Events
This section includes details of seminars, conferences and other events by and about refugee women, including events organised by WiRL members. Please email us if you would like us to include information about an event.
Future events and calls for papers
13 June 2024 - Roundtable – Sexuality, Gender and Migration
Sexuality, gender and migration
Bridges within research fields and between academia and community
Hybrid event: In person and online
Date: 13 June
Time: 10am – 2:30pm BST (UTC+1:00)
More details and registration: https://bit.ly/3QChdj6
Flier: here
This event will consist of two roundtables showcasing the research and the participatory methods used there as well as having a networking lunch to liaise with other academics, local stakeholders, PG students and other interested participants. During lunch, we will display short documentary films as well as visual materials (posters and collages) in a bid to illustrate how we have used participatory visual methods in our respective research projects.
AGENDA
10.00-10.20: coffee and tea on arrival
10.20-10.30 opening remarks, Professor David Ruebain, Pro Vice Chancellor of Culture, Equality and Inclusion, University of Sussex
10.30-12.00 ROUNDTABLE 1 Gender – sexuality – migrations. Dialogue between fields of research.
The roundtable aims to discuss the overlaps and differences in the research projects we have conducted with regards to three foci: conceptual (gender, sexual orientation, trans*); empirical (asylum seekers and “voluntary” migrants); and institutional (migration governance). In this context we will discuss the blurred boundaries of migrant categories; the role and application of intersectional analysis; as well as the importance of social spaces in understanding the experiences of research participants.
Speakers: Moira Dustin (Law/SCMR); Nuno Ferreira (Law/SCMR); Sarah Scuzzarello (Geography/SCMR); Rachel Larkin (Social Work/SCMR); Leila Zadeh (Rainbow Migration)
Chair: Nuno Ferreira (Law/SCMR)
12.00-1.00 Lunch
1.00- 2.30 ROUNDTABLE 2 Participatory visual methods – why, how and what’s the benefit
This roundtable focuses on the value of and challenges to participatory research in gender and LGBTQ+ migration studies. Presenters at the roundtable include academics, stakeholders and research participants to discuss the added benefits of participatory research methods and arts-based methods; the value of engaging in these, from the viewpoint of the participants as well as academics; and what needs to change in our research approach, both as individual researchers and at an institutional level, in order to make it more meaningful to participants and stakeholders.
Speakers: Manjot Kaur Dhaliwal (Sociology); Mehran Rezaei-Toroghi (Law); Magadaline Moyo (Right to Remain); Pierre Monnerville (photographer and owner at Unapologaytic Ltd.); Oner Ozdamar (Head of Department/teacher)
Chair: Sarah Scuzzarello (Geography/SCMR)
This event is part of the Summer of Research 2024, a festival celebrating fantastic research from the University of Sussex and its positive impact.
Past events
24 April 2024 - Panel Discussion and Book Launch – Conflict Refugees
Please join us for a Panel Discussion and Book Launch on
“Conflict Refugees: Past, Present and Future of International Protection”
Wednesday 24 April 2024, 4-5.30pm (BST) on Zoom. Register here.
By the end of 2022, there were more than 35 million refugees in the world. The main cause of forced displacement today is violence and widespread human rights violations associated with armed conflict. Accordingly, most refugees originate from countries experiencing armed conflicts such as Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar. Many of these situations of armed conflict are described as ‘protracted’ reflecting the obstacles to peace building and leading to associated situations of protracted forced displacement as refugees cannot return home.
This Panel will discuss the application of the Refugee Convention to persons fleeing violence in conflict, including its prospects and challenges, and other complementary protection statuses, designed for the needs of persons displaced by indiscriminate violence in conflict. The Panel Discussion will also formally launch Christel Querton’s monograph Conflict Refugees: European Union Law and Practice, published by Cambridge University Press in 2023.
