Somali Refugees Research Articles

Forced Displacement, Gender, and Livelihoods: Refugees in Ethiopia

This study uses the Ethiopia Skills Profile Survey (2017) to examine the gender differences in livelihood opportunities and activities between refugees and host communities. The results show a significant gender gap in participation in the labour market where refugee and host women are less likely to have employment, and that household characteristics influence women’s economic opportunities. While having a female household head, access to agricultural land, and additional female adults increase both refugee and host female’s participation in economic activities, higher numbers of children in the household significantly reduce refugee women’s opportunities. In addition, higher educational attainment boosts both male and female refugees’ participation in wage employment. Among refugees, both female and male Somali refugees have relatively better access to employment opportunities compared to other refugee groups, especially refugees from South Sudan and Sudan.

Making Sense of Complexity in Refugee Family Systems: Second-Generation Somali and Hmong Refugee Adults’ Reflections on Their Relationships with Their First-Generation Refugee Parents

ABSTRACT The current study aimed to understand the relationships of 2nd generation (2G) refugees during their formative years with their 1st generation (1G) parents. We used a phenomenological approach to conduct individual interviews with six 2G refugees (three Hmong-Americans and three Somali-Americans) in the U.S. who fit the study’s inclusion criterion of being affected by their parents’ migration trauma. Themes emerging from participants’ narratives describe 1) 2G Refugee Relationship Quality with 1G Refugee Parents; 2) Integrating All Dimensions of 2G Intersectional Identities; 3) 2G Resiliency Resources; and 4) Moving Forward. The current study’s findings suggest ways that intergenerational trauma affected 2G refugees’ relationships with their parents and added layers of complexity to the normative challenges of adolescent development. Researchers are encouraged to employ a family system lens to consider the effects of migration trauma across generations when examining relationship dynamics in refugee families. It is important for clinicians to consider the systemic impacts of refugee stress and trauma when working with refugee adolescents and their families.

Cultural Norm Transmission/Disruption amongst Somali Refugee Women: The Beauty and Privilege of Intergenerational Relationships

Cultural Norm Transmission/Disruption amongst Somali Refugee Women: The Beauty and Privilege of Intergenerational Relationships

Embodiment of structural vulnerability: illness experiences among Somali refugee women in urban displacement

ABSTRACT Objectives Forced migration and its subsequent sequelae have caused refugees to face significant adversities throughout the displacement process, making them susceptible to significant health issues. Refugees displaced in Africa are a group especially vulnerable to poor health outcomes, experiencing a documented decline in overall physical and mental health status and rise in mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Despite the heightened health risks experienced by Somali refugees, particularly women, research into their complex illness experiences and co-/multimorbid health conditions is scarce, leaving a gap in our understanding of the multifaceted health challenges of this population. Design Using structural vulnerability theory, this study explores how the broader host context shapes illness experiences for Somali refugee women in Kenya. Specifically, we describe the factors associated with illness experiences of urban Somali refugee women and how this compares with women with other similarly situated identities, such as Somali Kenyan women, other/non-Somali refugees, and Kenyan women. In-depth interviews were conducted with 43 women in Eastleigh, Kenya. Results Using hybrid thematic analysis, the emergent themes were grouped into three distinct domains: (1) multimorbid, complex illness experiences, (2) embodiment of structural vulnerability, and (3) distinct/shared vulnerability among refugee/non-refugee women. Results suggest that illness experiences of displaced refugee women are inextricably linked to traumatic experiences before displacement, as well as the experiences of transmigration stressors and the hostile socio-legal dynamics encountered post-displacement. Conclusions Our findings also have implications for the need to consider intersectional identities when examining for differential exposure to structural risks and the susceptibility to poor health experiences as well as supports the need for urgent change and improvement in systems of social protection and basic care for refugees experiencing prolonged displacement.

Medical Returnees: Somali Canadians Seeking Psychosocial and Spiritual Care in East Africa.

