Refugee women who flee from wars, governments, hunger and misery, abduction and/or rape to start a new life, are exposed to the most severe forms of gender-based persecution. Refugee women, who are deprived of their homes, countries, and often their families' protection, face different forms of danger and violence at every stage of this long journey to exile. At the end of this journey, which women started with the hope of reaching a safe place, is usually almost the same with what they ran from. Evaluating the situation faced by refugee women and girls in Van, one of the stops of this 'journey of hope',  Van Bar Association Immigration and Asylum Commissioner Lawyer Jiyan Özkaplan said that this group is exposed to the most severe physical and sexual violence in the country take refuge in.

 

'THEY ARE BEING EXPOSED TO ALL KINDS OF VIOLENCE'

 

Lawyer Özkaplan who states that Syrian women are at the majority that is exposed to violence due to nationalism and racism, said many refugee women and girls have to live with sexual harassment, abuse and threat of rape. Özkaplan said: "Besides, they face all kinds of sexual violence while escaping from war and persecution, such as being forced into sex work or forced marriage with people they do not want. Sometimes it gets so bad that they have to get married to their perpetrator."

 

PHSYICAL AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND ABUSE

 

Reminding that half of the immigrants are women, Özkaplan drew attention to the problems women face because they are women. Özkaplan listed the problems faced by refugee women as follows: "Women and girls are subjected to physical and sexual harassment, abuse, abuse of their husbands or they are abandoned by their husbands, sexual exploitation and prostitution, gang rape, being impregnated before during and in the country they took refuge in. They are subjected to sexual harassment by the border officials or human traffickers during their escape. They are in danger of being captured by slave traffickers, they are subjected to sexual assault as a punishment, they are subjected to sexual bullying trying to obtain their legal status. They also faced with not being recognized as a person and being excluded from their process of obtaining legal status.

 

Emphasizing that the most important step to be taken to prevent violence against women and refugee women in particular, policies that will empower women should be implemented in a more determined and fruitful way, Özkaplan continued: "Women must be empowered on basis of economy. We have to work on educating the young girls and preventing child labour. We have to execute the legal process based on the statement of the women and implement deterrant penalties against the perpetrators of sexual violence."

 

MA / Özlem Yayan