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.

KILLA
Hi everybody, my name is Killa Kupfer. Today I’m joined by my compañera Jennifer Kamau. You’re listening to IWS radio, a podcast on the migrant women experience.

Today for our 10th program, we will talk about the externalization of the EU borders and the dirty deals the EU, and especially Germany, is making to keep externalizing the borders on the one hand, and also to make deportations easier, on the other. And how these policies impact also the situation for migrants and refugees in Germany.

To discuss these topics, we invited Christina David from Women* in Exile and Syrine Boukadida from Watch the Med – AlarmPhone. Welcome.

So we want today to shatter this “clean hands” image of Germany that it wants to keep, and sadly in reality, is keeping as this upholder of human rights, like the federal Foreign Office, Auswärtiges Amt, claims proudly on their website, “Human rights: a cornerstone of German foreign policy”.

But it is so clear that Germany is not outside or above the EU border politics that are killing people at the borders and in the Mediterranean. They’re actually in the center of it. Germany continues to make deals with countries outside of Europe to make deportations easier, and even during this pandemic, and to further and further externalize the outer borders so that they can stop migrants from coming.

From Libya to Turkey to Niger to Ethiopia, Germany is paying other countries to do the dirty work of curtailing migration and deporting migrants. They are outsourcing it more and more so that it isn’t anymore about the situation in Germany or even the EU.

Then on the other hand here in Germany, they are able, or they are trying, to wipe their hands clean of the violence in the asylum process by invisibilizing it, by forcing refugees to stay in lagers that most often in very isolated areas and through policies like Residentzpflicht that criminalizes and denies people their freedom of movement. The border and migration policies inside and outside of Germany are going hand in hand.

And today we want to have a conversation about this, to talk about how should we react to this and what have to be our strategies in terms of fighting these policies.

Okay, I will start with you Syrine. It is really great to have you here today. So maybe you can give a short introduction of yourself and the work that the AlarmPhone does.

In the second episode of this radio, we had Hela on [the program], also from the AlarmPhone and this was in the summer. So it was also a different time. And she was also talking about how the COVID outbreak was used a lot as an excuse, especially by Italy and Malta, to lock down somehow. So yes, maybe also you can talk about how this situation has changed, or what has been going on since then.

SYRINE
Thank you for having me. My name is Syrine and I’m part of the AlarmPhone since the very beginning, so since more than five years now. I live in Berlin since some time also, and I’m part of the Berlin local team of the AlarmPhone.

About the situation with Corona and the border situation, I think it didn’t get better. And this excuse is used even more in what we can see that in Italy, for example, migrants who arrived to Italy, they have to be in quarantine for two weeks. For this they have been completely isolated. They would be put into these big ferries, in the water, and they have to stay for at least two weeks. They get tested and they stay there and then after getting tested the second time they can be transferred to the centers on land.

There are now some voices being raised against this in Italy and trying to stop this complete isolation because after spending all this time at the sea and then being quarantined on a boat with all these people being close together it doesn’t make sense.

Also, in the camps, we see it in Greece, where people are locked down. In camps where there is not even the minimum of necessity, not enough water, not enough hygiene products, not enough food sometimes and people are not allowed to go out. And when there is a suspicion of a Corona case, people are completely even more isolated within the camp. Like we saw in the last month, the fire outbreaks in the camps in Greece – the situation is really on all the levels … For example, in Morocco, at the borders in the western Mediterranean, people are struggling to even to eat because they have no access to jobs or to things that they used to have to be able to survive. So in my opinion, it’s getting worse and worse.

KILLA
Can you maybe shortly also introduce the work that AlarmPhone does?

SYRINE
Yeah, so the AlarmPhone is a network of, I think, around 200 people at this point. And it’s a transnational network. It’s organized all over Europe, North Africa. It’s a bit spread in different cities, I think. Maybe I don’t give a number, but more than 20 cities where we have groups and active members.

We are a hotline for people who are in distress at sea. So when people are in boats, and they need rescue, they can reach our number. And we establish contact with them, we stay in contact, we get their position, and we inform the authorities that these people need to be rescued. We also, especially in these times, most of our work is to put pressure on these authorities who refuse to act. We also document the cases and violations of human rights at sea. We also document push backs and pullbacks and violence that’s happening also at the borders. We also write a lot of reports that could be a very good resource for people to get informed about the situation. That’s how it works and it’s 24/7 reachable hotline.

KILLA
Okay, thank you. So like I said in the introduction we want to talk about, the outside [borders] of Germany and the further externalization [of the borders], but also connect it to the situation in Germany. And we know that Germany has been one of the main actors actually shaping the EU policies to externalize the EU borders and the tactics that push migrants back at sea.

So the taz reported that at the Valletta summit in 2015, and I will quote “the EU try to persuade over 300 African states to come to a kind of general agreement on a ban on refugees. And to this end, it set up the EU emergency Trust Fund for Africa. So around 4.6 billion euros have now flowed into this fund. Its development aid was wages for migrant control.”

So, I mean, this is one part for sure, but also not just deals with the countries in Africa. Germany has also made deals now with Albania and Montenegro in the last year, so that Frontex can have a presence there. And they’re also trying to make similar deals with North Macedonia and Serbia.

So the tagesschau, and I mention it because it’s like one of the main outlets, also just released an investigation a couple of weeks ago showing that the German Bundespolizei, like the state police, maybe I will translate it, are actively involved in the illegal push backs that are happening at the borders of Greece, which I mean, you know all along, you’ve been reporting all along. We know also. I mean it’s mainstream media also, no? And the reaction was zero.

Can you explain more about this politics of externalization and pushback, how they look like and how it is happening and developing?

SYRINE
Push backs have always been a technique that is used – for years. With the presence of Frontex, them watching and even helping with it and working on it. It has been scandalized many times already but as you said, always no reaction or kind of saying, “Yeah, but that’s how it is, that’s how it should be.”

So this externalization policies, you can see it very clearly, for example, in North Africa, and not even just North Africa, the borders of Europe start at the Sahara, actually. We have our, we call it our sister project, Alarmphone Sahara, that works on this area, because that’s actually where the borders to Europe start.

Like you said, development funds so Europe gives money to countries and in return, they have to control their migration. And by controlling migration, it means basically just catching migrants in the street and bringing them back to the borders. That’s what’s happening in Morocco. That’s what’s happening in Algeria.

Also, in Tunisia, sometimes it’s happening, that people are just caught and just driven with a bus. They have no right to ask for asylum or anything, they are just taken by a bus and left at the border, and asked to leave the country. So that’s one practice that’s happening on land borders.

And then we also see it on land borders between, for example, Serbia and Hungary, and countries like this. So you cross the border, there is the police waiting for you, you get beaten up and sent back the way you came. So no medical assistance, nothing, you have no right to nothing. That’s on the level of the land borders.

Then in the water, it’s basically – we see it a lot in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece where boats arrive in Greek water. But then the Greek coast guards would come and push, like, literally, they would tie the boat with a rope and pull it back to Turkish water and leave it there. Or they would wait for the Turkish coast guards to come and pick them up.

And that’s a practice that we have been documenting. We had videos and calls from people who were on these boats. We had people who were, sometimes the Coast Guard, they’re not doing it in a very friendly way. They would use violence. We had people who got shot in these boats. Sometimes they would just destroy the engine of the boat and let the people drift. They would stab, if it’s a rubber boat, they would stab the boat, so it has holes and people cannot move on. And they would also be left there, or just pushed a bit to the Turkish waters.

We have documented cases where people are in Greek waters, but after just some time they’re suddenly in Turkish waters. And this has been happening for ages and now it’s even more and more aggressive and more violent – and also with no shame. They don’t even try to hide it. Frontex is watching. We have boats monitoring what’s going on and NGOs and they witness this and they’re like, “Yeah, but that’s how it is.”

