Abstract

Inequalities and gender roles are involved in dynamics taking place before, during and after the transit of refugees in Europe: forced recruitment, sexual violence or criminalisation affect men and women in different ways. The recent refuge crisis that reached cruel proportions in 2015 and 2016 is a reflection of the dire consequences that armed conflicts and socio-political crises have in people's lives, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. Analysing this human rights crisis from a feminist gender perspective allows us to give visibility to some important elements for a more complete and less partial approach.

This Gender Workshop intends to emphasize the elements that involve the displacement, reception and often unprepared reception of women in refugee camps, and to understand who they are, how they arrive in Europe, their identities, (hi)stories and how they got here, characterises them as human, with fears, traumas, but above all the desire to move on. Although there are no gender-disaggregated figures for the total number of forced displaced people in the world, the fact is that in recent years, we have witnessed as a considerable increase in the displaced population of women. Still worse is that women face particular difficulties in the process of seeking asylum since gender-based violence is not always recognised as a reason to guarantee access to this fundamental right.

Bio note

Marcela Uchoa holds a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Fortaleza; she is a PhD Candidate in Political Philosophy at the University of Coimbra. Activist, Vice-President of the Association of Brazilian Researchers in Coimbra; Member of the Feminist Assembly of Coimbra. Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Law at the Faculdade Cearense CE_Brasil. Collaborator of the Institute of Philosophical Studies of the University of Coimbra.

Recommended Readings:

Miguel Juan, Carmen (2014) Pandataria: Una mirada feminista al derecho internacional de los Derechos Humanos y al derecho internacional de las personas refugiadas: Universidad de Valencia, Facultad de Derecho. Doctoral Thesis. http://roderic.uv.es/bitstream/handle/10550/35903/Tesis%20Carmen%20Miguel%20Juan.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y   [in open-access]

[Within the Gender Workshop Series VIII that takes place between October 2017 and June 2018]