Agenda
Welcome and Introduction by Chair: Dr Ruvi Ziegler, Associate Professor in International Refugee Law, University of Reading
Presentation of Conflict Refugees by Author: Dr Christel Querton, Wallscourt Fellow in Law, University of the West of England
Book discussant: Dr Cathryn Costello, Full Professor of Global Refugee and Migration Law, Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin
Panellists: Dr Iryna Hnasevych, Senior Legal Officer, European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)
Dr James C. Simeon, Associate Professor, York University, Toronto
Discussion/Q&As
29 April 2024 - Seminar – Coming in from the Cold? Group-based Refugee Determination for Women at Risk of Gender-based Violence
WiRL PUBLIC SEMINAR SERIES 2023/24
Seminar Two: Coming in from the Cold?
Group-based Refugee Determination for Women at Risk of Gender-based Violence
MONDAY 29 APRIL | 2:30pm-3:45pm (UTC) | 3:30pm-4:45pm (UK)
Flyer here.
Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland are systematically awarding refugee protection to Afghan women and girls, and UNHCR have endorsed this approach. Claims from some nationalities are being fast-tracked in the UK. Is this a new trend that advocates should welcome? How does national, regional and international law address group-based refugee protection? Should refugee status determination procedures be adapted to ensure group-based protection, or are individual assessments capable of incorporating group protection? What adaptations of the asylum procedure might be useful in streamlining group-based refugee protection (e.g.: fast-tracked decisions, questionnaires replacing interviews) and what are the risks? What are the wider implications (for non-gender-related asylum claims) of these recent developments? This panel will discuss recent developments regarding the grant of international protection to women at risk of gender-based violence, including Afghan women, on a group basis. It will identify the promise and pitfalls of group-based determination based on protected characteristics, such as sex and nationality.
Panellists include:
DALLAL STEVENS (CHAIR)
Professor of Law, University of Warwick.
ANNA MURPHY HØGENHAUG (SPEAKER)
Postdoc at Centre for AI Ethics, Law, and Policy, Aalborg University, Copenhagen: to discuss recent developments in Scandinavian countries and impact on recent regressive approaches to refugee protection.
CHRISTEL QUERTON (SPEAKER)
Wallscourt Fellow in Law and WiRL co-convener, University of the West of England (UWE) Bristol: to discuss recent Court of Justice of the European Union case law on refugee protection for refugee women as a group.
VERONICA MONTAGNESE (SPEAKER)
Country Guidance Officer (Afghanistan), European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA): to discuss EUAA Country Guidance in relation to Afghan women and girls and its impact across the EUTo discuss EUAA Country Guidance in relation to Afghan women and girls and its impact across the EU.
This will be the second in a series of free online seminars hosted by the Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) network on the 2023/24 theme of “Refuge in a cold climate: the impact on women”. This series draws on WiRL’s global membership to apply a gendered lens in analysing the impact of increasing hostility to refugees in different states and contexts. These are public events, ideal for anyone whose work relates to refugee or asylum-claiming women or with an interest in the needs and experiences of refugee women. This series will draw on WiRL’s global membership to apply a gendered lens in analysing the impact of increasing hostility to refugees in different states and contexts.
Please note this will be a recorded online event hosted on Zoom. You can find the agenda here. Finally, please remember to adjust the event timing for your own timezone, a helpful tool for this is here.
Feel free to share this event with any friends or colleagues who might be interested.
8 April 2024 - Workshop – Safe Spaces in Gender Sensitive Interviews
Workshop: ‘Safe Spaces in Gender Sensitive Interviews’ – Monday 8 April 2024
10:00-12:00am (CET) / 09:00-11:00am (GMT)
We are pleased to invite WiRL Members to this participatory online workshop in which experts from academia and the field will share knowledge and provide guidance based on their own experience as the basis for interactive work with participants. Full agenda here.
Research and experience show that gender-sensitive asylum interviewing is critical for women and survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) to feel able to give a full account of the reasons for their claim. Without this, there is a risk of poor communication, re-traumatisation, misunderstanding, failure to collect relevant evidence and – consequently – an unfair decision. Due to limited guidance[1] and failure to implement existing guidance, evidence suggests that many claimants do not have a good experience at their interview.[2]
Facilitators: Giulia Cragnolini, Independent Expert on migration and asylum; Devika Kapoor, Trainer and Coordinator at Amna; Lore Roels, PhD Candidate on misconceptions in gender-related asylum and non-refoulement procedures; Denise Venturi, Independent Expert and PhD Candidate in refugee, gender, intersectionality and LGBTIQ+ issues. Full Biographies here.