KILLA
Exactly. I think also it shifted from some years. Because I remember, I think it was maybe two years ago, there was still a discussion about it. I think there was an article where the headline was, “should we rescue or let it drown?” It was exactly about this. And there was this, yeah, I don’t know, mainstream debate, how we are at this point of talking about if we basically let people die in front of our eyes. And I mean, we are not at this point anymore. I mean, it is, yeah.

SYRINE
Yeah. Maybe a bit on the Libyan Italy side, it’s also the same practice. That people – the distance is much longer, people need much more time, and spend up to three days, five days, in the water in boats that are already broken with no water, no food.

And the rescue, for example, from Malta or Italy, it’s just not coming to rescue people. They would just give the coordinates to the Libyan coast guards and wait for them to come pick up the people. And we also witnessed cases where people were pushed back to Libya, where Libya is war zone and there is no even minimum – people are just put in detention, or kidnapped by militias and stuff, and they get brought back to Libya.

And the rescue authorities, they just refuse to act. They just say, “no, it’s the Libyan Coast Guard’s responsibility” and Libyan coast guards were trained by Europe. There is no such thing as Libyan coast guard – the thing doesn’t exist, or it exists, but it’s just a picture. And then it was funded and trained by the European Union and Frontex – to train the people on how to do rescue operations. And we have seen the number of rescue operations that failed by the Libyan coast guard. There were shootings, there were people falling into the water, there have been many accidents that show that no … and also people should not be brought back to a war zone. They should be taken to the next safest harbor and this should be in Italy or in Malta.

KILLA
Also what we wanted to know is, these politics that you are now describing, what impact do they have on the situation here, especially in Germany?

SYRINE
I think the first impact would be that people – it’s harder for them to arrive. So it’s almost like mission impossible to arrive in Germany. And then with the EU regulation, if you landed in Greece, or somewhere else before, you will probably get deported back because of the Dublin convention.

So it’s made more and more difficult to even arrive in Germany, for example. And then even if you arrive, you’re immediately almost sent back. That’s a way to control migration. And then the only people who are welcome, between parenthesis is, okay, you need to fill certain criterias, apply for a visa and Germany would take you because you would bring in something.

But for other people, it’s complete shutdown at the borders. So people have to take more risky routes and do really extreme things in order to manage to arrive. They are more subject to violence, abuse, and all sorts of things that could happen when somebody is crossing a border. And then if you have to do it in a more dangerous way, it just makes the risks higher.

Then you arrive and you have to face the German asylum system that is already like, “Okay, why are you here in the first place?” It’s just a continuous struggle. It affects people on all levels, even the integrity of the people, their mental health, their health, their sanity. Just after being through all these struggles, arriving to Germany thinking, “Oh, now I can apply for asylum and I can have a safe status.” But no, it just started at another level. People are just struggling a lot.

KILLA
Okay, thank you so much for your input, really. It is so important to hear this. Because I think it is, not even any more, but it was always a tactic of invisibilization also in Germany here with the lagers being pushed to isolated places. And so yeah….

SYRINE
Yeah, definitely and also with this Corona thing now that, “Oh, that should be the focus.” But no, migration never stops, and these movements are happening, and people have so much power and are crossing the borders and arriving in Europe. But what happens to them after this arrival is just put to the side and in Germany, like 2015, “Yay refugees welcome!” and blah, and thinking “okay, now it’s over.” No, it’s not and it’s never over. And also how are these refugees you welcome some time ago, like where are they? How are they doing? So it’s a continuous everyday thing.

KILLA
Thank you so much. We asked you also, like we do with everybody, to pick a song. Maybe you can introduce it?

SYRINE
Yeah, I picked the song Somos Sur. And it translates to, ‘We are the South, we are South’. I really like this song because it has these… it brings up the struggles of people from the global South. And I think this migration struggle is one of them, or one major part of them, and that the struggles are in different places. But somehow they also can come together and we need to somehow also be in solidarity together with the different struggles. So maybe some things can change.

KILLA
Thank you so much.

SYRINE
Thank you.

 

[SONG: Ana Tijoux ft. Shadia Monsour – Somos Sur]

 

JENNIFER
With this program, we also wanted to connect what’s happening to migrants at the borders, in Greece, in Turkey, with what’s happening here in Germany. So I’m very happy that we have Christina from Women* in Exile in the studio with us to continue the conversation.

We are going also to talk about the situation of women in the asylum system, in Germany, in Greece, in Italy, in Malta, who have been in a lockdown for all their lives. And the purpose is to keep them invisible and make their lives miserable. So they fall into depression, and drive them to suicide, or accept deportation back to the countries where they come from.

In this context, we want to compare it with the current situation of the lockdown. That now everyone is in a hullabaloo about the second Corona lockdown. These feelings of being deprived, controlled, limited on their movement, not being able to celebrate holidays and gather and gatherings, feeling isolated and depressed, which are new for white people – this is what is normal for women in the heims.

So once we have finally been able to have something to share emotions with this Corona pandemic. And with this, I would like to introduce our guest and ask our first question just to understand, what is the history of Women* in Exile? How have you been organizing? And what made you form this group of Women* in Exile?

CHRISTINA
Thank you, Jennifer, for having me. My name is Christina like you’ve heard I’m from Women* in Exile & Friends. Women* in Exile was formed in 2002 by refugee women in Brandenburg who felt the need to fight for their rights. And these rights were the right to have good housing, like abolish all the lagers. The right to work and study in Germany. The right to have adequate health for all. The right for free choice of residence. The right to have freedom of movement. And also there was fighting against racism and sexism, discrimination, and they were also fighting to stop the deportations.

Since then, there was a challenge because there were just refugee women living in the isolated lagers, and there was no way to come out. So it was really difficult but with the strength to come together, they were able to be out there and connect with the society, get loud, and make the society outside of the lager know what’s going on inside the lager. In 2011, that’s when they were able to gain more support, more friends, more solidarity, and the name changed from women*, only Women* in Exile, but Women* in Exile & Friends. These friends are all the supporters, all the people in solidarity with these people. That’s how it was formed to be Women* in Exile & friends.

JENNIFER
Maybe just to ask you a question: was it only women from Brandenburg? Was it only women with children or women without children? What was it consisted of and how was it able to bring the women together?

CHRISTINA
Yeah, normally this was the women in Brandenburg. Because normally when you ask for asylum in Germany, they post you in different regions, according to where you came from. The women in Brandenburg mostly come from Cameroon and Kenya, and other different countries.

But the women who started Women in Exile were from Kenya and Cameroon, but later conjoined with other women from Afghanistan and later gained momentum all over and were able to connect with all refugee women. And the reason was that they felt like they were really discriminated or really denied the right as human beings, and also they were denied their right as women. They thought they needed to come together and try to fight against all these discrimination and fight for their rights – to be out loud there, to be heard.

JENNIFER
Yeah, I can imagine just how much effort it was to try to be visible in circumstances which were very dehumanizing. We acknowledge this power that Women* in Exile have had over the 20 years. We recognize that and we respect that.

Now this brings us back to our second question on the externalization of the borders and the deals with Turkey, Libya, Nigeria, and maybe soon, Sudan. How have these impacted the situation of refugee women here in Germany?

CHRISTINA
Yeah, it has a huge impact because most of the refugee women – I would say most of them – traveled through the water in the Mediterranean. And they were supposed to come to Europe and also to connect with other families who may be anywhere in Europe. This has also contributed to family separation because we know that there are some refugees who were supposed to come, some refugee women, who were supposed to come and meet their spouses, on the other side of the water. But it’s not possible because of the externalization of the borders. So we can see, it’s actually dividing families.

