, it is always a safer option to have a well-defined right, as then one knows what a right entails and when it is being infringed.... Read More
20
Jun
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Book Review: ‘The Butterfly Refugee’ – Roger Ibn Tyrone
Refugee week (16-22 June, 2019) marks the timely release of the ‘The Butterfly Refugee’, a children’s book and poem written and illustrated by Roger Ibn Tyrone and published by Minaret Mountain Books. The book is recommended for children and adults, aged 8 years and over. ‘The Butterfly Refugee’ offers a poetic narrative of a little... Read More