I’m M, a black transgender refugee woman. I live in Bad Saarow which is a lager that is isolated between a forest, a lake, and some Nazis which is halfway to Poland from Berlin. It takes me two hours and four trains to just come here to make this speech. I am not even sure how I will get back to Bad Saarow.

Why am I here today?

Racism, mass migration, civil wars, lack of proper leadership, and stability can all be traced back to slavery, colonialism, and the scramble for and partition of Africa. In this city of Berlin 137 years ago 7 European powers divided the continent Africa like it was cake. Our history and cultures were erased. Our grandparents suffered heavily, they were tortured and families have broken apart. The land was forcefully taken and they were put in concentration camps where they were detained without trial. Artifacts, religious items, and many other prized things were collected from our lands in the name of the Queen, they now sit in museums making European countries money.

And to this day the dialogue in and around reparations is non-existent. After independence, these European countries never formally acknowledged their horrific actions. They installed their cronies as leaders who mismanaged the countries ensuring no proper accountability so they could get our precious minerals where the common citizen never gets to see a penny from exports. Wealth is in the hands of a select few. Countries fall into chaos. As western countries collude with African governments then later in their statements say they are corrupt. Women and children suffer indiscriminately. Young kids work in the mines of the DRC and Germany continues to do trade with the corrupt governments. This is Neocolonialism. As western governments continue to work with these thugs and crooks who are the governments of these countries they are legitimizing them. Then there is the war profiteering business which makes a lot and I mean a lot of money. Germany makes 1.6 Billion (with a  B) euros from selling arms to Israel. They also make a lot of money from selling Medicines and medical equipment to Palestine. Intentionally turning a blind eye to the ongoing occupation, massacre and apartheid rule on Palestine by Israel.  How crazy is this? To add to that, 40% of all total sales of arms done by Germany  is to North Africa and the Middle East where the majority of refugees are from. I leave you to make the correlation

So then refugees from these war-torn countries flee to the perceived ‘safe’ countries… that is western countries and come here, we are treated like we do not belong. Being put in lagers that are in ghost towns. This is real-life psychological torture Germany. Families are being shoved into tiny rooms. These asylum cases are dragging on for years; others have spent over 10 years and are still waiting with no right to work or any sort of schooling or any avenue to get any legal recognition. This is a shame Germany.

All refugees are denied the right to choose where they want to stay but it even gets worse with LGBTQI+ refugees who face danger and discrimination in everyday life. As a Black transgender woman, I, like many others, experience intersectional discrimination, far often than not these actions go unchecked and we suffer in silence!

Navigating the system as a Black Trans refugee is shockingly hard, you have social workers who are not well versed in dealing with the specific issues faced. Access to hormones is limited and almost impossible. The Government should take action to ensure more protection and ease of access for medical needs for trans refugees.  

We demand the right to safe housing, not isolated from LGBTQI+ communities and wider society!  We demand the right to choose where we live! Trans rights are human rights. Refugee rights are human rights. 

We demand Germany to take charge as it did in 1884 while partitioning my continent to do the same now and serve a formal apology to countries affected by colonialism. That should be followed by the return of antiques and artifacts back to where they belong, In the motherland. Reparations are not up for discussion; they are way overdue. And we should dictate the terms.

We demand for german corporations to take a stance against doing business in war torn countries or with dictatorial regimes.

We demand an expanded curriculum in schools talking and teaching extensively about Germany’s colonial past, racism, and a more diversified education covering gender and sexuality. 

If you want to be allies, work with refugee-led, grassroots organizations. Donate your money, your time, and use your voice and your votes.

You have a civic duty to dismantle all the systems that continue to oppress me. Make a fair, equal and just system a reality for all.

In this time, we were fighting for: abolition of the Residenzpflicht, the voucher system, the right to study the German language, the right to work and study, and abolition of Lagers – to break the isolation all asylum seekers are placed into.

In this way they were criminalizing the political movement and the political work as a whole showing how much they wanted to suppress the movement. Drugs have always been used to undermine political movements and uprisings.

So this is when racial profiling subtly started. The denial to access the school which they so much wanted was one reason why they did not enter to do the arrests. When the police came, 3 men ended up being arrested and were put into prison for 5 months while the investigations took place.The justice system claimed that they were trying to run away but the reality is that they were actually protesting in order to get their right to stay. This was a whole 5 months of detention without trial!