Also, when there are these push backs, the push backs are really not a good idea. It’s like sending people to the same thing they’re running from: war, the torture, everything. And we felt like really it’s the worst deal, and it’s a real humanitarian crisis.

JENNIFER
Could you maybe expand on what happens when people are pushed to these externalized borders?

CHRISTINA
Yeah, actually, the results comes back to… sometimes we hear of death. People who didn’t make it, maybe they committed suicide, or they lost hope and just did anything, they felt like it’s enough with this life. And also, when they reach to where they are being pushed back – I’ll give an example of Libya. They always go through a harsh treatment, torture, murder. And also we know there is organ harvesting in Libya. We’ve seen on social media how migrants who were sent back to Libya were tortured and all their organs were being sold.

Also, there were a lot of cases for rape, and modern day slavery. We can say, it’s really not the best place to be, also because we know there’s no asylum system there. We know these deals – it’s all about money. We know, all these African countries are corrupt, and they’re all interested in the money that is coming from Europe. But it’s really not helping the refugees who are sent back.

On the other hand, we know the Europeans, all they care about is the the goods from Africa. They can let them come inside Europe freely, but they don’t want to see the bodies or the human beings from there. So I would say it’s shameful corrupted governments, on two sides, which are selfish, and really don’t care about humanitarianism at all.

JENNIFER
Yeah, this thing of Africa being totally corrupt, and yet, the corruption that is perpetrated by the European states is never spoken about. It is something that has very deep repercussions on the African people themselves.

We will take a short break and we will listen to a song called Jailer from Asa, a Nigerian award winning songwriter and musician. It’s a very powerful song because it relates to very different circumstances. We are all prisoners. We are all jailed. So she continues to say, “I am jailed but you who is also my jailer is also jailed.” This is very strong.

 

[SONG: Aṣa – Jailer]

 

JENNIFER
Yeah, that was a very powerful song by Asa. She says, “I have fears, you have fears, too. I will die. But you yourself will die too.” So that makes us all equal. Thank you for the powerful song.

Christine, we continue with our conversation about the the work of Women* in Exile, which we find, we are still going to say it again, that we really appreciate and recognize the work you have done over the years.

This comes back to the to the question of how has your work developed during the 20 years that Women* in Exile has existed? And how did it change according to the changes in the German asylum law?

I would say the group has grown from being a small group of women to a bigger, wider group of every woman of all walks of life. Like I said, we have all types of women, I can’t forget to say, again, there is lesbian, there is queer, there is trans. And we conjoined together now, not only with the refugee women, but also with our friends and supporters.

CHRISTINA
Mainly we’ve seen some developments, like we were able to track the most isolated women in the most isolated lagers: going to visit the heims, trying to break the isolation, inviting these women to come out and meet with other women and get encouraged to know that they are not alone – that what they are going through so many years ago, there are other women who went through the same thing and came out as winners.

So it’s about a fight, we don’t need to just stay there defeated but we must fight together, and we must support each other. That’s how we were able to bring more isolated women from inside isolated lagers to the open, and being able to educate them about their rights: the rights they have as women and also the right they have as refugees.

We are able also to connect with them and make them be very open. Most of them have problems that they’re afraid to share with people. But once they start mingling with other women, they feel free to talk, and that way we are able to direct them to where they can get the help they need.

We have also discovered there is a lot of mental health problems due to isolation and this is the worst thing because we’ve also discovered when they’re in the heims, they are not allowed to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist. And we are able to show them that this is their right and they are supposed to have this right to see a psychologist.

Sometimes we also found that it’s a big problem also to see a gynecologist or to go for women’s body checkup. And this also we’ve tried – we’ve developed to try to encourage them, work together with them to direct them where to see a gynecologist and be able to know about their bodies. We’ve done workshops to educate them about women’s bodies.

We came across some women who were having cancer but they didn’t know. But after going for checkups, they realized they had this problem and it was taken care of before it was worse. This is a huge development because once you are able to advise women and encourage them to face it and be able to fight for their rights, like body checkups, that’s a huge development.

Another thing is we are able to get louder through the demos and events that we do all the time. This has made us able to connect with other feminists groups, not only in Berlin but also around Germany. So far, we’ve done a boat tour. We’ve done some bus tours, like three or so bus tours.

The events that we do have really connected us with other groups, which allows us to be able to fight together, as feminist groups, and support one another, and be able to fight these battles, which not only refugee women are going through but all women in the world.

JENNIFER
Lastly, we are able to advise women on the importance of learning the language. Because once you know the language, it’s easy for you to communicate. We’ve discovered there’s a lot of discrimination in the language. Because when you don’t understand the language, you can go to any office and you can be pushed back or told lies.

CHRISTINA
We’ve had women who confessed in Eisenhüttenstadt: they went to see the gynecologist there and because of the language and (lack of) communication, there was a problem and they ended up with their uterus being removed. They were told, you need to remove the uterus. And they said, the problem of the language made them accept these things because they thought they were really sick – only to discover that it’s like a game, which was going on there to make the women remove their uterus because they didn’t want them to give birth.

We later realized, we need to let these women at least learn a little language to understand what’s going on. Because you understand when they’re in the lagers, it’s not possible to get Dolmetscher [interpreter]. So it’s good to have a little bit of knowledge on communication then you don’t have to go through some of the problems that they go through.

JENNIFER
Yeah, that’s really a lot of work. And when you talk about women having to make decisions about their bodies – and they just don’t know what decisions they are making. Those are very serious crimes that the doctors are taking. That’s the breaking of basic … How do you call it? The doctors really take too much power over other people’s bodies. This is breaking the agreement that doctors have to protect, to safeguard. I don’t know how to put it.

The topic of women’s wombs being taken out has also been a big topic that people don’t talk about. How we are denied the right to decide whether we want to have children or not to have children – is something that is completely taken away from us. One, because of the violence of the language, and the racism of the doctors. This is just exactly what you have projected.

Also to add on our development, I don’t want to forget about all of the supporters we’ve gained. Through these supporters and friends, and everybody who feels like … the work of Women* in Exile is seen out there, and they give us support in donations, or whenever we need to do a demo, we see a huge support of people.

CHRISTINA
Normally, this is a huge development and I wouldn’t like to not mention it because it’s an achievement when you have a lot of supporters. Recently, we launched our magazine. It was a huge development and it was a success.

Also, before the lockdown, we managed to have our own space, just through the supporters, the donors and the donations that we get from the donors. So we can’t forget that. All our supporters are very important. We love all of them. We are happy to work with them and we are looking forward to working in the future with them. We know our main goal of good housing has not been met but we keep on the fire.

JENNIFER
Yeah, that’s great.

Now, we go back to this day of the 25th of November. I saw that you had made a statement against a journalist from the rbb, Marie Stumpf. It struck me why someone would, on this particular day, the day against violence on women, a journalist would do exactly the same with her pen and paper. She would do the same: violate the rights of women. Can you just expound a bit on what happened on this day?

First, I want to say it’s a big shame to see a woman violating this same fight that we are fighting for. Because as a woman, she was supposed to support this fight. But we think she went ahead and got out of the context. I would say she was trying to steal the moment. And it was all about her.

CHRISTINA
We realized, before the demo started, we gave her the chance to do an interview. But I felt like it’s not about the reporter. It’s about what work we are there to do. And I think also stopping the demo from starting because she’s doing her interview was not a good idea, because normally, she can do interviews elsewhere, away from the demo.

But anyway, on this day, we got some disappointments from the beginning because we were pushed away by the police. As we registered the demo, we were supposed to be 50 meters from the gate. But when we arrived there, they wanted us to be 200 meters from the gate, where nobody could hear us, where nobody could see us. Only the trees were around.