The refugee experience has been associated with increased rates of psychosocial challenges. At the same time, evidence suggests that those who resettled in Western countries including Canada underutilize the formal mental health services in these countries. The low uptake has been attributed to barriers such as language, complexity of the health systems, and differing explanatory models of illness. The same is true for Somali refugees in the West. Studies suggest that Somali refugees prefer spiritual healing for psychosocial illness and that some return to East Africa for such healing. However, little is known about Somali Canadian's experiences with the Canadian mental health services and transnational health seeking. The study aimed to understand psychosocial challenges faced by Somali Canadians, their health seeking behaviors, and service utilization. Because some sought psychosocial services outside the country, fieldwork was conducted in Kenya to provide new evidence on transnational healing services. Ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews were utilized. Thirty-seven interviews of about an hour each were undertaken. Fieldwork in Nairobi focused on spiritual healing centers and medical clinic. The findings reveal important findings regarding psychosocial challenges experienced by participants. It discusses psychosocial illnesses as variedly experienced, challenges with accessing Canadian healthcare services, and seeking culturally appropriate services in East Africa. The study highlights participants and their families struggle with psychosocial distress, the challenges of accessing culturally appropriate services within Canada, the role of spiritual healers and the existence of transnational health seeking practices.

Barriers to mental health service utilization among African immigrants in the United Kingdom: A systematic review

AbstractBackgroundAfrican immigrants in the United Kingdom (UK) face unique challenges in accessing mental health services (MHSs), in contrast to their peers born in the UK, contributing to their worsening mental and physical health outcomes. This study aims to uncover barriers to MHS utilization and proffer evidence‐based recommendations toward addressing the mental health needs of African immigrants residing in the UK.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted across six databases: Medline, PsycINFO, Web of Science, CIHNAL, Scopus, and Embase published up to September 2022. To assess methodological quality of the included studies, the Critical Appraisal Skills Program qualitative checklist and the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool Version 2018 were used. Consecutively, a deductive thematic analysis was employed to group related barriers within overarching themes.ResultsThe study selection process yielded eight studies conducted in the UK, encompassing African populations identifying as African/Afro‐Caribbean origin, Somali refugees, and ethnic minorities of Black/British descent. The findings highlight the complex interplay of key barriers such as stigma, residential instability, cultural influences, discrimination, and accessibility issues, among others, that continue to hinder African populations from accessing and utilizing MHSs. These barriers were categorized into predisposing,enabling and need factors (themes), aligning with Anderson's model of health service utilization, reflecting a comprehensive range of challenges affecting this population.ConclusionThis systematic review illuminates the myriad barriers faced by African immigrants in utilizing MHSs in the UK, underlining the urgent need for targeted interventions. The findings advocate for the development of culturally sensitive, affordable, and accessible MHSs and policies that address the personal, sociocultural, and structural barriers identified. Collaboration across key stakeholders is highly recommended for advancing equitable and inclusive MHSs for all.

Welfare stigma in a social democratic welfare regime during a decade of national public debate: production, contestation and continuities

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to investigate how welfare stigma is produced and counteracted in the public sphere in a social democratic welfare regime. The Norwegian case represents a generous welfare state that historically has been thought to lessen and avoid stigma connected to welfare benefits. While studies have identified a hardening anti-welfare consensus and stigma production in liberal welfare regimes, we know less about how the connection between welfare benefits, stigma production and resistance has played out in the recent developments in the social democratic welfare regime context. Public debates give access to a dynamic political battleground where different actors participate, and we analyse six welfare-related national debates covered in Norwegian newspapers between 2010 and 2019. We identify key stakeholders, symbolic boundaries used to distinguish deserving from undeserving recipients, and we discuss the outcomes and wider functions of these debates. The debates contain moral aspects of welfare and allegations of fraud by recipients in general as well as by targeted groups such as Somali single mothers, refugees and young adults. We find that stigmatizing framings known from other national contexts also enter the Norwegian debates and illustrate how welfare stigma production plays a role in promoting more selective welfare policies.

