JENNIFER
Hello, everyone. Welcome to IWS Radio, a podcast on the migrant women experience. It feels good to be back. I am Jennifer, one of the moderators and participants for today’s conversation.

NGOC
And I’m Ngoc, also moderating and participating.

JENNIFER
Last time, we talked about the inhumane conditions built by the EU border and asylum policies in Greece and in Germany. This time, we will discuss the situation of migrants and refugees in South Korea, and look at the parallels and differences between South Korea and Germany specifically, but also the European Union.

NGOC
Yes, and I think this is something so important for us to have as a topic because according to a report, South Korea only accepted 4% of people who are seeking asylum in 2020. So that’s 4% of the 4000 or so who applied and in neighboring Japan, the acceptance rate was even lower and has consistently been less than 1%.

So here, we really want to understand what is going on, and also where this issue intersects with the feminist movement in South Korea. So we’re really excited to have Young and Aram with us for the program. They both are from South Korea and live currently in Berlin. And they will talk with us today about feminism, racism, and asylum border policies in South Korea.

So Young and Aram, would you like to start with introducing yourselves?

YOUNG
Hello, I’m Young, originally, Young-Rong. I was born, educated, socialized, and have studied and worked in South Korea. Since 2012, I’m living in Germany as a feminist and anti-racist activist, and creating various forms of political and cultural content.

ARAM
Hi, this is Aram and I’m also from South Korea. I was also born and raised and educated and worked in South Korea. Since 2014, I’ve moved to Berlin. Currently I’m studying urban sociology and focusing on migrant women and their spatial mobility.

JENNIFER
Thanks to both of you for being here. It’s so exciting to be around and listen to more about the work that you’re doing, which is so important. First, I would like you to say something about the Korea Forum Feminism Reboot and probably introduce the magazine that you’re working on.

YOUNG
Yes, our Feminism Reboot is the 28th edition of the German magazine Korean Forum. Aram and I had worked as editors, and this edition is about the new wave of feminist and gender discourse since 2006 in South Korea. It raises other related issues on the Korean peninsula, which means around South and North Korea.

ARAM
And the term “feminism reboot” tends to explain the certain phenomenon and was originally defined by South Korean culture critics Sohn Hee-Jung, and this term is mostly used in film language, like “Spider Man Reboot” and things like that. And this English word “reboot” is used for the new creation of a work of fiction based on the basic features of previous work, but without maintaining the continuity of the plot. So we saw that the new feminist movement since 2015 is very unique and in a different phase compared to the feminist movement of the last 100 years in the Korean peninsula. But it’s still in history, a current continuation of the previous movement.

YOUNG
Yes, and we picked up some important incidents, events and movements from 2016 to 2020. Then we rearranged this chronologically, such as femicide in Gangnam, Gangnam Station 2016 May and #MeToo movement 2018 January, and spy cams 2018 May, and then Women Against Yemeni Refugees on the Jeju Island 2018 June. Yeah, and then 2019 April, about abortion issues and 2019 autumn suicide of two young Kpop singers and 2020 about trans women and 2020 about the new way of sexual exploitation on the web for Telegram, and this one is highly organized by just ordinary men mostly.

ARAM
Before we talk about the main topic and our main discourses, I can briefly introduce the Yemeni issue in Korea. So since the beginning of the Civil War in Yemen in 2014, many Yemenis have tried to apply for asylum in Europe. But as a result of the triggered tightened European immigration policy as of 2018, which was also triggered from the German side. Southeast Asian countries became more and more the destination of refugees seeking asylum. So they did toward the route to south or Southeast Asia.

So with tourist visas, around 500 Yemenis arrived on Jeju Island alone in 2018 to apply for asylum. At the time, 700 million people signed an online public petition against Yemeni asylum acceptance, and constitutional amendment on asylum law in Korea. This led to a fierce backlash in South Korean society from both nationalists and also women who understand feminism only for biological women.

So in addition to an already widespread xenophobic atmosphere that looked down on migrant workers from poorer countries, some women used a racist and islamophobic prejudice and fake news to add fuel to fire. Under the slogan, “our nationals first, stop the hate against asylum seekers”, not only the right wing left sided, but also radical feminists and intersectional feminists aligned themselves for this issue.

So we found an active voice Bomyung Kim who organized a Facebook group “borderless feminism”, together with other intersectional feminists right after the Yemeni issue in 2018. And the texts gathered on the page, later were published as a book ‘Borderless Feminism’ in Korea. And the author of the article who we invited for this, “Frauen demonstrieren gegen jemenitische Geflüchtete auf der Insel Jeju (Women demonstrate against Yemeni refugees on Jeju Island)”, and she works in women’s studies with the focus of feminist history and radical politics. So that’s how we introduce her article and her opinion to our magazine.

YOUNG
We picked this article for this podcast, this episode, because this incident or movement was kind of a turning point for a new wave of Korean feminism in the 21st century because before that, most of the young feminists in South Korea were concerned more about domestic violence or sexual harassment in the public sphere, like working space, or schools and so on and body politics, for instance, body sovereignity or abortion issues mostly, and also “Me too” movement. The “Me too” movement was huge after the US. But then, after the arrival of Yemeni refugees, most of them were male refugees, this movement, this new, huge movement, was somehow divided into two branches also. The one was solidarity with Muslim male refugees, and the other one is against them. So we picked this issue because it has huge meaning, not only for South Korean feminism and also the nation itself, but also here in Berlin and EU politics because the two countries are so apart, I mean geographically, but they are so deeply connected.

