Why education is an important part in combating gendered violence of migration

Everyone knows that refugee camp aren't a nice place to live or visit even. And I knew that there was violence in these camps. I was imagining looting, and other forms of violence that I generally associate with events where people are put in desperate situations and have to survive by any measures. However in reading articles like From Outrage to Courage by Anne Firth Murray and Medical Outcast by Roxane Richter, I discovered that I was wrong.

SO wrong

While I'm sure some looting happens, there is also a lot of gendered violence such as rape, forced marriage and trafficking. The women in these camp have very little power as they are not only refugees but women. These women are forced into a system where there are many people around them who could take advantage of them and very few people to report this to. These women know very few people in the area as they had to leave almost everything they knew behind, so how can they turn to someone and say that they were raped or abused by their husband or someone else in the camp?

In Murray's book she discusses all the violence that women can experience in these camps. And it is an extensive list including rape, abuse, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, sexual slavery and trafficking. Its horrible to read especially when specific examples are given such as when she talks about sex for survival. She discusses how women would trade sex with them for food just to survive and how some of those women ended up trafficked into the military to be a sex slave. If the women in those trafficked situations said no they would be beaten until they said yes. Murray through out her book is advocating for people to get involved and do something to stop this violence. One idea was to allow women to make the camp. They would be able to position their houses and public places so that a minimum amount of women would be hurt.

Richter used women's stories to articulate a similar problem. She focuses more on the medical aspect of gendered violence due to migration than Murray does. Most of Richter's stories deal with women who are seeking medical care but are afraid to due to their undocumented status or racism. As I mentioned above women who are migrants don't always know their rights or who to turn to if they are treated poorly. They are powerless because no one is watching their back. One woman in South Africa, Fungayi, went to the hospital and was turned away for being Zimbabwean. And so many other women shared similar stories of racism and malpractice, some also Zimbabwean in South Africa and other Mexican in Texas. It horrifying to think that this still happens here in the US or anywhere.

Before reading these articles I had no idea any of this was going on, that there was still such blatant racism in medical facilities. The racism I know is making someone wait longer than normal for MRI and giving them less than stellar pain meds or sending them home earlier than recommended. I don't live in an environment where many people get sent away without receiving any medical treatment. Its hard to believe. But what scares me even more is that its so hidden.

No news articles are talking about this or at least not in away that reaches the general public. And I'm not even sure where the conversation would go if the media did have these articles. It would probably become bipartisan issue and have some people screaming that we need to pay attention to our own nation while others would, wisely, say we need to help these women.

However, before these conversations can even take place we must learn about these issues, let the public look behind the curtain and see the gore that's been covered up. We need to start researching, which is understandably hard as most of these refugees aren't trusting of people in power and move around making tracking their lives hard. We need to start see how the world is shaped by certain institutions even when we don't mean it to be and change it so everyone can be safe and happy.

And all that starts by getting the information out to the people who want to listen.