Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) was set up in 2021 to bring together asylum claiming and refugee women, senior and early career scholars, practitioners, policymakers and activists working in this field around the globe.
The purpose of the network is to re-centre the study of refugee women within refugee law, policy and practice. In particular, the initiative challenges the assumption that legal and policy changes in the last 30 years have displaced the need for continued research and advocacy efforts.
WiRL aims to safeguard advances and identify contemporary obstacles to the protection of women in refugee law, policy and practice.
WiRL’s values are:
- Diversity – we are a diverse membership in respect to gender, sector, discipline and region
- Collaboration – we work collaboratively to advance the network’s objectives
- Knowledge – the network has knowledge production and sharing at its centre
The objectives of the network are:
- Refocusing attention on the needs and experiences of refugee women in all their diversity.
- Providing a platform for refugee and asylum-claiming women to contribute to refugee policy and law.
- Ensuring that women’s voices and interests are included in academic and policy discourse relating to refugee protection.
- Reviewing the state of protection in domestic jurisdictions, regionally and internationally.
- Identifying unrecognised setbacks to adequate protection.
- Creating new knowledge to improve the quality of protection for refugee women.
- Highlighting gender diversity in refugee protection and incorporating the views of women and men.
- Creating opportunities for collaborative work to address new and persistent challenges.
- Supporting the development of young and early career scholars and practitioners, especially women
- Building an open and inclusive global network to take forward all of the above objectives.