NGOC
So, I just want to pick up on what you mentioned, Young, about this deep inter-connection between here and also South Korea. So I want to ask you both, what intersections and links do you see between Germany and the EU more broadly, and South Korea in terms of the situation and conditions facing migrants and refugees?

ARAM
Before we answer, I can also play the rhetorics, mostly used in the protests against refugees in Korea. Here they say “before becoming like a failed Europe, the government should wake up”. So definitely, you can see the protesters make a lot of reference to European countries.

YOUNG
So, which means the people who protest there, they interpret the EU border politics or the opening the door of 2016/15 in Germany, and also other countries, they see this as fail. So, they demonstrate, Europe has failed because of refugees, so we shouldn’t go the same way.

JENNIFER
When they talk about the failure of the European Union. The failure of the European Union is on purpose. They discuss everything, but they refuse to discuss the basic living conditions of people in transit. It’s on purpose, this is chaos they produce on purpose, so that they can have something to politicize about. It can outline clearly, they are able to use the images of the chaos they have produced, which of course, are from very certain and very particular communities. The other thing is that, here we can say what it is, it’s outright racism. And this racism is something that people, from the onset, they do not acknowledge that they are being racist or saying statements that could, of course, affect the other people. But I would be much more also interested in hearing what are the anti-racist slogans that people counter-reacted.

ARAM
Let me point out that the slogan from the site of pro-refugee, it was more compared to the anti-racist slogans, it might sound a bit more abstract, but they aligned themselves with “stop hate against asylum seekers”, “welcome refugees”, but like they get a lot of accusation from the other side: what if they do these things to our country? What if? This is all based on this, not based on fact but based on this kind of imagination, that all the worst case possible, which we heard happened in Europe. So this is also linked to the policy topic that by saying the numbers in Korea, unlike here, there was like 500 refugees or Yemeni refugees arriving on Jeju Island, right?

JENNIFER
Only 500?

ARAM
Only 500 right! And people freaked out and Korea is not the country, we never had refugees in our history. So Korea always was kind of proud that we are one of the first countries in Asia to enact asylum law. And we are also the first country in Asia to sign up in the asylum committee worldwide and then when it comes to this real, the case of accepting refugees and taking care of the organization or housing etc. They are really reluctant to make any more detail or more concrete policy or solutions.

JENNIFER
So we can conclude it is failure, failure by the policymakers to organize properly that people have the basic human needs they need without creating the commotions that comes up with people being in dire need of survival.

YOUNG
Yeah, Aram also before mentioned about it, the Korean society exactly, specifically South Korean society has never experienced refugee issues as a host. So after the Korean War in the 1950s, South Korean society only remembers its own experience as a refugee, so not a host. So this country was so destroyed after the war, it was only seventy years ago. And this country achieved massive success. I mean, economically and also politically.

ARAM
Because of this fast growth, at the same time, this yearning to become aligned with other Western wealthy countries. So they sign this refugee committee and policy and also enact this law, asylum law. But inside, they are not ready actually.

JENNIFER
They’re not prepared.

ARAM
Not prepared, but they want to be in this kind of alignment with other wealthy countries. And there’s also a very complicated issue of this reproduction of accusation of refugees as a sexual perpetrator in Korea, because usually Korean media exclusively showed the cases in Europe, especially, when they accept the refugees and “see? what happened in Europe, they are raping the people, there is a lot of sexual harassment going on”. But this only focuses without showing how people are welcoming and how the refugees themselves really strive themselves to live in the new society. I think this bias outlet of newspaper really triggered this reproduction of the image of Islamic men.

NGOC
Yeah, and I think what you both are bringing in, there’s so much here, but I think just to start with that, you’re pointing out the ways in which this racist, nationalist discourse is being created everywhere, no matter if we’re in Europe, if we’re in the US, if we’re in South Korea and we can see so clearly from what you’re sharing, how South Korea, the discourse that you’re bringing out here, is made possible by bringing in this example of Europe and Germany. I think there’s a lot here that we want to continue going into, but maybe, it could be a good time for a break. So I know you brought a song, Young. Do you want to talk to us about what this song is and what it means to you?

YOUNG
Yeah, I brought one of the common protests songs in South Korea: 바위처럼, means, like a rock, stone, so let’s live like a rock, let’s stay together like this. By Kkot-Da-Gi, this group, and this one was released in 1994, and its poetic lyrics remind me of always the atmosphere on the street.

 

[SONG: Kkot-Da-Gi – 바위처럼” 꽃다지 ‘Like Rock (Stone)’]

 

JENNIFER
What a song, that was a very interesting song. And I wish I could hear what they were saying, but from what you said, it projected even the energies and the times and the strength in this time, when this song was being played. I am really interested in knowing what the words are about. Now we can dive into the next question where we have one common history of being colonized. We are all countries that have been colonized at some point. But why is the topic of racism still so eminent, even though we share this kind of discourse of being colonized?

YOUNG
We all share the experience of being oppressed, colonized, and we have experience of violence as a victim, but why are we oppressing other oppressed people? And the question you brought up, we see still that so many marginalized groups and communities are marginalizing, reproducing other violences against other marginalized groups and communities – such as anti-Black racism in Asian countries, anti-Muslim in Asian countries. I mean, in white Western countries we see it everyday. But yes.

