The Production of Gendered and Racist Violence in European Refugee Regimes and Form of Resistance

This paper will examine the ways in which European asylum and refugee regimes produce gendered and racist forms of violence, and fail to protect women who have been victims of violence at all stages of their migratory journeys. Whilst recent EU asylum directives have qualified victims of gendered and sexual violence as “vulnerable” and therefore in need of special protections, in practice these women are subject to structural and institutional neglect which amount to additional forms of violence that insert themselves within the continuum of violence they experience. Based on an analysis of national and EU level policies as well as empirical research carried out with NGOs, policy makers and women asylum seekers and refugees in various European countries the paper examines not only the ways in which women’s experiences of violence are neglected within asylum systems, and the ways in which inadequate reception conditions render them vulnerable to further incidences of violence, but also the ways in which European border and migration policies render women vulnerable to violence and may be held directly responsible for many forms of violence against them. It will also examine the lack of legal or social support for women who experience violence, and the ways in which “culturalist” views on migration act to essentialise certain forms of violence against migrant women, but invisibilise others. Finally the paper will examine women's resistance to the violence they face.