Intersectional Barriers Faced by Urban Somali Refugee Girls in Uganda

Abstract We based this article on a qualitative study that focuses on barriers to the integration of Somali Muslim urban refugee girls in Uganda. We were interested in how different ethnic and gender identities influence Somali refugee girls’ access to education and participation in society. Based on 75 semi-structured interviews with refugee children between 10 and 16 years of age in Kampala, we used constant comparative analysis to explore the intersectional experiences of Somali refugee girls. We found that they face specific gender-based discrimination and temporal and spatial restraints. This plays a key role in their ability to integrate into society. We conclude that it is important to avoid homogenizing refugee children's experiences and to incorporate intersectional analysis in studying integration.

Somali refugees in urban neighborhoods: an eco-social study of mental health and wellbeing.

Impact of pre-migration trauma and post-migration settlement on refugee mental health and wellbeing is well-documented. However, little research has focused on the specific places where refugees settle and spend their daily lives within the post-migration context. This study adopts an eco-social perspective to explore the relationship between urban neighborhoods and refugee mental health and wellbeing. We conducted twenty-six qualitative interviews with Somali refugees in London and Bristol in the UK. The transcripts were coded using an inductive approach and analyzed through thematic analysis. Somali refugees navigate a complex urban environment comprising various neighborhood features which include important places near home, interactions with neighbors, and community spaces. While these features afford them resources to improve mental health and wellbeing, they also present challenges such as high urban density, exposure to violence or discrimination, and neighborhood disorder. The societal and physical features of urban neighborhoods intersect with refugee experiences of adversity, trauma and stress over time. As eco-social niches, urban neighborhoods are both accommodating, safe and familiar, as well as alien, threatening and unwelcoming. To support mental health and wellbeing and ensure successful settlement, it is essential to recognize the agency of refugees and provide continuous support throughout the entire asylum process and after, ensuring stable and safe living conditions.

Gender Differentiated Attitude Towards Cesarean Section: A Case of Somali Refugees in Dadaab, Kenya

Gender Differentiated Attitude Towards Cesarean Section: A Case of Somali Refugees in Dadaab, Kenya

Social literacy practices of Afghan and Somali refugees in a transitional setting

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social literacy practices of Afghan and Somali refugees in a transitional context. Although refugees have been the subject of previous research in various domains, our understanding of their literacy practices in urban areas, particularly in Malaysia, is still limited. The lack of literacy research in this setting exposes a gap in the current literature aimed at better understanding refugee literacy practices in a transitional situation. Thus, this study examines urban refugee literacy experiences via the lens of literacy as a social practice. It was exploratory in nature and used a qualitative methodology. Face-to-face interviews with four refugees were conducted at two community centres to collect primary data. In addition, field notes based on community centre visits provided by the participants were used as a secondary data source in the study to understand the literacy experiences of the participants better. The findings indicated that participants enacted literacy practices in their transitional setting for three primary purposes: to increase their funds of knowledge, to enact personal agency, and for community building. These results challenge the stereotype that refugees are powerless and highlight avenues or ways in which refugee communities can be supported in a transitional context.

Perceptions of health: (dis)integration and (mis)integration of refugees in Nairobi, Kenya

This article utilizes 40 in-depth interviews of healthcare workers (HCWs) including Kenyan nurses, medical doctors, psychologists, pharmacists, refugee NGO officers, and others based in Nairobi who come in professional contact with Congolese and Somali refugees on a regular basis. They were asked to describe barriers to healthcare, care seeking behaviors, and pathways to care that refugees experience. These responses are juxtaposed with 60 life-history interviews, exploring the same topics with Congolese and Somali refugees living in Kawangware and Eastleigh estates. In short, this article argues that refugees and HCWs have a shared understanding of the barriers to healthcare for displaced people, such as poverty, refugee documentation issues, and inadequacy of Nairobi’s healthcare system for marginalized populations. However, there is a significant disconnect in perspectives for how healthcare integration should take place regarding major causes of ill health, such as malnutrition and poor hygiene. Refugees understand oppression as a primary structural determinant of health, whereas many HCWs take an individualized view, advocating for modifications of knowledge and behaviors of refugees rather than adjusting structural issues. This is reflective of larger processes, whereby refugees are actively “(dis)integrated” by state and society and are observed by many Kenyans as “(mis)integrating,” or integrating “wrongly” or “badly,” which has major implications for how to shape possible policy interventions.