ARAM
Like we are hearing Young say, I also always think, why are we finding this leveraging – leveraging me between someone I want to find as inferior, so that I can kind of have this kind of fake feeling of – I’m going towards these hierarchical steps forward. And in that sense, I also think when people say, “good migrants and modern migrants,” this rhetoric is produced. So I think this makes sense to see how people try to leverage themselves with the inferior without raising question against the superior, so to say.

JENNIFER
Don’t you think this, I mean, it’s the same divide and rule concept that was used by the colonizers that is being reproduced? At what point were you able to give it a name, this is racism. At what point were you able to understand that, I was socialized wrong, for example?

NGOC
And to maybe also add to that question, not just for you personally, but also, you kind of talked about it as well – that this was a shifting moment for the feminist movement in South Korea. So do you feel like there was this rising awareness, as well, of this racism within the feminist ideologies and beliefs and within the feminism in South Korea? And if not, then how can you see this awareness being built within South Korea and your context?

ARAM
Yeah, I think after 2014 / 2015, when these feminist reboots just started and mostly mobilized through online first, then really people think – Oh, we have really common ground, we have common reason to fight for. And then through the issue of the Yemenis and the refugee issue, people realized we are not talking about the feminism we projected, but within us, we have such a diverse understanding of feminisms.

And in Korea, as Young also pointed out, we have a country of migration, but people tend not to see the reality of this. And we also didn’t give a ground and platform for the migrants to talk about their real stories and their real experiences. So people always say, Korea is such a homogenized, one-race country, but it is not actually.

So I think people are not ready to see the stratification between different feminisms, also possible feminisms within incorporating the race in different countries into their discourses. I think we are still in this kind of phase of change. But at this moment, at the center, we confirmed – Okay, we have very different feminisms within our feminist movement.

JENNIFER
While you’re still on the topic of racism, because we saw what happened during the Corona time and how the Asian community, for example here experienced the racism. And then on the other hand, in Asian countries, the Black people are the ones who are being told they’re the cause of the virus. How was your experience in this time of the racism that was propagated to the Asian community here?

ARAM
After Corona, people were all talking about something really different happening to the Asian community. But what I personally experienced was actually, it’s not. I mean, even before Corona, I’ve always felt racism against Asians. Also, I always hear on the street that “ching ching chong” or saying any “bla” that sounds like Asian words towards me. And of course after Corona, it’s more frequent, so to say, and it’s also shifted the topic more related to COVID. But I think this racism against Asians was present already. I think this COVID issue kinda triggered to finally tell Germans that – Oh, there is such racism against Asians, but which also existed. And in that sense, also within the Korean and Yemenis issue, how this became a trigger. Actually there is racism persistent within feminism movement, definitely. But this kind of triggered and brought it to the surface, I think.

JENNIFER
Thank you very much, because we know how hard it is to talk about these issues on racism, how we are affected, and how much it gets into us. That’s the reality. But now I’m more interested to hear on the divisions that were there where the concept of feminism in this time when the Yemeni men were there, that the feminist movement divided itself on this concept of racism. And then we can also kind of bring that shift to white feminism here, which only wants to talk about sexism, but doesn’t want to talk about racism.

YOUNG
The core problem of this incident – the arrival of Yemeni Muslim refugees in South Korea – and also the racist reactions led by so-called radical feminists and all the other stuff… I mean, marginalized groups against marginalized groups – they have common ground. The key lies in how you understand feminism and how you understand your own struggle. How you understand feminism affects completely how you are practicing your feminism, and also struggle as well. We can just switch the word feminism to struggle. So whether it is a refugee, a Yemeni refugee, or a Yemeni male refugee, if you’re against their migration and their settlement, in the name of feminism, then I’ll say your feminism is not my feminism. And your struggle is not my struggle.

JENNIFER
I think now, there is the term that was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw, ‘intersectional feminism.’ And that’s where everybody has a space in this concept of ‘intersectional feminism,’ so that no one feels superior over the others. We all intersect from some point. I think that was very smart of Kimberly Crenshaw… You had another song?

ARAM
This might be a bit abrupt, but this song is kind of like a new generation of protest song, unlike the previous song. It’s actually K-pop. I think it’s already a 10 years old song, but because the lyrics also into the new word, by Girls’ Generation. It’s sung in Ehwa University’s protest against the university’s conspiracy. And this new generation of young feminisms, also feminists, they kind of refuse to use old generations’ protest songs. They want to make their own new way of their new world through the protest. At the same time, this also shows some glimpse of how this is dividing feminism within the feminist discourses, because they really want to focus on their self-development, their position in their life in comparison to the man’s. So you’ll hear it first, and then we can come back.

 

[SONG: Girls’ Generation – 소녀시대 ‘다시 만난 세계 (Into The New World)’]
[AUDIO: Protest song sung by Ehwa Women’s University students 2016 (from 4:00 min)]

 

NGOC
I’m a big, big fan of Kpop. But to also see it from this perspective, it is also political. So I really appreciate it.

JENNIFER
Yeah, maybe to come to a conclusion, what would be your final statements as we come to almost the end of this program? I wish we had more time. There’s a lot we could have discussed. But what would be your closing statements for the program?