But finally, we were able to fight for our rights and we were able to go 50 meters from the gate. This is where we saw Marie Stumpf was really trying to steal the show. After the interview, she went ahead to speak with the police and was laughing with them. Later she was allowed to go inside the lager and do some interviews without our knowledge.

JENNIFER
She went to talk with Ausländerbehörde and the … people.

CHRISTINA
Yeah, at this time she she stopped being a reporter and maybe she became an investigator, because she went inside to investigate what was happening. Why we went to Eisenhüttenstadt is because we heard complaints about the sexual abuse of women, and of lesbian women. This is the problem that we had gone there to face because we wanted justice for the rape cases that happened there to be addressed – it seemed like it was just ignored.

From the Eisenhüttenstadt officials, it looked like the women are just like that, it’s their fault. When Marie went inside the lager, she came back with the same report as the officials inside the lager. She wrote like, “Oh, it was the women’s fault that they had a party with the men.” But the party was for everybody, not only for men.

So we had a question to Marie Stumpf, “has she ever lived in a place where she’s locked down? All you see are some strangers or people who have the same problems as you, and you are all not in a position to help each other? For this case, does it mean being a lesbian, you’re not supposed to mingle or talk with other people? Does she justify rape because somebody went to party with men?” As a woman it’s a shameful thing for her to say and to support this victim blaming. We think it’s really disgusting to see a woman reporting such a thing on the women’s day against violence.

JENNIFER
I will say it again, it is disgusting. Just the way you have said it. This thing about the journalist is really, really, really annoying. What other challenges are you facing as a refugee women’s group?

CHRISTINA
Normally we know very well, every group, which is successful, also has its critics. Marie is one of them, I should say so because out there, what she did was to criticize our work. Also we have a lot of other challenges like we’ve been, for a long time, trying to break the harsh asylum system laws. But it’s been a huge challenge and we keep on fighting about it. Also, we didn’t acquire our goal of abolishing all lagers and campaigning for better housing for mostly women and children. But we keep fighting until this, really, will come into a reality.

Mainly, these are the challenges that we feel like we still, for all these years, the 20 years, we’ve been fighting for these two main things but it’s been a challenge. But we keep on fighting.

JENNIFER
Yeah, we have no option. We have to keep fighting. Thank you very much for being with us in the studio and for sharing your predicaments, your success, your challenges, your victories with us. We are still going to say again, we are very proud of you. We know the work that you do is very important. And with that, we will end our part with the song from Aretha Franklin, Respect, because respect is all that we are asking for.

 

[SONG: Aretha Franklin – Respect]

 

KILLA
Okay, so thank you, again, Syrine and Christina, for both of your important inputs and for being here with us today. So this is the end of our 10th program. We will take a short break for the end of the year but we will come back.

So yes, thank you, Syrine, for talking about the policies and practices that the EU, with Germany as one of the main actors in it, is doing to externalize the borders and to further and further push migrants out and the deals connected to it.

Then also, thank you very much, Christina, for talking about how these policies influence the situation here and how the isolation continues in Germany. Also, I think, Christina you made very clear, the importance of self organizing when you talk about the work that Women* in Exile does in order to fight against this horrible system, the European and also the German asylum system. So yes, let’s talk a bit more about the self organizing, maybe you want to start, Jennifer.

JENNIFER 
Yeah, maybe with a reflection on what Christina and Syrine have given us, it takes me back to the time of the Oranienplatz movement, and the need that there was to start a self organized, refugee protest. At this time, we were also still fighting for the same things also: the Residentzpflicht, the voucher system, the right to a work permit, the isolation, right to study the German language, freedom of movement, generally.

These were some of the things that were at the forefront in the time O-platz. It was not only fighting for these things that were dehumanizing factors in the asylum process, which affect all people applying for asylum. The most important part is that it brought the visibility of the black people in Germany.

We see that before that, there was this feeling that black people were only supposed to be hidden somewhere. We were like a wound that was supposed to be covered somewhere, not visible. But coming to a very central place in Kreuzberg Berlin, and protesting from that point, this soreness of our blackness was broken. So people began to see a different perspective. We got over that soreness. That was so important. And out of this self organization from the Oranienplatz movement came so many more self organized groups as a result of this.

KILLA
Like we are here in this space today.

JENNIFER
Exactly, like we are here in this space today: We are born free. The people also were very engaged in the times of Oranienplatz. This is so powerful to see how many forces have come out of a movement.

We also need to acknowledge that also before us there were people who were protesting, like the VOICE and the Caravan, who we need to acknowledge the work they have done over the years. And it is a continuation to protest.

KILLA
Exactly.

I think also what both Syrine and Christina said, that this isolation is such a powerful practice to do. I think I would focus again on these Corona times: that now this isolation – the Corona pandemic was the perfect excuse to keep this lockdown, to keep this isolation with the legitimation of a law.

I want to mention, again, the Lager Reports that have been going on for a long time, that exactly exposed all of this brutality and this inhumanity when Germany claims to be this human rights nation. Like they said before, this is a cornerstone of German foreign policy, as we said in the introduction. But to expose this absolute inhumanity that the lager system is, that the asylum system is, that the push backs and the deportations are, especially during this Corona time. I mean, they have been deporting the whole time.

JENNIFER
Yeah, they’re using these times of isolation to facilitate the deportations. They have become so rampant. It’s in this situation of lockdown where people are not even aware of what is happening that they have effected the act of deportation. It brings us now to the discussion of what happened in the time of Oranienplatz – and where we are now and how Germany is forming alliances. Maybe you could mention these alliances.

KILLA
Syrine said a lot – we were talking a lot about these dirty deals that Germany is doing, is trying to do, and to date, this creation of this trust fund. Basically, this worked very well during the corona pandemic because these alliances mean that it is easier to deport.

I mean, they get money, the countries get money, and then they help with this [by], I don’t know, issuing the papers that are needed for deportation, keeping basically migrants from coming to the EU and therefore to Germany. Germany is very well in doing this. They have been – they are talking to a lot of countries, they have made deals with a lot of countries. We asked ourselves what our role would be in it. What we can do because they are forming alliances so …

JENNIFER
Yeah, we have to really up our game now. With the new situation of Turkey [potentially] pulling out of the Istanbul convention, this makes it more difficult for us because the Istanbul convention was the only convention that … this has been the only hope for women to get protection from gender-based violence.

But what we are seeing is not only the pulling out from the convention, but also Germany has found a way to reintroduce the Residentzpflicht and the voucher system, which were things we were so loud about and we had fought for and managed to change. What we have to do now, we can’t only be self organized, but we have to go to the next level of also forming alliances with other countries across and beyond borders.

KILLA
So with this, we come to the end of our last program for this year and the next year we will continue with more programs about the topics that we just talked about and focus more.

Lucía Muriel was born in Ecuador. She is a graduate in psychology and has advanced training in industrial, occupational and organizational psychology. She is also a psychotherapist with a therapeutic focus on trauma, migration and violence. She is an activist for social justice for migrants and refugees in strengthening their participation and self empowerment. For many years now, she has been one of the leaders in the debates on political work towards anti racism, emancipation, gender empowerment, decolonization in education, and public spaces. She works as a freelancer in the fields of conflict management, change management as a coach and as a lecturer. She is the author of „Die (bundesdeutsche) eine-Welt aus einem Guss?“ from 2014.

Jasmin Eding was born and raised in Bavaria. She is a social pedagogue. She has been active in the Black movement for over 30 years and is a co-founder of Adefra e.V., Black women in Germany, which was also founded in Munich. She is the co-author of the book, „Kinder der Befreiung“, edited by Marion Kraft and published in 2016 by the Unrast Verlag. She writes about transatlantic experiences and perspectives of Black Germans of the post-war generation and contributes to a milestone in literature about the manifold history of Black Germans. The book has now been translated into English.

