Sexual and gender-based violence against refugee women: the unseen characteristic of the Mediterranean refugee crisis

This thesis fills a void in the literature regarding refugee women’s experiences of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) during the Mediterranean refugee crisis of 2015. Working within a feminist and participatory framework, I present a qualitative analysis based on participant observation and interviews with thirteen refugee women and five aid workers, conducted in T. refugee camp in Greece. A central focus is on the women’s own understandings of violence through the lens of their lived experiences. In contrast to the usual focus, in refugee studies, on violence only during wartime, I show that the women understand violence to permeate their lives. A model based on an extended continuum of violence had to be devised to include the range of forms (material/physical, symbolic and structural) that the women themselves identified as violence. They also insisted on the importance of understanding violence across the three stages of the refugee state (pre-refugee life, refugee journey, life in the camp). I introduce the concepts of a-diakopti (uninterrupted) violence and violent chronographies and topographies to capture these traumatic accounts of their lives. In the refugee camp, women continue to experience various forms of SGBV. Labelling the camps as a ‘safe space’ contradicts its actual character as a highly gendered space that poses danger to women – a manifestation of the paradoxicality of space. Humanitarian organisations play a major role in the camp life. Four areas of tension are identified: decision-making related to funding and provision, the repressive compassion of humanitarian interventions, the spatiality of the provision and various forms of discrimination. Their examination shows that humanitarian aid is both inclusionary and exclusionary. The purpose of this thesis is to make refugee women’s lives visible; the ultimate hope is to encourage changes in how SGBV is addressed in refugee camps, empowering women by taking their voices seriously