ARAM
I think as we also talk a lot about how everyone has their own different ways of understanding feminisms, that it’s not about thinking my feminism is contrary to your feminism. It’s also that we all have to understand where we intersect, and where to find our common understanding of each other – not just in the way of exclusion. That will be the lesson I learned through this Yemeni issue, also living in Germany, seeing all these different feminisms.

YOUNG
What I would love to demonstrate is to be intersectionalist and also to be internationalist. Because the main reason why we picked up this article for this episode, and also why we took this issue very seriously, was that this incident wasn’t just a trigger for many other problems in that country, in my home country, but also from that point, so many young feminists started to think of their situatedness in a geopolitical ring. So they started to reconstruct their own subjectivity in relation to others. That’s why it’s very important, and I hope that we didn’t give all the others the wrong impression that the struggle of South Korean young feminists somehow is not important. It is very important, because real violence is going on there. But let’s not forget that other entanglement is also important.

JENNIFER
It’s very interesting how you put it that we are not belittling the struggle of others, we acknowledge the struggle. And we have very common struggles when it comes to femicide. It’s everywhere, everyone is just being killed because they are women. There are so many commonalities we share. But in these commonalities, let’s also embrace the differences. There is power in the differences. Our strength lies in the differences that we have.

NGOC
Many, many thanks to you, Young and Aram, for the very interesting discussion and for being here. I’m sure that we will continue to have these conversations and we will continue to be in organizing spaces with each other.

ARAM
Thank you.

YOUNG
Thank you so much for having us. And I wanted to say this: Thank you so much for your existence in Germany in Berlin, you both and your struggle. I’m admiring, seriously. Thank you so much.

ARAM  
Also that really motivated me to speak out about my personal experiences and at the same time, try to make common grounds with other women. Thank you.

JENNIFER
Hi everyone, you are listening to IWS radio, a podcast on the migrant women experience. We are happy to be back after a long break. From now on, we will continue releasing one episode every month. In today’s episode, we are continuing to talk about the EU border politics and their direct impact on refugees on the EU outer borders and here in Germany. We are a feminist, anti racist group comprised of refugees and migrant women and women without this experience, and with the IWS radio, we want to both shed a light on our lived experience, and also on the general situation of migrant women living in Germany today. My name is Jennifer Kamau, and I’m here with our guests for today’s show, Zahra Mousavi and Anna Kimani, welcome you two.

ZAHRA
Thank you so much.

JENNIFER
So in today’s episode, we want to focus on this colonial bloody European border policies, and its failure to meet the basic human needs and dignity, living conditions, and circumstances for refugees in the border camps in Greece, and also here in Germany. In preparation for this program, we already met with Zahra and Anna and talked about the image created by the mainstream media, which is not focused on the living conditions and circumstances or as to why they flee, but the so called violence among refugees in so called camps on European border and beyond. Let’s be clear, which violence are we talking about? The media is not reporting about the structure of violence and border regime that isolate and violate not just the dignity of human beings, but also their bodies. The European Union, and countries have been not just completely silent about the human rights violations being implemented every single day before our eyes, they are also actively preventing all support to violate the refugee body and hinder any support that comes to help the refugees. Meanwhile, the EU Commission points their fingers to other European countries on human rights violations. And with this, I would like to start with our first guest, Zahra. Zahra, I would like you to introduce yourself.

ZAHRA
My name is Zahra – Zahra Mousavi. I’m one of the refugees that I arrived in 2019 in Lesbos and in one month that I’m here.

JENNIFER
You’re only here since one month?

ZAHRA
Yes.

JENNIFER
Okay. Welcome to Germany.

ZAHRA
Thank you so much.

JENNIFER
And for us to understand, what is the process, what she can tell us more about the process of arriving at Moria? And what was it like to live there?

ZAHRA
Yeah. First of all, that we can say if people managed to cross the sea, and they do not push them back, and if their boat doesn’t sink, the process of expecting them will begin. First day, they will ask about their information, the basic information like their name, and these kind of things, and the date of their birth. Most of the time that they’re saying that if you have any problem in this detail and everything that at the end that you can change it. But it’s not true. That the first day that you arrive, that whatever that they’re writing about you – you will have for your whole life.

JENNIFER
So when they take your data, any data you enter, this is what they will use for the rest of your refugee application.

ZAHRA
Exactly.

JENNIFER
Okay.

ZAHRA
And because of this, all of the refugees that they were in Greece, the date of their birth is first of January of 2000 – I don’t know.

JENNIFER
So it has been generalized, that if you’re born in January, they don’t indicate the dates? They just write January.

ZAHRA
Yes.

JENNIFER
And then the year.

ZAHRA
Yeah.

JENNIFER
And that’s it.

ZAHRA
That’s it.

JENNIFER
Okay.

ZAHRA
And after that, they’re taking picture, they’re putting the fingerprint, but in the beginning, if you tell them clearly, that is not the place that I want to be, want to stay or leave. And I don’t want to put the fingerprint then they say okay, then we will deport you back to Turkey. All of the people that in the first day that they said clearly that we don’t want to stay here. But they said, okay, you don’t have any chance. The other thing is that they’re taking pictures, I told you, they’re taking picture, putting fingerprint, and they’re asking for if you have any health issues or anything. And you have to tell them, you have to give the documents about it. In that moment that you can, they can accept you, if you have a really, I don’t know, severe case in your family, that you have a proof to tell them otherwise that they are not accept you as a vulnerable people, we can say. Then we can say in 2019, the time that I arrived, after one month that they gave them, they gave people Ausweis, after two or three months they started to support them financially. But nowadays, the new arrival, after one week they are giving them Ausweis, and after in that first month they are giving – they are supporting them with money. Yeah.