Through the Oranienplatz movement, we were able to abolish the Residenzpflicht and the voucher system and got the rights to study, which is what the asylum seekers today are benefiting from.

But now the situation is different – there are the Dublin regulations which are what are being used to illegalize people. This is a law that dictates which country will be responsible for your asylum application. In reality, it has meant that once you enter a European country you have to go through the asylum process there, in the country of arrival. If you try to go to a 2nd or 3rd European country and apply for asylum, they can and will deport you back to the country that you arrived in. This is a tactic the EU is using to deport people.

Because of the Dublin Regulations, many people have become illegalized or undocumented, forcing them into an even more vulnerable situation. This exposes people to all sorts of violence: sexual exploitation, forced prostitution, poor working conditions, and unpaid work. It’s also why some people are forced into operating from this park to earn a living.

And this is how the state uses the vulnerability they create to criminalize people. With laws like Dublin and the criminalization of drugs they are able to justify racial profiling – to stop and arrest people who they suspect are selling drugs or who are here quote ‘illegally’. These criminalizations happen in the streets and it always come with immense police violence and racial profiling.

Now there is a new outcry on the war on drugs and the face of crime has become black or Arab men.

Our question is: Who brings the drugs here and who uses them? Who are the real consumers of these drugs?

When we go back to history, with evidence from the film ‘Wir Kindern von Bahnhof Zoo’, we can clearly see the history of drugs here. There was no Görlitzer park but drugs were still being sold and from the film the peddlers of the drugs were the Germans themselves.

Berlin is heavily publicly commercialised as a great tourist attraction – a place for the European tourists to come and celebrate the ‘multikulti’ and the free drug atmosphere. On the other hand, this same freedom is not applied to the people who are forced to engage in drug peddling.

So we stand here, almost ten years after the Oplatz movement and occupation of the school began, still fighting for the end of the racist asylum and migration policies of the EU – and the end of the policing, racial profiling, and criminalization we experience.

The right wing is using migration to create fear, if you do not want migrants, let us address the reasons as to why people flee because right now the unwanted migrants are fleeing because of the economic and political chaos and turmoil created by Europe.

As we will keep saying: We are here because you destroy our lands.

Let’s vote wisely! Let’s join forces and let’s not stop demanding for a more humane asylum system until we achieve a dignified life for all!

United we stand, divided we fall! … OUR LIVES MATTER!

Hello everyone, l am Jennifer from the International Women* Space and the Break Isolation group.

I acknowledge the efforts of many here, who have contributed to fighting the stigmatisation and racism against African people and people with African descent.

Racism acts to depoliticize us, to prevent us from organising, seeks control of our lives be it socially, economically or politically. Our decisions too, but today we are here to repeat that we will never stop to organise, to protest, to demand justice for those affected and killed by racists, because BLACK LIVES MATTER.

There is a black genocide taking place in the Mediterranean because we live in a world where goods from Africa can enter freely in Europe – but not the people from Africa.

This is the continuation of the colonisation and exploitation of Africa and her resources. This is why so many people flee to seek asylum. But when they do, they are put into an asylum system that tortures and murders in cold blood with no remorse.

A system that traps people in the Lagers to not only keep total control over them but also to isolate them as much as possible.

A system created to profit off of locking up and killing black people.

A system that violates and takes away people’s right to work, to privacy, to education.

The asylum system is one of the most brutal forms of institutional and structural racism here in Germany. And it does this all in the name of human rights.

Germany now even says that having a Duldung is a reason for imprisonment, deportation, expulsion and extradition. The Dublin regulation has caused the illegalization and deportations of thousands of people.

Now there is the hysteria on ‘war on drugs’. Allow me to say that it’s a war on black people. If this really is a war on drugs? Where are the faces of the consumers and the drug barons?

Let’s be clear: the criminalization of migration by the German state is the greatest criminal act of all!

The magnitude of structural and institutional racism in Germany against people of African descent can be seen in the racial profiling by the government and security agencies.

There is a repeated denial that racial profiling does not exist in Germany by the police authorities. It is unacceptable that a police officer cannot be called a racist! If we see a racist act and we cannot name it, how can we denounce racism?

So let’s be clear: Racism is everywhere. Black genocide is happening everywhere.

So when we come to the streets to demand the absolute minimum – that is, that it is acknowledged that BLACK LIVES MATTER, we also want to take a minute to remember our brothers and sisters whose lives were taken by German institutions like the police.