JENNIFER
Hello and welcome everyone to our ninth podcast of IWS radio. I’m Jennifer and I am also here with Denise. Today, we will be speaking of mental health, mental illness, isolation and torture, and how we can create a support network for migrant and refugee women living in the Lagers. Welcome.

We would like to start this program by playing some clips from the Corona Lager reports. We started this project during the first lockdown in order to share the voices of women living in the Lagers and how they are experiencing the pandemic. We have three clips. Let’s listen to them, shall we?

 

[AUDIO: Corona Lager Reports]

 

DENISE
We have just listened to a short clip of the Corona Lager reports. So far we have collected around 36 reports and they are all available on our website, iwspace.de.

It’s important to say that one of the issues that women keep mentioning in this reports is mental health: how women living already in isolation in the camps in refugee camps, and now also keeping with this double isolation that came with the pandemic. We have been seeing these are issues that are never addressed and in this program today we would like to understand how we can deal with mental health, what we can offer, what women are needing, and how can we make the situation of asylum seeking women living in refugee camps visible?

JENNIFER
Yes, when women are experiencing depression, like it was we had in the last audio report, or having difficulty with mental health, instead of providing support, often the police are engaged in ways that only lead to more violence. Now, with this Corona pandemic and the second lockdown, we see that women in the Lagers are facing a double isolation. And by a double isolation, we always mean that the Lagers are always situated very far away from any social amenities. Then now with the lockdown, this makes it a double way of isolation, which only worsens mental health situations of women. That was the reason we decided to have a discussion on this topic.

LUCÍA
Okay, so today we are very happy to have here Lucía Muriel and Jasmin Eding to have this conversation around mental health and how we can improve the possibilities of supporting women living in refugee camps.

DENISE
I will introduce Lucía now: Lucía Muriel was born in Ecuador. She is a graduate in psychology and has advanced training in industrial, occupational and organizational psychology. She is also a psychotherapist with a therapeutic focus on trauma, migration and violence. She is an activist for social justice for migrants and refugees in strengthening their participation and self empowerment. For many years now, she has been one of the leaders in the debates on political work towards anti racism, emancipation, gender empowerment, decolonization in education, and public spaces. She works as a freelancer in the fields of conflict management, change management as a coach and as a lecturer. She is the author of „Die (bundesdeutsche) eine-Welt aus einem Guss?“ The title is a question: „Die (bundesdeutsche) Eine-Welt aus einem Guss?“ from 2014.

DENISE
Jasmin Eding was born and raised in Bavaria. She is a social pedagogue. She has been active in the Black movement for over 30 years and is a co-founder of Adefra e.V., Black women in Germany, which was also founded in Munich. She is the co-author of the book, „Kinder der Befreiung“, edited by Marion Kraft and published in 2016 by the Unrast Verlag. She writes about transatlantic experiences and perspectives of Black Germans of the post-war generation and contributes to a milestone in literature about the manifold history of Black Germans. The book has now been translated into English.

And we appreciate that it has been translated into English because there is so much good literature done in Germany by feminist women or women with all this biography that never reach women that has just arrived and cannot yet understand the language and with such books – so thank you, Jasmin, for that. And thank you Lucía, for all this work you’ve done.

DENISE
We will start now with Lucía.

LUCÍA
Yes I am listening to you … Thank you very much. And welcome.

DENISE
Lucía, you mentioned to us that you visit Doberlug-Kirchhain every month. Could you tell us, please, a little bit more of this work you have been doing there and what you have observed regarding the mental health of women in the Lagers, the refugee shelters? And also, how do you see the system dealing with mental health in the asylum context?

LUCÍA
Well, I should tell you that I go there once a month. When I go there I meet especially the translators – the migrant worker in this asylum Heim and this Lager. Almost all of them are migrants also. Most of them were asylum seekers some years ago, and now they work for translation to take care of the asylum seekers now in this Lager. Why I go there is to enhance the sensibility of them and also to talk about their stress. They suffer a lot of stress also, and so that they can stay strong enough to work there every day with the stress and the pressure.

But what I see is that these translators are also migrants. They lost a lot of their compassion – this is what I observed. And so my work is also to strengthen their emotional system so they can come back to their own compassion, you know, their own compassion levels, in a way. Always when we talk about the person living in the Lager, the asylum seekers, often or almost always, they talk about the violence, especially among the men. They almost don’t talk about women’s situation. This is very interesting because I asked them often, how are the families? How are the women? How they feel and so on, but they don’t talk much about the women – much more about violent situation with men.

What I feel also is that the others, the German workers of this Lager in Doberlug-Kirchhain, they show a high level of rejection towards refugees – especially towards men. Not that much against the women. But they are irritated in the way that they say, so why they come? Why they are here? Why they don’t go back? They should go back and not stay here. This is one of the main point I would like to work out is the lack of compassion in this Lager and among the workers there.

DENISE
Thank you, Lucía, and it’s very interesting how you pointed out the question of the invisibility of the women because the International Women* Space works exactly on the on this direction: to make the lives of women living in these Heims also visible. Do you have an opinion from your experience and your observation, why it seems that the refugees, in general, are seen as a group of men whereas women are so invisible – even for these workers that do the translation. And when you mention the lack of compassion, why is this never directed to the women? What is the reason behind that?

LUCÍA
Yes, I think that women learned if they get, for example, aggressive or violent or if they get loud – if they show emotions and their feelings and so on, I think that they would be seen more than a threat for the others because in the mind ???.

So, the women have to be quiet, they have to be in their rooms, they have to be in a way silent. This is the expectation towards them. When a man gets aggressive or violent, this is almost accepted – and expected also. This makes the situation much more difficult for women because no one will pay them attention if they show their fear or their stress. This is what I think it has to do with it. Women should not show their anger, anger. Yes. This is one of the main problems in this situation.

The workers in Doberlug-Kirchhain, they have very, very much to do. So they pay more attention to the males, who get aggressive and violent, and they almost forget the women. This is one thing I observed: if there is one woman, for example, who gets depressed and she cannot take care of her own child one day or two days because of the depression – they get very angry towards her. So she’s a mother, she should do what she must do for the child but she doesn’t do it. This is the stress also for women.

DENISE
It’s very interesting because this is how society, in general, is and of course, in such situations, it just gets to the extreme. We can talk a little bit more about it later – your work with the people that are there doing the translation – and how we could change the situation and bring the women to a point where they feel the courage also to be visible and to make their voices heard. We will pass now to my colleague, Jennifer.

JENNIFER
Yes, thank you, Lucía for your input.

Now I have a question for Jasmin. As one of the founders of Adefra, maybe you can explain to the listeners what Adefra is about and how you came to form Adefra, what is your concern around mental health?

JASMIN
First of all, Adefra was founded more than 30 years ago in Munich. It began with Audre Lorde. Audre Lord is the African American writer, poet, author, who unfortunately died a long time ago. And she came to Germany because of health issues and she said,„Where are the Black women here?“ I know there must be Black woman here in terms of our history: after the second World War, many blacks came to Germany. Where are they?

So then she met, while she was teaching at a university, some Black women. She encouraged them to write a book about the situation of Black women in Germany. The book is „Farbe Bekennen“ / Showing Our Colors. It’s also translated into English. That’s how it all became. Because back then, we grew up very isolated. We had no community. But then we started to come together, talking about our issues and realized we are together now. There’s a possibility to do more, to raise more awareness of racism, which we are facing everyday in school, in universities, in the workplace, everywhere in the streets.

Therefore, we decided we need to form an organization to fight against all of this. But most of all, we wanted to create a platform where Black women can come together and speak about their experience and to help each other, support each other – create a space of empowerment. It’s more than 20 years ago and we are still around.