JENNIFER
So we also know that there is a failure of the EU to discuss and provide basic human needs in this camps at the borders. And it’s on purpose, this we know it’s on purpose. What do you feel is important for people to know about Moria?

ZAHRA
Okay, vulnerable people, we can say people were categories, according to their circumstance. Vulnerable people is people with chronic disease, or that they were pregnant, or their boat sunk in the sea, or people with mental issue – if it was from 2019. But in 2020, they said that only people with severe case are vulnerable people, and in 2021 and 2022, they change it and they said okay, chronic disease and also mental issue, people with a mental issue, but with a really, really strong paper and document to prove that they have mental issue – they can accept them. And that moment that they in 2019, they just open their card, we have two – three – different Ausweis, and stamps: blue, black and red. The red one [means] you’re not allowed to leave the island and black one is for the vulnerable people [so] that they can leave the island, and blue also, that they can leave, is mostly for the pregnant woman and is for the people that they’re boat sunk in the sea or something like this. And it’s a different people with a different stamp. And people who had a red stamp who are stucking there for I don’t know how long, in 2019, they just giving them a date of interview after one year or two years. But for the new arrivals in these days, they are giving after one month or in one month that they have to do the interview.

JENNIFER
Okay, can you just tell us a little bit more about the living conditions for those who have no idea of how these camps look like, just to have a picture of it.

ZAHRA
Yeah, we can say that I will start by days. I remember the first day that I arrived there. It was a lot of people that they said that don’t come here. Just tell them that you don’t want to come in this camp – it’s a hell, don’t come. And at that time, we didn’t have any choice, we had to go inside. When we went inside most of them they said, “Welcome to the hell”. And it was true. It was true.

In the beginning, when I arrived and I saw that it is impossible. Okay, most of the refugee they had a reason to leave their country and come to the European country because their country was not safe or a lot of things happening there. But at least they have the basic human right. But in the camp, in Moria camp, it was like, you have to stay in the line for a toilet. You have to stay in the line for the, I don’t know, water tap to wash your hand. And the first day I wondered, my mind didn’t want to accept this situation. Sleep under a tent, doesn’t matter that you’re five or six people in the family, in that weather. In 2019, they said, okay, we will give you a tent, go and find your place in the camp. And camp was really full, and we had to go to the jungle area to find the place. And the time that we came and asked for the tent, they said, okay, jungle place, we will give you a tent, but we will not support you [with] the other thing, because it’s not part of the camp. I say that, okay, we couldn’t find any place. If you find any place inside, you can tell us, we will go there, doesn’t matter. And they said, “No, no, it’s not our job to find a place for you. Can’t find”. Also it is true that my country is not safe, as I told you before, but it was not that much. Women, for sure, after five or six in the afternoon in the camp, they cannot go out alone. For sure that they cannot because the number of rapes and harassment was high there.

JENNIFER
In these camps?

ZAHRA
Yeah.

JENNIFER
And how was the situation when you are going to the dining hall? At some point, I think you explained to us. Tell us a little bit more how the situation was when you are going to make the line for the food.

ZAHRA
Okay, for going to the food line, most of the images, you can check in the Google or something that they have a lot of picture of the camp, but some of them didn’t show real clearly there. Most of the people, they have to stay in the [line] for five or six hours to just take the food. And always the food was not enough. Most of the people they just fight because of the food, because they had to take the food doesn’t matter how. And I’m telling you, it’s not their fault. You know, it’s not their fault, because they need food. They didn’t have any electricity, in that moment, to cook something. The new arrivals for two or three months, they didn’t have any money. Okay, then they have to be in this line.

JENNIFER
Yeah, we know how they use the basic human needs, for example, food, to kind of impose their form of control. So the use the food, which people really need to survive, and torment people with that lack of it or they create situations around the aspect of the things that people really need.

ZAHRA
Yes. Okay, I saw a lot of journalists that they came to the camp, and they did a lot of reports, but the only things that they just publish in media or somewhere else was only the part that it was not really important, because we had the other important things. I didn’t hear, or I didn’t see anything about any journalists who write about the jail or prison that we had in the camp. Most of the people [who] were there [in the prison], it was people with the second rejection. And they [treat] them like a criminal, they did a lot of things, it was a lot of violence against them in the prison. And no one know anything about them.

JENNIFER
What do you say about the second rejection, what does that mean? What was the first rejection and what is the second rejection about?

ZAHRA
The first rejection is the time when you have your interview [for asylum] after some months – it depends to your chance. After some months or some weeks,  they bring your reason – the result of your interview. Result of interview: is it positive or negative? The negative one is you’re getting the first rejection that you can appeal for that. And most of the people, they’re getting the first one, for sure that they’re getting the second one. Okay. And they have to go to the jail for that.

JENNIFER
So the jail was like a deportation camp. What does it mean with a jail, what made someone go to the jail?