We want to remember:

Rita Owour Ojunge who was killed already 2 years ago in a Lager in Hohenleipisch.
A Lager in the middle of the woods in Brandenburg in total isolation.
Rita’s assassination is still an open criminal case until today.
Rita’s assassin was never found.
A case led by a white police force …
That couldn’t care less if a woman’s black body was missing.

We want to remember:

Robble Warsame, who was living in an Ankercenter – a big deportation center – in Schweinfurt that was repeatedly – like the other refugees living in this Lager – brutally beaten by the security in the Lager before he was taken to the police station where he was later beaten and killed by the police. Again a white police force that is so confidentially telling the lie that he hanged himself.

We ask: How is a man who is 1.78 meters tall supposed to strangle himself with a strip from a blanket, that is considered unbreakable – especially made to prevent suicides in prison- that was placed at a height of 1.50 meters?

We want to remember:

Oury Jalloh, who was killed 16 years ago by police officers in custody at the Dessau police station. After his killing the police launched a campaign to paint him as a criminal, a drug dealer.
A story that we all just know too well.
16 years during which his murder was covered up by the German authorities over and over again until today!

And they are just three cases that we know of. But they stand for thousands and thousands of people that are getting brutalized and killed EVERY DAY.

We demand Justice for Rita and all the people who have been killed by white supremacy:

– in the so called refugee camps in Libya that the German Government is financing
– in the Mediterranean, which has become a mass grave, killed by border security like Frontex – also financed by Germany
– in the Lagers
– in the deportation centers
– at the police station
– at the Ausländerbehörde
– at the Jobcenter
– on the street
– at the park

So we have to fight every day actively to not only chant today that BLACK LIVES MATTER,

but to demand that BLACK LIVES MATTER!

As a last point I want to acknowledge changes that have been happening in the last years in our community:
There is more unity, people are denouncing the colonial tool imposed on them for so many years.

And we are more WOKE – because we are FED UP!

Let’s continue in this spirit, because united we stand, divided we fall!

… OUR LIVES MATTER!

IWS is one of the two groups chosen for Amazingy’s DO GOOD, LOOK GOOD, FEEL AMAZINGY CHARITY BOX. We shared with them how we came to be, our challenges in the past years, and our plans for the future.

>> Read our full interview below!

As the story goes, the first draft of IWS was created in Berlin as an extension of the Refugee Movement of 2012, in order to address the issues of migrant & refugee women through a more intersectional lens. Can you tell us a little more about how that first space came to be, and who initially led the charge?

International Women* Space started in 2012 as an actual physical space: a women’s floor in the occupied Gerhart-Hauptmann- School. It was a place created by and for refugee and migrant women: women for whom there is little separation between the political and the private; women for whom a safe and political space is a necessity. Having our own space allowed us to organise and provide access to some basic services not available to refugee women living in the outskirts of big cities: free German classes, free legal advice, free access to doctors, free distribution of food (Tafel). It also allowed us to create networks, to share experiences, to empower each other, to discuss and share knowledge, to advise each other on bureaucracy and daily life in Germany, to fulfill social needs, to organise, to be active, and to face together the intersectional forms of oppressions we face as women, refugees and migrants. After the school was evicted, we worked between different spaces, before getting our own space again in 2018. Our goal is to ensure the continual existence of International Women* Space as the center of our political work, and to develop it further as a social and political center for women.

How has IWS evolved over the years? What are some of the biggest hurdles the organization has had to overcome in the process? What have been some defining moments of progress & success?

After the evacuation of the school, we continued our work of documenting our stories, our lives, our existence in our own voices. We self-published two books: “In Our Own Words” and “We Exist, We Are Here”. The books are a compilation of testimonials from migrant and refugee women living in Germany.

In 2017, we organised the 2-day conference “Als Ich Nach Deutschland Kam”, which brought together 250+ migrant and refugee women from many different backgrounds to share and exchange experiences, struggles, and knowledge. We published transcripts of the six panel discussions that took place at the conference in our third book.

In October 2018, we moved to our new office. Before Corona, the meetings at the office were well-attended and the space well-visited outside of “official” meetings. We continue to offer and host a variety of activities in our space relevant to the political development and safety of our community. These include workshops, meetings with lawyers, self-organised groups, language classes and social events. The office supports our project work, including our upcoming documentary film (especially through the use of our own editing studio), distribution of our publications, our self-administration, providing space for our finance and other bureaucratic work, as well as a centralised place for our archives.