Mental health is especially important for me because I am coming from the health field, I am a massage therapist. I met a lot of women, sick women, while I was working as a social worker in a shelter for homeless women, and then I worked in a Lager also in Munich. And so I realized that our health system is not quite suitable for the women there because our health system has no idea about where women come from, with which kind of issues they had to deal. They have no idea about their life situations.

When I was working at Refugio, this is like a center for refugees who are traumatized, I began to learn more about this issue. Since then, I am very interested in how we can support women, especially in the Lagers to deal with the situation. Right now, with this pandemia and living in the Lager exposed to all of this and sometimes they can’t even leave the Lager, causes an enormous stress and fear.

I think it’s very important that we need to support women and try to take some of the fears away. I mean, we can’t take the fear away and we can’t take the fear of deportation away. But I think it is important that we help the women, you know, facing this issue and dealing with the fear, you know. The fear is there but how you handle the fear is important. So, I think there are quite some options how to help, in little steps, the women to deal with the situation or make it a little less fearful for them.

JENNIFER
Thank you, Jasmin. There is also the issue of when Black women are in pain then they are not believed by the doctors. And the issue, for example, what Lucía was mentioning that a woman in the Heim is suffering from depression and she cannot take care of her child. And then she’s condemned. We see in these processes of asylum, that we there is no provision for the mental health situation. Is this the same situation that you also faced when you were only a very small minority of a Black community?

JASMIN
Yeah, we always faced this kind of situation. But back then, we didn’t know where to go, what to do. But only then when we started to talk about our life situations and about what was going on, it was clear for us that the system we are dealing with, the health system, it’s marginalizing us. They have no idea.

For instance, racism was never an issue in the mental health system. Still today in the universities, in school, racism is not a subject, it’s not on the agenda. So therefore, in the mental health system, nobody paid attention, which is why, for instance, this woman has depression or a panic attack and they never understood. Every day stress and every day having to deal with racism and other discrimination forms like sexism, maybe one day it’s just enough for the body and soul, and women get depression, psychosis, or other health problems.

JENNIFER
Thank you women for your input. We take a short break by listening to a song that Lucía chose. I would like Lucía to say something short about the song and you give the name of the song because I cannot pronounce it. It’s Mercedes … Sosa.

LUCÍA
Mercedes Sosa. This is the name of the singer. She’s an Argentine singer with indigenous roots. She is one of our greatest and beloved singers in South America, in the Caribbean, wherever we speak Spanish. She was also persecuted during the fascist dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s and 80s. And she also had to leave Argentina. She went to France and had to ask for asylum there. When she came back to Argentina when it was possible again for her to return, she wrote this song, „Sólo le pido a Dios“ (I only ask God). This song is dedicated to my ??? and migration. So in a way she talks about the hard moments migrants have to pass when they go to a strange foreign culture.

 

[SONG: Mercedes Sosa – Sólo le pido a Dios (Con León Gieco)]

 

DENISE
Lucía, what a great choice of music. When we were listening to Mercedes Sosa here, I was remembering that when my mother came to visit me in Germany, the first time more than a decade ago, I said Sosa made a concert in the Philharmonie and we went to see it. Were you there? You were there, too?! So you saw this marvelous concert?

LUCÍA
I was there. So fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It was great.

DENISE
But back then to our issue of our conversation, we would like to to ask both of you and we can start with you Lucía, why do you think there is a stigma around mental health, especially women and mental health?

LUCÍA
Yes, this is a very good question. I was thinking a long time about this question. I think that this society in which we live here in Germany has a very close concept of community. This we see very clear now in the pandemic situation. Their sense of solidarity is limited almost only to their own family. They are in solidarity with their own family but the sense and the concept of solidarity and compassion and interest of community is very low.

So then the stigma has exactly to do with this: the lack of services, of experiences, and of compassion with migrant women has to do with this concept. So, I want to see that my mother is fine but that there are migrant women in my neighborhood or in a small Lager or houses – it definitely has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my family.

I think this is not part of emotional education in this society: all things like sharing sufferings, sharing pain also. This is not part of the emotional education in the family. So often, the migrants, the asylum seekers disappear because they would like to make them disappear – also the pain of the asylum seekers. They don’t want to see it. They want to make them disappear, the asylum seekers, and also the pain of asylum seekers to disappear.

This makes it difficult to work: this stigma around mental health. For them, it is like thinking, they come from outside because they wanted to come here. So now they should go through hard times, hard lessons. They should go through hard moments because they wanted to come here, so they choose to come here. So please now take the rest and the rest is not difficult. It’s not easy to go. So they make it you know, a part of a strange, different world. It has nothing to do with me. And I hope that I could explain it in my words. We must sensitize this society in this direction but it is not that easy and it takes a lot of time.

DENISE
It’s very interesting what you just said. It’s sort of a transfer of guilt, “you choose to come here, now you have to cope with it. And if you cannot cope, you should stay silent, because we are not responsible for the choice you’ve made.”

Once again, another [form of] isolation – and the word that you used also: disappear. We also observe that there is an intention that the pain disappears because the person should not even be here. But once you are, please disappear. And also the other aspect you mentioned that is super important: the idea of solidarity stays within the family. And it’s not extended to other communities, and especially communities where we are talking about nonwhite people. Yeah, we observe that too. So we agree with you.

JASMIN
A very good point that you made Lucía.

I also think the stigma around mental health has also to do – because here in this society mental illness does not meet the standard, you have to be normal to fit in. And it’s a deviant behavior that is not tolerated by society. Especially women, if they suffer from mental illness, many consider them as crazy. So I think women suffer more from this stigma.

I also think that the society in general doesn’t know enough about mental health. There needs to be more education and awareness raising, what it means and where it comes from. Because mental illness is often caused by life events, or overload and excessive demands from the outside.

What I experienced also is, in some belief systems, mental illness is caused, obviously what they say, is caused by the devil, possession from evil spirits. And this makes for many prejudices and the stigma around mental illness. Though I think, I am not sure, but I think in some societies or cultures there is no word for mental illness. They don’t name it like this.

JENNIFER
Yeah, this is very true, how you have put it, you’ve put it very well.

And it also comes back again to us as migrant women. This aspect, you mentioned that it’s your fault that you’ve come here, it’s your problem that you’ve come here, so just disappear. We don’t want to feel anything from you. It takes a lot of work to wake the consciousness of the society.

In the situations, for example, of the refugees, this is made more difficult. The asylum process is very complicated. And it gets more complicated when there is a demand to have the public health situation of the lockdown, bearing in mind that it creates challenges for the women living in the heim.

One, with the quarantine, the women are completely isolated because after every 48 hours you have to be in these shelters. If you’re not, then they demand that you do a quarantine, that you start a quarantine. So it’s a control mechanism that after every 48 hours. So you cannot even visit your friends, you cannot break the isolation and visit your friends. If they come back and realize that you are away, then you’re put in quarantine, like in a way of punishment. But they do not bear in mind that even outside they don’t respect the fact that someone has the freedom of movement.

And then there is also the challenge that inside these structures, the internet, something very basic like internet, is a problem in these heims. So they are also excluded from the world – the social world – because then the internet that they have to get is very limited. They have to work with very limited internet.

And this brings the question of the whole perspective of isolation, having in mind also the isolation of women in the prisons. What does the isolation do to us? How does it affect us mentally, bearing in mind that even in the prisons there is isolation, the women in the Lagers are facing isolation, and the people that are forced to go into quarantine, this isolation that was compulsory. How does it affect the mental health of women?

Maybe I start with you, Jasmin and then you continue from where you started.