Participants: This workshop is for advocates and caseworkers who work with asylum-seeking and refugee women and survivors of GBV, women with lived experience of the asylum interview process, researchers, decision-makers and campaigners.
Follow-up: this is a closed workshop for a limited number of participants, however materials from the event will be published on the WiRL website after the event. Knowledge shared during the workshop will contribute to the development of WiRL guidelines on Gender Sensitive Interviewing.
If you are a WiRL member and would like to register for the workshop, please email [email protected] and if you would like to find out more about becoming a member so you can participate in this workshop please also email [email protected]
[1] Hungarian Helsinki Committee. (2015) Credibility Assessment in Asylum Procedures – A Multidisciplinary Training Manual, Vol 2; UNHCR. (2005) Ensuring Gender Sensitivity in the Context of Refugee Status Determination and Resettlement. Module 2 (Resource Package) https://www.refworld.org/reference/manuals/unhcr/2005/en/40043.
[2] Bögner, D., Brewin, C., & Herlihy, J. (2010). Refugees’ Experiences of Home Office Interviews: A Qualitative Study on the Disclosure of Sensitive Personal Information. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 36(3), 519–535.
20 March 2024 - Seminar – Del Proyecto Migración en las Américas
¿Qué protección existe para las mujeres migrantes que experimentan violencia de genero?
Una mirada del contexto en Estados Unidos, Mexico y Colombia con Lorena Cano del IMUMI – Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, AC (México) y Gracy Pelacani de la Clínica Jurídica para Migrantes de la Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) reúnan con nosotras para esta sesión virtual.
En este seminario web, explicamos, en detalle, cuáles son las protecciones en Colombia, Estados Unidos, y en México para mujeres migrantes que han experimentado violencia de genero. Describimos las leyes y protecciones en cada país, los procesos de asilo o como pedir por el estatus de refugio, y otras opciones que existen para mujeres migrantes buscando protección en situaciones de violencia de genero. Women in Refugee Law era un copatrocinador del seminario web.
26 March 2024 - Seminar – African Refugee Women and Gendered (In)visibility
Seminar: African Refugee Women and Gendered (In)visibility
This was a seminar held in partnership between WiRL and the Department of African and African American Studies at Brandeis University. We were delighted to have a brilliant speaker (Rose Jaji) and equally brilliant moderator (Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso) for this event addressing the gendered invisibility of refugee women outside their specific African cultural and political contexts.
Rose Jaji is senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). Her research areas of interest are migration/refugees and conflict and peacebuilding. She has published peer-reviewed articles on migrants/refugees and gender, refugees and social technology, identity, asylum seekers, and border crossing, return migration as well as gender and peacebuilding. She is the author of Deviant Destinations: Zimbabwe and North to South Migration (Lexington Books, 2020) and Non-migration amidst Zimbabwe’s Economic Meltdown (Lexington Books, 2023). Her work is also published as blog posts, policy briefs, newsletter articles, and opinion pieces.
You can see Dr Jaji’s presentation slides here
Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso is Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Brandeis University & co-author of African Refugees (Indiana UP) and a member of WiRL’s Steering Group.
28 March 2024 - Book Launch – The Poetry of Forced Migration
👥 The Poetry of Forced Migration – Malka al-Haddad and Loraine Masiya Mponela: In Conversation
🎟️ To attend, register here
🗓️ Thursday, 28 March 2024, Online, 6-7.30pm UK Time
Join us for an evening of poetry and conversation with poets Malka al-Haddad and Loraine Masiya Mponela.
As part of the evening, Malka and Loraine will read and discuss each other’s and their own work and share insights and reflections on the influences they draw on in their writing and activism.
The readings and conversation take place online on Thursday, 28 March 2024, from 6pm till 7.30pm UK time.