The Break Isolation Group (BIG), a self-organised refugee women’s group of IWS, was formed in 2019 out of the urgent need for political organisation, by and for refugee women, in and out of the German asylum system. BIG organises visits to the Lagers (camps) and workshops to empower and build the capacity of refugee and migrant women. Once the Corona pandemic started, we were no longer able to visit the Lagers. In reaction to this new reality, with some of the IWS members locked in Lagers in harsh conditions, we started the Corona Lager Reports and IWS Radio to report about, discuss, and analyze the situation of women in the context of the Corona pandemic. These platforms enable us to connect and contextualize our struggles within the frame of the international feminist struggle, refugee movements and cross-border solidarity, especially in these difficult times of Corona.

We are presently witnessing a continual rise of far-right extremism in Germany and beyond. On February 19, 2020, in the city of Hanau, Germany, 9 people were killed by a racist attacker. The killer targeted two locations predominantly frequented by people racialised as non-white, people who have what is referred to in Germany as “Migrationshintergrund” (migration background).

The right-wing populist AfD party has been gaining traction in Saxony and Brandenburg. 609 attacks on migrants in these two states were reported there to the police in the first half of 2019. We are witnessing a further groundswell of racist violence throughout the country, inflamed to a large degree by the racist and fascist rhetoric of the AfD. This continues to take its toll on us, our communities and our work. These attacks show us that we must continue to expand our network and structures, to support and empower each other. But we must equally prioritize self-care and finding more sustainable ways to work.

Another external change that affects our work is the new law “Orderly Return Bill”, which came into effect in January 2020 and has led to the increased detention and imprisonment of migrants by the German state; it has simultaneously decreased the welfare rights and social benefits for migrants, as well as ushered in the criminalisation of civil society organisations. As a result, we have seen an increase in groups and individuals reaching out to us who wish to self-organise, to build stronger alliances and networks.

Which other charities / organizations is IWS working closely with as of today? In other words: how “international” has the work become?

One example is the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists – we are now offering our space for meetings of the Alliance. The Alliance usually starts meeting two months before the two annual demonstrations that we’ve been organising since 2014: the 8th of March and the 25th of November. Two months are not enough for us to accommodate the different demands of an internationalist alliance. We need to really understand each other’s campaigns and how we can bring them to the streets in a consistent and effective way. For that, we need to also maintain consistent and structured contact throughout the year.

We have been invited to present our books all over Germany and also in Japan and Belarus.

In 2019, from the 22nd-24th of November, one of our members participated in the conference “Empowerment of Women with HIV in Eastern Europe” – organised by Deutsche Aidshilfe – which took place in Minsk, Belarus. IWS was invited to speak about feminism and self-organisation as well as the importance of self-publication and documentation. The conference was attended by around 100 women, mostly HIV-positive. The collaboration with the Deutsche Aidshilfe is fundamental for us because it not only gives us expertise in the subject of health issues concerning sexually transmitted infections and drug addiction, but also connects us with an institution better equipped to support refugee women who might be HIV-positive. (You can click here to read more about this publication.)

In October 2019, one of IWS’s members was invited by WIDE+ (a European network of associations and activists fighting for women’s rights) to join a group of feminists representing Europe during a one-day event for movement building, advocacy strategizing and solidarity action at the UN. The event gathered 500 feminists from 55 different countries to discuss demands that will be shared at the official intergovernmental meeting, Beijing+25 Regional Review Meeting. (You can click here to see a video of her participation.) Since then we have been working with WIDE+ more closely and have been involved in a number of their events.

IWS is currently part of a new EU expert group of a EU-wide public consultation and participates in the development and implementation of migration, asylum, and integration policies, the results of which will contribute to the development of the Action Plan on integration and inclusion announced in the Commission’s work programme.

On September 11th, 2020, we took part in a meeting with Dr. Franziska Giffey, former Bundesministerin für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, and Dr. Karamba Diaby, Integrationsbeauftragter der SPD-Bundestagsfraktion. The meeting was initiated as a part of PAD (People of African Descent) Week, which in turn is a part of the UN’s PAD Decade. We took the opportunity to talk about the racism, violence, and discrimination facing migrants and refugees.