JASMIN
Yes, it can affect mental health immensely, because this situation, it’s like you said, it’s like imprisonment. They felt like in a prison. It can also trigger some traumatic experiences the woman had before of violent situations and the feelings of powerlessness, having no possibility to exert influence. It could cause psychosomatic diseases like heart problems, asthma, fibromyalgia, headaches and much more, but also, depression, panic attacks and psychosis.

This situation can really cause a re-traumatizing of what women experienced before. And I think the stressed situations in the Lager cause a rise in conflict and violence, especially, if there are men involved, then I think, it’s even more traumatic. Women get more traumatized.

JENNIFER
The part of the conflicts in the lager – when these situations of conflict arise, then again, they project how violent we are because of the areas we come from. So again, as a result of the isolation and mental health and conflicts arising, then again, the consequences of that, which is conflicts within the Lager system, then again, it comes back to us. We are to blame for everything.

JASMIN
Blaming the victim.

JENNIFER
Yeah. The victim, again, is blamed for a certain behavior.

JASMIN
Yeah. And I think not providing even internet. Yeah, this is really, I mean, it’s a human right, you know, to have the right to communicate. If they really take this away, or don’t provide the Lager with this…It’s unbelievable.

JENNIFER
Yeah. Thank you so much.

DENISE
Just to take on this, the internet, because one of the issues in the beginning of the pandemic that we were really concerned about was also that… What about our families that stayed in countries where the pandemic was not under control? Where there was no lockdown, or measures taken. And then as migrants, well for us women who can travel, let’s say, we could go to our countries of origin, we could not go because people were not being able to travel. So we were worried with our family members, friends in these countries.

For the record, the women in the asylum process, there was no way to go anyway because you cannot go away from Germany while you are in the asylum. But then you don’t have even the internet to communicate with your family, and to know how they are dealing. So this adds another another dimension of stress, of paranoia, of depression because you cannot leave the Lager to go to a cafe or anywhere, to get the internet, to communicate with your family. So it’s torture, it’s isolation on the level of torture.

What do you say about that Lucía, especially because you come from Latin America, where as you mentioned, when you were describing the music of Mercedes Sosa, many people had to seek asylum, including Mercedes Sosa, because of the dictatorships there. And there isolation was not the torture itself – it was more physical torture. But in Germany, we heard that in the 70s, isolation was the form of torture. So, how do we put this all together with the pandemic, with the isolation in the heims, how do you see that?

LUCÍA
The pandemic situation, indeed, increases this emotional pressure, psychological pressure, much, much more in a very high dimension. This is right and I agree, what you did say before. What I think is that, as you told this, this setting to stay at home, to be forced not to go out, not to leave even the room or the flat, is similar to torture settings. This, like all torture, you know, leads us to loss of confidence.

So this is a very hard moment because you need to talk to someone. You need an atmosphere of, in a way of friendship, of having small talks with the other women, or conversations with other asylum seekers. But in this moment, so comes this pandemic situation, and it leads much more to loss of confidence because there are so many measures to control, to pressre you into much more stress.

This is what I was experiencing in the last month when I went to Doberlug-Kirchhain. That there, women had to suffer. For example, I was told about some women, they couldn’t or cannot sleep during the night. Sometimes they started to cry, or they wanted to go out, or they started to shout even. And because they are women – they should not do it. So, in these moments, no one came to them and offered a little conversation.

Sometimes, these translators, they told me, yeah, I went to her and I asked her why she’s crying, but she’s lying. So, it comes small, they make these experiences – they are not believed, you know. In general, they are not believed, even when they have a headache or a stomachache, or when they have difficulties during the menstruation. So, they are not believed. They can go to doctors, but even [the doctors] have doubts about it.

So, there is a very big loss of confidence and in this atmosphere it is very difficult to say to the women, “Hey, talk to each other, make some small groups for talking, for conversation.” They need it and they should have these spaces. They should have safe spaces to talk and to exchange experiences but it’s very difficult. They often cannot accept it and reduce even this communication among the women. Now this is the situation I experienced. Very, very hard, really.

DENISE
Yes, absolutely. We agree with you, we observe that too.

Now, I think it’s a good time to take another break. And we are going to play a song suggested by Jasmin, which is Mr. Bojangles by Nina Simone. Jasmin what does this music mean to you?

JASMIN
Nina Simone. She was also a fighter, in the United States, and she had to leave the country. She also suffered from mental health issues, and which, you know, which was not so known. But she was facing so much violence, racism, and domestic violence, that I think it was too much for her. So she was one of the women suffering from mental illness. I like her music. She was such a strong woman against all odds. She was, yeah, powerful, despite everything.

 

[SONG: Nina Simone – Mr. Bojangles]

 

JENNIFER
Wow. Yeah. Nina Simone. She’s powerful, she was powerful. Her songs have power. And somehow, with her history also, and how much she has impacted, as a female singer in this industry. I can imagine what she had to fight to be who she is – who she became. Thanks for the choice of the song, Jasmin.

Now, we have heard a lot from both of you, on the input about mental health. What we would like to end our topic for today is: how can we strengthen our self-organization to better support one another, as women, on mental health issues? Maybe I start with you, Jasmin.

JASMIN
I think it’s not only important to strengthen our organizations regarding mental health. Also psychosocial care is important, and it belongs together. I think it’s important to identify allies, who are also working intersectionally and to have meetings.

Always, what is really important, what you always need is money. So, there are so many foundations out there. I think it’s important also, to get the support from outside, from the States because many of them are causing these problems. So they need to pay so that we can work on this.

Also, I think we need to train Multiplikatorinnen, I don’t know how it is in English here. So that we continue [to multiply what we learned], so what we learned will grow like a snowball, so that the radius becomes bigger and bigger. And if we are big and strong, we have more influence. But first of all, I think we need to identify and look for organizations, allies, who also have the same intention and are working intersectionally to help migrant women refugees.

JENNIFER
Yeah. That’s very important to strengthen the [notion of] multiplicators – multiplicators training. Yeah? That’s what you meant? We always talking about going away for one weekend out of the city to have these kind of intense trainings about self-care. And this is very important. Thanks, Jasmin.

JENNIFER
Lucía, what would be your input on this question: how we can support, how we can strengthen our self-organization and support one another as women on mental health issues?

LUCÍA
Yes, first of all, I agree with Jasmin. This is very right. There is a significant lack of services structures, especially when we go outside of Berlin, for example. Then there, you cannot find anyone really in the services structures.

Almost 15 years ago, I worked in Brandenburg in a project that [aimed to] strengthen the services for the traumatized asylum seekers. I went to every Lager in Brandenburg, always, once or twice a month. That’s why I know the situation, the local situation indeed.

In that time, what I did with two or three colleagues, we went to the Lager and made some conversation groups or conversation afternoons. So we sit down with all the people from the Lager together, and we asked them very simply: How are you? You know, this is so simple, this question. But what was the result was that the person finally could, sometimes for the first time after years, tell what was happening to them, what was wrong, what was good, why they feel bad, why they feel sick, alone or depressed, whatever.

Of course, we saw that, for example, there are a lot of difficult psychological situations, some of them you had mentioned before. For example, addiction to alcohol, or to tablets, to pharmaceuticals, and so on. So, sometimes it was the first time they could show us the amount of pharmaceutical products they consumed everyday in order to sleep, to be quiet, to be silent and so on. So the situation, indeed, is very difficult, very hard from what I could experience.

To start, I think this very important resource of support groups, care groups, and self-care groups, we, the professionals, should support this and [support] the other person, and we should really qualify them with multiplikators as Jasmin told before.

