"We are Forgotten": Forced Migration, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, and Coronavirus Disease-2019.

Jenny Phillimore,Sandra Pertek,Saime Ozcurumez,Selin Akyuz,Pip Mcknight,Jeanine Hourani,Sarah Taal,Hoayda Darkal

doi:10.1177/10778012211030943

Abstract

Adopting a structural violence approach, this article explores, with survivors and practitioners, how early coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic conditions affected forced migrant sexual and gender-based violence survivors’ lives. Introducing a new analytical framework combining violent abandonment, slow violence, and violent uncertainty, we show how interacting forms of structural violence exacerbated by pandemic conditions intensified existing inequalities. Abandonment of survivors by the state increased precarity, making everyday survival more difficult, and intensified prepandemic slow violence, while increased uncertainty heightened survivors’ psychological distress. Structural violence experienced during the pandemic can be conceptualized as part of the continuum of violence against forced migrants, which generates gendered harm.

Highlights

The emergence of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had an impact on populations across the globe, but not all populations are affected
Adopting what Henderson (2020) describes as a structural violence approach, this article responds to the question of how did early pandemic conditions shape the lives of forced migrant survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)? To answer this question, we introduce a new analytical framework bringing together three forms of violence: violent abandonment (Schindel, 2019), slow violence of the everyday (Mayblin et al, 2020), and violent uncertainty (Grace et al, 2018)
Our structural violence approach introducing an analytical framework connecting different forms of structural violence offered a novel and valuable way of exploring in detail the nature of structural violence experienced by forced migrants, and explicated the relations between structural and interpersonal violence that are part of a continuum of violence

Summary

Introduction

The emergence of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had an impact on populations across the globe, but not all populations are affected . Women survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) are among the most vulnerable forced migrants frequently at risk of violence across the refugee journey (Ko & Perreira, 2010), including once in refuge or post-resettlement, with the very credibility of the abuse experienced questioned and shown to undermine claims for protection (Baillot et al, 2014). Women who have experienced multiple traumas may be at continued risk of violence and may receive insufficient protection from COVID-19-related social, economic, and health risks. Scholars debate whether states have an obligation to allow such individuals to cross their borders freely and to protect those who arrive by providing them equal access to services in the receiving country (Schmidtke & Ozcurumez, 2008; Wellman & Cole, 2011). Addressing SGBV-related needs entrenched in social, economic, and political vulnerabilities, which both predate and occur across the forced migration journey, is challenging. Responsibility for and the funding of service provision are contested

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Conclusion