ZAHRA
Actually that is a place – they are not, most of the time, they do not deport them directly. They are putting them in prison and then they can appeal there again. And they’re giving the paper to them. And they’re making the situation in the jail or prison really hard for them, and are forcing them to sign that paper – that paper for deportation – and then they can deport them really perfectly, without any problem to their country…

JENNIFER
To make it easier for them to deport them in bigger groups.

ZAHRA
Exactly. I heard this, I’m not sure about it. If they want to deport people, they have to pay themselves, the government has to pay for the airplane [ticket] if they are deporting them to their country. But if [the people] sign it, they have to pay themselves for the tickets, and then they are deporting them.

JENNIFER
Okay, It’s a whole lot of mess there.

ZAHRA
Yes, and a lot of people – it doesn’t matter if that person is woman, or men, that they are in the jail. Most of the time, there’s people that are trying to leave the island illegally. And I know a lot of woman, that they arrest them. And they were in the jail not in the Moria camp prison [but] in Mitilini. In Mitilini, is the worse than the camp. It’s really worse. And for them, it doesn’t matter if it’s a woman, a single woman situation. It was really hard for her. And I don’t know, because that place is not safe, or something, that they are putting them in prison for some months. And then they have to do their interview in the prison. And they have to wait for the results in that moment. They can go out if it was positive.

And the other thing that I wanted to talk about, it was the safety of the camp. The time that I arrived here, in my Dublin interview, the thing that person told me, it was really funny. He said that in Greece, that they protect you, because all the things that’s happening in your country. But it was not true. Because in my country it’s not safe because [of] bombing and everything happening there. But I always – I saw a lot of fight, a lot of violence in the camp. And the time that I asked police, it was a lot of police there, but like a robot, or like a stone, they didn’t do anything to protect refugees. And they were there. I remember when we asked them for help they say that if they attack you, you have to answer. If you want to, you have to go and protect yourself. And they didn’t do anything. I remember, people had their knife and their handmade sword to protect themselves and their family. And they were just walking in front of the police. Police didn’t do anything.

JENNIFER
So the presence of the police was very evident. But they were only there to carry out particular tasks in the times of putting people in jail or deportations.

ZAHRA
Exactly.

JENNIFER
Okay. While you were talking, I had to think of what Natasha A. Kelly said in the sixth episode of our podcast about the dimensions of structural racism in Germany. And I remember she talked about the distinction that today in 2021 is still being made between humans: whose lives matter and whose lives not. Now, we know you were also involved with a self organized women’s group in Moria. Would you be able to share more about how you got involved, what demands you had, and what actions you organize?

ZAHRA
Yeah, I was involved. And the name of this group it was woman space, or WISH. Yeah. The other name is WISH. In that time in 2019, after one week that I arrived, I went to the place that they call that place OHF, or one happy family, it was a place with some language class, and also other class like music and dance for this kind of thing. And it was a place that it was, especially for the women. I went there and I met one of my friend there. It was not friend at moment. But she asked me, “Do you want to work?” I said, why not? It’s better than being in the food line in the camp – it’s really perfect to be here. And the small thing that I want to tell you. In One Happy Family, they distribute food. The food that they distributed there, it was really good – much better than the food that they distribute in the camp. Because of that, most of the people, they just walk for 45 minutes from the camp to this place, to just take the food.

JENNIFER
What was the name of the other place?

ZAHRA
It was One Happy Family.

JENNIFER
One Happy Family is the name of the place. Okay.

ZAHRA
Because of that, people they are going there. Okay, I said, why not, I want say I want to start working here. Because I don’t want to be in the line of the camp. And they are distributing food here – it’s good for me. And then I start being with them. Okay,

JENNIFER
What kind of activities did you organize?

ZAHRA
From the beginning that we had that place, we had some meetings with the women there. And also we had a lawyer once or two times per week that she came and some of the people if they have any question that they ask. And we had the assembly meetings there because most of the people heard some rumors about deportation or something in the camp, they came in that meeting and said okay, we heard these rumors and these, which one is true, which one is not? Okay, tell us and we had the people that they had the information to tell them. And we had the gynecologist that is related to the women that if they have any question that they could ask. That that place is related to the woman, not for the kids, not for the men – nothing. They had other place for them.

JENNIFER
I can resonate with that because it sounds much more like the women’s space we had in the school in the time of the [Oranienplatz] movement. And it’s interesting to see this concept easily adapted in places where there are very extreme, bad living conditions. I think it’s a mode of survival. What were your demands in this self organized women’s group?

ZAHRA
It was, in the moment that we want to have a safe place for the women. And also, we want the camp be closed, you know. That is the thing most of the demand that they were asking for that. But we want as a woman to ask this directly from the government or from the world. And the other one is to stop pushing back. [What] people don’t know is police, or the other, are trying to push back people [when] the boat is sinking. The only person they are blaming [is] the person that’s just riding the boat. And that person also is a refugee, but they’re arresting that person, and they’re putting in the jail. Why? Because we lost people in that moment. But they are not blaming themselves that they were the people that they’re pushing them back. And most of these people, because that they’re just riding that boat, they have to be in the jail for 30 years, or they have to pay money. And yeah, and no one don’t know anything.

JENNIFER
Yeah, that’s really, really, really, really sad. Thank you very much for your input. We want to listen to a song that you chose and tell us something about the song.

ZAHRA
The name of the song is مي بوسمت, and the singer is Ghawgha, Ghawgha Taban.