ABOUT THE POETS
● Malka Al Haddad is the author of The Truth at the End of the Night (Palewell Press Ltd, 2023) and Birds Without Sky: Poems from exile (Harriman House Ltd, 2018). Malka grew up during the Iran-Iraq war and lost several close family members during the first Gulf War and American invasion in 2003. She became a poet and a human rights advocate, which attracted hostility towards her in Iraq. While she was studying English in preparation for her PhD in the UK, death threats against her escalated and she couldn’t return back to her beloved home and family. Malka’s asylum claim was continually refused by the Home Office and after 11 years, she was eventually granted leave to remain, but without access to public funding. She is now an ambassador for City of Sanctuary in the UK. Malka’s pain and anger on behalf of all those caught up in the UK asylum system give her poetry a passionate strength and urgency.
● Loraine Masiya Mponela is a migrants rights campaigner, community organiser and the author of Now I Sing: 50 poems to celebrate 50 years (Independently published, 2024) and I Was Not Born a Sad Poet (Independently published, 2022). Loraine was born and raised in Malawi, and currently lives in England, UK. A writer of poetry, comedy and articles, her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, journals, and magazines.
ABOUT FORCED MIGRATION AND THE ARTS
Forced Migration and The Arts is a global network that brings together people with lived experience of forced migration, artists, academics and activists from around the world. The network hosts monthly discussion panels around forced migration and the arts, and aims to:
● bring together refugee and non-refugee artists, activists, scholars and art spaces,
● create a platform for conversation, dialogue, discussion and the sharing of ideas, experiences, knowledge, information and approaches, and
● encourage mutual support and collaboration.
3 April 2024 - Conference – The Current State of Migration
Sibel Safi from WiRL’s Steering Group, is one of the organisers of The Current State of Migration, at Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi, 3-5 April. The Call for Papers for the conference is open until 15 March, early bird registration runs until 22 March and the final deadline for registration is 27 March.
27 November 2023 - Seminar – A Cold Climate for Refugees?
Seminar One: A Cold Climate for Refugee Women?
This was the first in a series of free online seminars hosted by the Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) network on the 2023/24 theme of “Refuge in a cold climate: the impact on women”. These are public events, ideal for anyone whose work relates to refugee or asylum-claiming women or with an interest in the needs and experiences of refugee women. This series will draw on WiRL’s global membership to apply a gendered lens in analysing the impact of increasing hostility to refugees in different states and contexts.
The seminar featured two presentations:
1. “Saving brown women from brown men? Navigating the politics of refugee protection in the interests of all”
Professor Heaven Crawley
Head of Equitable Development and Migration at the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research in New York and a post-colonial feminist researcher who has worked on issues of gender and refugee protection since the late 1980s.
Heaven Crawley Presentation 27.11.23
2. “Addressing challenges, unlocking opportunities: UNHCR’s approach to gender equality and the empowerment of refugee women in practice”
Sandra Sierfert Stroem
Associate Protection Officer and Gender Advisor in the Division of International Protection at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva.
Sandra Stroem Presentation 27.11.23
Presentations were followed by a discussion chaired by Loraine Mponela (WiRL co-convenor).
12 July 2022 - Seminar – A Year of WiRL: Reflection, Celebration and Planning
WiRL held its first anniversary members’ event on 12 July 2022 where members identified priorities for refugee women from their sector, discipline, region and perspectives and considered how WiRL might contribute to addressing these priorities in its second year.
30 November 2021 - Conference – Key Questions in Asylum, Refugee and Human Rights Law
The first Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) network conference took place on 30 November 2021 and brought together academics, activists and practitioners to discuss key questions in asylum, refugee and human rights law.
Read a summary of the conference (PDF).
View the speakers’ biographies and abstracts for the panels (PDF).
Watch the recordings of the conference:
4 May 2021 - Roundtable – Launch of WiRL Network
On 4 May 2021, a Roundtable was organised to launch the network.
Twenty-one participants from European countries, Australia and the USA attended, including academics, asylum-seeking and refugee women, activists, advocates, and representatives of UNHCR, NGOs and the legal profession. Participants brainstormed and identified research questions and areas of contemporary significance for the protection of refugee women, before proposing steps for taking the initiative forward.
The Roundtable was informed by a Concept Note (PDF).