This is a difficult question, as there are many to choose from… but for those wanting to become more proactive with their support: what is currently one of the most pressing issues faced by migrant & refugee communities in Germany & abroad? Where should those of us in more privileged positions place the majority of our focus & resources?

The Lager system and asylum policies in Germany remain our most significant battles. The Dublin regulation has resulted in many women becoming illegalized and undocumented. Furthermore, COVID-19 has generally worsened the situation of many refugee and migrant women: between increased physical and mental health risk, restriction of movement and autonomy of women living in collective accommodations, sometimes sharing small spaces with a violent partner or having to take care of children full-time, with no possibility of accessing kindergartens or schools. In addition to all of this, the number of deportations has increased during this time. The aforementioned “Orderly Return Bill” worsens the situation even more so for migrants and refugees. We are actively working on figuring out strategies and ways to defend ourselves against these threats.

The restrictions of the pandemic have had a huge cost on a group like ours, which relies heavily on face-to-face meetings and organising, mass demonstrations, campaigns and solidarity with each other in person. Several women find it hard to join online meetings which is challenging for an association like ours. As a result, we have not been able to organise in the ways that we could before.

We believe those in privileged positions should work to enact real solidarity by redistributing funding and sharing privileges. It is about material support and recognizing the civic duty they have to dismantle racist structures.

COVID-19 has left much of the world in disarray, and those in marginalized communities have experienced the full brunt of its devastation – further amplified by a severe lack of systemic support. Keeping the debilitating aftereffects of this pandemic in mind, does IWS have any specific goals on the agenda for the next year(s)?

IWS ultimately works to prevent all sorts of violence against women* and especially against migrant and refugee women. Until now we have not seen a single study about violence committed against migrant and refugee women in the context of the pandemic, published in Germany. That is why we plan to continue producing Lager Reports and moving forward with our podcast IWS Radio.

Additionally, we are planning to create an office in Eisenhüttenstadt, which is where the reception center for those beginning the asylum process is located. These centers are always placed very far outside of the city and internet access is limited for those living there, leaving women in the Lagers isolated from essential services and networks. The office will provide resources and information on legal, health, employment, housing, and other matters. The pandemic made it very apparent that we need to have a presence in the Lagers in order to truly break the isolation created by them.

The recent withdrawal of Turkey from the Istanbul Convention has been another major event. In response to this, we want to organise a campaign about the Istanbul Convention and its importance particularly in ensuring women are able to receive gender-based asylum protection.

And one last question: who are a few activist heroes (past & present) that are a source of inspiration for members of the IWS team?

Wangari Maathai, Kimberlé Krenshaw, Angela Davis

WIDE+ Migration and Gender Working Group, in partnership with our member Creación Positiva, has sent a letter of recommendations to Members of European Parliament, Dr Sylwia Spurek and Ms Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi on addressing legal and policy gaps in tackling gender-based cyberviolence. The letter has been drafted and supported by many women’s rights organizations and experts including NGO Atina, Donestech, Glitch UK, Laia Serra Perelló, and others.

The letter is a timely initiative given that the two MEPs are currently driving a legislative process to combat gender-based violence, with specific reference to cyberviolence. Gender-based cyberviolence is part of the continuum of widespread violence against women and girls and is a serious violation of women’s human rights. All forms of systemic and social discrimination, including gender, racial and economic ones, are reproduced and magnified online. These discriminations intersect, resulting in more extreme consequences for migrant women, young women, women from ethnic minorities and indigenous and racialized women, LGBTIQ+ people, women with functional diversity and women from other vulnerable and marginalized groups.

Overall, the letter recommends the importance of having a working definition of gender-based cyberviolence that can capture the scope, extent, types, gendered and intersectional nature of this form of violence. At the same time, it outlines the importance and urgency for the EU to ratify the Istanbul Convention, and calls for Internet intermediaries to be held accountable for all forms of cyberviolence that occur on their platforms. The online space is a public space and fundamental human rights have to be protected above other priorities.

Letter of recommendations_GenderbasedCyberviolence_June2021

If you want to show support for the letter and write to your MEPs, disseminate key message on social media, etc. kindly reach out to us at: info@wide-network.org.

Source: https://wideplus.org/2021/06/08/wide-and-creacion-positivas-recommendations-for-the-legislative-report-on-combating-gender-based-cyberviolence/