 

[SONG: Ghawgha Taban – مي بوسمت] 

 

JENNIFER
We are back now again, and we are very happy to have Anna in the studio. Welcome Anna.

In the first part with Zahra, we talked about the EU border politics, especially being locked up and isolated in camps in the EU outer borders. As we know, many people are arriving through Greece or another entry [country] and then become illegalized, especially through the Dublin regulation when they decide to leave the first country they entered [through] in Europe. Just to shortly explain: the Dublin Regulation is a European Union law. It determines which country where the asylum seeker first entered Europe. The main aims of this regulation is, on one hand, to make sure that people do not make multiple applications for asylum in several Dublin member states, and on the other hand, to make deportations to these member states where people entered Europe for the first time easier and give a legitimation to them. So Anna, welcome to this program. Maybe you can start by introducing yourself.

ANNA
Yeah, thank you so much, Jennifer for having me. My name is Anna Kimani. I am from Kenya. I’ve been in Germany for the last three years. When I came to Germany, I came through Italy, on a Schengen visa. And then I came to Germany and I applied for asylum. They gave me like three months because they were communicating to Italy to see if Italy will accept to me. Italy did not respond and so they assumed lack of response means acceptance and so they issued me with a letter of deportation. On the day they were deporting me, they found me in my room. That is the day I was supposed to go for my social money. So meaning I had nothing in my pocket. And so I was surrounded by so many policemen in my room. They did not allow me even to go to the toilet or anything and they told me you can carry the things. We are taking you to Italy. So they took me to Italy.

When I landed [in] Italy, I had nothing in my pocket. I went through the procedures of – I mean the regulations of the police. I don’t know identification and so on. And then from there you are given a paper to tell you that now, the country is open for you to look for a place to stay. I remember I was in the street alone wondering what to do. I just stayed in one place because I was scared. I was scared of everybody I was seeing around because of the things that I was seeing. I would see so many black [people] taking drugs, and other women who are prostituting. So a lot of vehicles would come stop by me because they see my black color and they presume I’ve come for commercial sex work.

Then I decided to walk into a police station, it was almost raining and it was getting dark, asking whether they could give me a shelter. And the police department told me that this is not a lodging, go and look for lodging. But I had decided no, I will stay. Another policeman came and asked these other policemen: Why are you allowing this one to stay, I thought I said she should go. This is not a lodging place. Because it was raining, I decided to stay outside the police station until the rain stopped. And then from there, I started dragging my suitcase looking for a place to stay. I didn’t find any place, I found only an empty building. So I said, this place since it’s outside a building and it’s not raining, I can stay here. So I stayed overnight, in front of a certain building. The next morning is when I decided to call some friends in Germany. And they gave me a contact to a person they knew in Italy who decided to house me. And this man in this house, it was two rooms. And he had also so many people who are living there, like more than 10 people and all of them were men. We are only two women sharing one bed. Two women and 10 men sharing one bed. And so I saw this, for me, it was not a situation I could stay.

And so through just this person, I was able again to come back to Germany. When I came back to Germany, I was introduced to a Kenyan lady. The Kenyan lady said I can stay, I can house you as you take care of my my children. And so I accepted it very easily because of my desperation to look for a place to stay and to look for a means of earning money. So she gave me a domestic job. This included babysitting and taking her children to school and cooking and cleaning the house. So she promised to be paying me 200 euros per month. But later on, she changed she started giving me like 100 and then later on, she stopped paying me altogether. And while staying here it was kind of isolated for me because she would not allow me to talk to anybody. Or even when people come to house and they want to talk to me, she would prevent them. I think she wanted me to stay there and she thought that if I talked to people, probably I may go and get a better place to stay. So it’s like she was controlling me. And because I was still traumatized because of the deportation, she still could remind me, you know you are illegal, you know you are illegal, you know you are illegal, so you can’t be deported anytime. So, she she saw my desperation and fear of deportation in me and so she used this as an instrument to even exploit me more and abuse me more.

But later on I managed to get out of this place through my friend. And where I was given a house was not even better because again I experienced more problems there because it was a man’s house and this man wanted to also take advantage of me sexually. Later on, and again through networks like the International Women space, they took me and sheltered me and protected me from all these things that I had experienced in the past. Okay, while at IWS, I have been politically involved with empowering other refugee women through the program of [the] Break Isolation Group. And also, I got to also get involved in another network by the name of Respect which connected me to other women who are undocumented, called Casita. Casita means a little house. So they call themselves a little house. And so there are women who are undocumented and they come together, and they share experiences and they cook together. And they don’t pick the German language and they don’t know English – they only speak Spanish. So they are there to assist in case they want to go to see a doctor or they want to look for a job and they don’t know how to speak their language, so that they can get somebody who can translate for them.

JENNIFER
Thank you so much, because you have taken us through the journey of how you came to Germany, entered through a different country, and how you were deported, how you managed to get back to Germany after sharing the living conditions in Italy, the process of you entering and being exploited through the fear you had of being deported and being illegalized. My question to you would be, can you talk about the living and working conditions for undocumented women, for example?