Nexus dynamics: the impact of environmental vulnerabilities and climate change on refugee camps

Abstract Climate change and forced migration are often thought about in terms of the sheer numbers of people who might be displaced by a transforming environment. But the potential for ‘environmental refugees’—whether from long-term degradation or short-term catastrophe—extends far beyond those directly affected. Understanding the forces that produce, respond to and amplify such forced migration patterns requires a complex and nuanced view of them. In this article, I explore the question of environmental displacement through the lens of nexus dynamics and look at how environmental refugees complicate our understandings of place, belonging, stability and resilience. I do so through a focus on the largest global refugee camps in the world and the particular environmental vulnerabilities that each faces. Using Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh (Rohingya refugees), Dadaab in Kenya (Somali refugees) and Za’atari in Jordan (Syrian refugees), I examine the ways that political, economic and ecological factors have driven the inhabitants to the camps, keep them vulnerable within them, and raise questions about both their and the camps’ respective futures. By cataloguing some of the environmental risks within the region of each camp and examining each camp’s response in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, I consider the broader logic, viability and purpose of each of these camps, as representative of parallel spaces globally. What does resilience and vulnerability mean in a refugee camp? How does a nexus dynamics approach to climate change and migration help us to understand a complex system such as this?

Our Body Our Health (Jirkeena, Caafimaadkeena): Somali Women’s Narratives on Sexual Health

ABSTRACT Women across the globe have been subject to female genital cutting (FGC), with the highest rates in Somalia. FGC can result in sexual concerns, especially sexual pain and lower pleasure. Due to ongoing civil war and climate disasters, there is a large number of Somali immigrants and refugees living in countries where healthcare providers may be unfamiliar with the impact of FGC. In this qualitative study, sixty Somali women between the ages 20 and 45 and living in the U.S. shared their perspectives on how FGC has affected their sexual lives, including how they have coped with any complications attributed to FGC. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling and interviewed by a bilingual community researcher in either Somali or English. Data were analyzed through a participatory analysis process by academic and community researchers. Themes included sexual desire, arousal, and pleasure; sexual satisfaction; sexual pain at first intercourse; coping with sexual pain at first intercourse; long-term sexual pain, coping with long-term sexual pain. Results are discussed with a focus on agency of the participants, role of partners, and implications for healthcare professionals.

“When a bad thing happens…you are better only when you are home:” alienation and mental health challenges experienced by Congolese and Somali migrants in Johannesburg, South Africa

This article explores the link between migration and alienation and its impact on the mental health and wellbeing of Congolese and Somali asylum seekers and refugees—two of the largest populations of displaced migrants in South Africa. Drawing on ethnographic research in Johannesburg, we highlight the various ways alienation is both imposed upon and experienced by migrants and argue that systemic disintegration, or acts of alienation, can be seen as deliberate and active policies and practices that are instrumental in excluding asylum seekers and refugees from everyday life. The experiences of marginalization and othering narrated by Congolese and Somali migrants highlight ways in which alienation and disintegration from critical social connections including family, community, and familiar contexts fundamentally impact wellbeing and mental health as well as strategies of care-seeking, and other forms of relational resilience. While conceptualizations and metrics of integration may in some ways capture the fallout of disintegration, such as access to livelihoods, housing, education, and healthcare, we suggest that this does not adequately assess the profound damage by acts of alienation on crucial relationships. The alienated psyche of innumerable migrants in South Africa results in the feeling that “when a bad thing happens…you are better only when you are home.” This pain, or feelings of alienation, we argue, are a crucial aspect to our understanding of alienation and in turn, highlight the importance of alienation as an apt analytical tool through which experiences of asylum-seeking in South Africa can be understood.