ANNA
Yes. Many households in Germany, they depend on domestic workers. And without them, they cannot go to work in the productive economy. So work in private homes is highly unregulated and open to abuse and violation of human rights. In most cases, the working duties and hours are not clearly defined. It is cooking, ironing, taking care of pets, taking care of elderly, taking care of children. And you can work up to even 16 hours in a day, and the employer expect extreme flexibility and permanent availability. Despite our contribution to the economy, undocumented people don’t exist. They live in isolation, enduring humiliation, and exploitation at the same time living in constant fear of deportation. Some employers know that undocumented people fear deportation, and may threaten to call immigration authorities, when maybe an undocumented worker decide to complain. And because of our desperation to keep our jobs, we are forced to accept low pay and work long hours even without break. Some employers decide not to pay and withdraw all the wages altogether.

And when we are working in this place, these private homes, we are exposed to occupational health hazards. For example, the chemicals and detergent that we use for cleaning, they affect our skin. Sometimes, there is also workplace accidents. And because we don’t have insurance to cover for medical treatment, we end up not getting the right treatment. There is also a language barrier because when you are living as undocumented person, you are considered an illegal person and so, you cannot integrate to learn the language because you don’t have the necessary documents. And this further drives us into more depression, and more isolation. And in my case, I had to look for networks where I could get maybe connected to in order for me to start now getting places where I could start learning this language on my own.

JENNIFER
Maybe I can also ask you, why don’t illegalized women report this cases of situations where they endure the challenges that you have just named? Why don’t they report?

ANNA
The reason why they don’t report is they fear court proceedings because this may expose their status and so they will end up being deported. And social isolation resulting in lack of support from friends also make them not be able to report. Reporting may also affect their career. And they will lose their their only way of earning a living. At the same time, there is also fear of denunciation and subsequent deportation. Being a woman also there is what we call poor bargaining power so they choose to keep quiet, and in most cases, also feeling embarrassed.

JENNIFER
Thank you so much. What are some of the ways that women get illegalized?

ANNA
First of all, when when people enter European countries, they come with a temporary working visa. And the only visa that they get is a visa to work in private homes, others come with a tourist visa. Once this visa expires, they become undocumented. Some come as asylum seekers, and the asylum gets rejected, and then they become also undocumented. Others come via agencies, which often withhold their identity cards or passports until they have paid their full cost of the journey.

JENNIFER
You’re now in the campaign Legalisierung Jetzt (Legalize Now). What are the demands for this campaign?

ANNA
The campaign Legalisation Now, the major demands are two. The first demand is the comprehensive and immediate legalisation of all illegalised people living in Berlin by granting them permanent resident title using paragraph 23.1, a law that says that a group of people can be given a resident permit based on humanitarian grounds. We see illegalized people as falling under this category because of their living and working conditions. The other demand is to abolish paragraph 87, according to which employers are allowed to denounce the existence of a person who is illegalized and report them to immigration authorities. Those are the two demands.

JENNIFER
Okay. And how do you see yourself connected to other migrants in other European countries? Because I think the case of illegalized people is a European thing.

ANNA
Yeah, nearly all domestic workers in other European countries work without resident permits. And the subject of legulisation also preoccupies other migrant groups in other European countries. There has been significant breakthrough for the rights of undocumented migrant workers in, for example, UK, Greece, Spain, Italy and Ireland. So legalisation campaign borrowed the idea to legalise illegalised migrants from women in Spain. And so we started the legalisation campaign.

JENNIFER
That’s very interesting. It’s very good to see how women come together and start fighting for the rights of other women. People say women are not political and I’m wondering, what are we all doing if we’re told we’re not political? I just want to ask you, ANNA, what is being illegalised? How does that come that term come in? What prompts that term of illegalisation?

ANNA
Being illegal in Germany means that you don’t have the necessary documents to be in this country. So if you don’t have any documents, it means you are living in this country illegally and so you are considered a criminal.

JENNIFER
Okay, when you become illegalised, it means you cannot get the the basic needs that you need in order to survive. What does it make people do in these circumstances? What does it force people to do? Is there any reaction, any results as as a means of being illegalised?

ANNA
Yeah, because you need to survive, you do anything. You’ll accept any job that comes your way. You will do prostitution, for you to to get money to feed yourself or money to pay your rent, you will do cleaning jobs, you will be employed as a domestic worker.

JENNIFER
Okay. And in this situation of being ilegalised, is there a way that you are able to get out of it? What does it entail to get out of this thing the state puts you in?

ANNA
The way to get out of this illegalised situation is, for instance, you get married to somebody who has a German residence, or you get a child. You apply [for] asylum and then through the asylum process, if you are lucky and you are accepted, you can be given a residence. Or if you go to school and do your training, maximum three years, you can also get papers to stay in this country. The other thing is what we are doing now, campaigning for legalisation, using pressure to the politicians by what we have done. We’ve written to them open letters, we have done demonstration in the streets, we have done open discussions, and we are using paragraph 23.1 to push for legalisation of illegalised migrants.

JENNIFER
There is a campaign, there is a slogan that we have been saying, “Kein Mensch ist illegal”, nobody is illegal. And I think we will continue to be loud and say nobody is illegal. Now we’re going to listen to a song. Anna, please introduce this song and maybe say what it is about.

ANNA
This song is by Eric Wainaina and it’s patriotic song about my country, Kenya.

 

[SONG: Eric Wainaina – Daima]

 

JENNIFER
Thank you so much for the song. It is a very strong patriotic song. I can see that. We are now at the end of our program. Thank you very much Anna and Zahra for being with us today. We are really, really humbled that you were able to share your stories with us.

ZAHRA  
Thank you for having us.