Correction to: Unraveling Trouble Socializing: The Impact on the Intersection of Trauma, Substance Use, and Mental Disorders in Somali Refugee Youth

Correction to: Unraveling Trouble Socializing: The Impact on the Intersection of Trauma, Substance Use, and Mental Disorders in Somali Refugee Youth

Examining livelihood strategies of urban refugees through sustainable livelihoods perspective: A focus on Eritrean and Somali refugees in Addis Ababa

Examining livelihood strategies of urban refugees through sustainable livelihoods perspective: A focus on Eritrean and Somali refugees in Addis Ababa

African-Christian-Muslim dialogue on hospitality: A Case study of Somali refugees at the Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya

This paper demonstrates that African-Christian-Muslim dialogue, anchored on hospitality offers a suitable framework for restoring the dignity of Somali refugees at the Dadaab Refugee Camp. It highlights the plight of the Somali refugees and explores theological bases for remedying based on African-Christian-Muslim teachings. This study primarily uses Cardinal Cardijn’s “See, Judge, and Act” of Catholic social analysis. The main challenges that the refugees face include poor shelter, inadequate food supply, poor educational standards, and recurrent threats of deportation by the Kenyan government. Above all, it highlights that Christian and Muslim humanitarian organizations play leading roles in caring for the refugees. Ultimately, it shows that theological reflections on the ministries of Jesus and prophet Muhammad provide narratives for rallying Christians and Muslims to be more magnanimous in caring for the Somali refugees.

Cancer incidence in the Somali population of Olmsted County: A Rochester epidemiology project study.

Somali immigrants and refugees constitute one of the largest African ethnic groups immigrating to the United States over the past three decades with the majority resettling in the state of Minnesota. Previous studies have documented significant cancer screening disparities between the Somali population and the general population. However, little is known about cancer incidence among Somali groups living in the United States. We determined the incidence of 18 types or sites of malignancy using ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes and compared them between Somali and non-Somali populations in Olmsted County, Minnesota utilizing the Rochester Epidemiology Project medical records-linkage infrastructure for the years 2000-2020. Poisson regression models were used to model the rates for each malignancy. There was a higher incidence and relative risk of liver malignancies among the Somali population versus non-Somali population, but lower relative risk and incidence of the following malignancies: breast, cervical, and melanoma. After direct age-sex adjustment to the United States 2000 Census population, liver was the most common cancer in Somali men, while breast cancer was the most common malignancy in women. Malignancies related to infectious agents such as viral hepatitis have a higher incidence in the Somali immigrant population of Olmsted County. There is a lower incidence of malignancies related to lifestyle factors in this Somali population. Findings of this study may help inform cancer prevention and screening strategies among Somali communities in the United States.

Gendered Health Outcome Among Somali Refugee Youth in Displacement: A Role of Social Support and Religious Belief.

This study examines the factors influencing physical health status, specifically focusing on the gender differences in risk and promotive factors affecting health outcomes among Somali refugee youth displaced in Nairobi, Kenya (n = 227). A survey was used to assess participants' physical health along with psychosocial factors, somatic symptoms, and demographic characteristics. The study shows that religious belief and somatic symptoms among the total sample were significant predictors in influencing the outcome of physical health. A moderated mediation analysis and logistic regression analyses also revealed gender differences in associated factors as well as health status; female participants reported higher somatic symptoms, associated with a decline in physical health, whereas the protective effect of social support and religious belief promote was found only among male counterparts. Future studies and interventions would be benefited from a gender-specific approach to health promotion and coping mechanisms in this population.