This is a big work, this is a great step, but we should start with it. We should start with it – with small steps. Because we cannot let the person stay in that desolate situation [anymore]. Also, I think we could, for example, my contribution and for many, many years, to this situation is to give free therapy and advices. But, of course, the capacities are limited for everyone. But if every psychologist could, offer one or two places for therapy or advices, that would help also to start.

It would also help to gain more knowledge and more experiences. But also we need groups. For example, for this professionals, we need groups for supervision, for example, and this professional exchange to support all the other steps. This is what I think.

JASMIN
Yeah, and I want to add, for instance, the project I’m working on, I’m using the structures. Our organization is helping traumatized torture survivor refugees. And sometimes, from women clients, I hear about a friend of theirs that also needs help.

Even if I can’t take them in our project, you know, I can use the structures. I can give them addresses, I can provide them with important information. Sometimes, I’m using my position as a door opener for other organizations or bureaucratic things to help the women. I saw on your website, our organization is not mentioned so maybe you can mention them. I can give you my telephone number and they can get in touch with me. Unfortunately, we only can take clients from Berlin. But like I said, I can use structures if somebody is not from Berlin and try to help.

JENNIFER
Thank you very much both of you for the input – that was really powerful. And yes, for sure, Jasmin, we will include you and I’m sure we will overwhelm you also because you asked for it.

Lucía we are very grateful that you also contributed. Let us know if we need to overwhelm you also and in which way.

With this, we come to the end of our program today. I am sure we will be calling you again for a continuation of this very important topic on mental health. Because it’s not possible to exhaust it in one sitting. Thank you very much.

JASMIN
Thank you for inviting us.

LUCÍA
Yeah, thank you for inviting us so I could be part of all this empowerment. I hope that we could contribute. And you are welcome.

DENISE
Thank you very much. And hopefully see you very soon.

JASMIN
And stay healthy.

DENISE
Stay healthy. Yes.

LUCÍA
Same to you. Take care.

LAVENDA
Hello everybody. I am Lavenda from the Break Isolation Group, which is a project of International Women* Space (IWS), and we are here at We Are Born Free radio for the 8th episode.

I want to introduce our companheira, Shokoofeh, who is from IWS and the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists, who will be here to talk with our guests. I will be one of the guests later on in the episode where I will share more about the Break Isolation Group (BIG) and the organizing of refugee women. So allow me to welcome, Shokoofeh.

SHOKOOFEH
Thank you, Lavenda. Hi, I’m Shokoofeh. We have in the studio today not only Lavenda from the Break Isolation Group, but also Shadia from SudanUprising, Xalteva from the Asamblea de Mujeres from the Bloque Latinoamericano, and Nujiyan from Ezidischer Frauenrat, Êzîdî‎ Women Council. We will also get to hear audio call outs from the AG Trostfrauen, Women in Exile, and the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists Berlin.

For today’s show, we want to focus on violence against women because the 25th of November is around the corner, and the 25th of November is the International Day for the Elimination of the Violence Against Women.

But what are we really talking about when we talk about violence? We know of the domestic violence that is often in the media. But as internationalist women, or as an internationalist feminist Alliance, we feel it is important to add to this discussion, the violence that the woman face created by the history of colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, and also the violence in political struggle.

We want to also discuss how women are organizing against these oppressions in their own context and through international alliances. The 25th of November is a day to call women to be part of this internationalist fight. Before we talk with our guests about their struggles and resistance, let’s first hear from the Asamblea de Mujeres from the Bloque Latinoamericano to know more about this day

 

[AUDIO: Asamblea de Mujeres on the 25th of November]

“If they kill me, I will take my arms out of the grave and be stronger”

With these words, Dominican activist Minerva Mirabal responded in the early 1960s to all those who warned her of what seems to be a secret known to all: the redeemed president Rafael Leónidas Trujillo will kill her. Then on November 25th, her body was found at the bottom of a ravine inside a Jeep with two of her sisters, Patricia and María Teresa, and the driver of the car.

This month, we recognize the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women and feminized bodies. Violence against women, girls, and feminized bodies is one of the most whispered, persistent, and devastating human rights violacions in our world today. It remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma of shame surrounding it.

For that reason, today, we want to share the story of the Mirabal sisters: three brave women, who followed their convictions and fought for justice against dictatorship in their country. Known as Las Mariposas – the butterflies – the Mirabal sisters were born in the Dominican province of Salcedo. At the time of their death, they had ten years of political activism in the Trujillo dictatorship. Two of them, Minerva and María Teresa, had already been imprisoned several times due to their actions as activists.

They started an activist group called, “The movement of the 14th of June”, named after the date the country and patria witnessed a massacre ordered by Trujillo, the president of the Dominican Republic at the time. Their group’s primary goal was to oppose Trujillo’s regime. They informed the public about Trujillo’s crimes and openly spoke about the injustices committed under his ruling. On the 25th of November in the 60s, some hitmen following the orders of Trujillo, killed them savagely and brutally. In 1999, the United Nations General Assembly declared November 25th to the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women in honor of the Mirabal sisters and their fight for justice.

Today, we are inspired by these sisters, by their courage and their refusal to stop fighting for what they believed in. The Mirabal sisters have paved the way for many more women* to become activists. Let us hope that today will serve as a reminder that violence against women* will speak out, will not make other women quiet.

 

SHOKOOFEH
Thank you very much for this input comrades from the Asamblea de Mujeres.

So, we would like to start now with Shadia from SudanUprising. She is a feminist and communist activist and a civil society member from the Sudan now living in Berlin, and also a member of SudanUprising Germany. Since the beginning of the Sudanese revolution in 2018, a group was formed internationally named SudanUprising. Also in Germany, they are very active.

What I think is so important about Sudanese revolution is how women were not only taking spaces in the revolution – but leading it. And this is a part of a very long history of Sudanese women activists fighting against colonialism, patriarchy, and the dictatorship in Sudan. Welcome Shadia, it’s great to have you here.

SHADIA
Thank you for this opportunity. I’m happy to meet you.

SHOKOOFEH
Shadia, the image that the Sudanese revolution showed to the world was women leading a revolution. And that brought a lot of hope to a lot of us in the movement. So what’s going on now, how is it going?

SHADIA
Really it is sad, but I will talk about the very happy part of this. Sudanese women really have a very deep, long fight against dictatorship, patriarchy, and oppression. So their participation in the revolution started very strongly in the beginning of this dictator regime – like 30 years ago – so that women could be very organized during the revolution because they are prepared. Really, they started the revolution 30 years ago, and they lead the movement in the street and give us all the hopes that we didn’t pay 30 years for nothing.

There’s that part of the thing that the transition government and the political coalition just ignore women completely during the organizing of the government and during the period of the preparation to the next day. So they ignored women during the negotiations, even though the majority of us women do not agree to negotiate with the military part. But after that, this ignoring continues in every part of the preparation of the transition period. And even when they include women, the men or the male in his political coalition and in the government, they choose women from their point of view. And this is very sad really.

SHOKOOFEH
What do you mean with their point of view?

SHADIA
They select women who they know or who they think are good. They didn’t give the women movements a chance to know who can participate. Also, even the seats in the government, very few leading seats for women. The government, they bring only two ministers. And from our point of view, we don’t know them in the women’s movement, so that we are not very sure that they can fight for our issues as women.

Also, only two women in the Supreme Council, so something just, like, “we include women, women are with us”. And also, they are talking about something very annoying. They are saying that representing women. Why should we be represented when we are ruling? What they did to have this opportunity – to have this right?

SHOKOOFEH
What is the strategy of women’s movement due to the current situation now?

SHADIA
Actually, I feel that we are working as women’s movement with the same strategy from the beginning, from the time of fighting against colonialism. And every time when there is big change in Sudan, we get back to the start because when we change regime and after every evolution or any, every political change, we find ourselves that we have to fight for our rights as women. And this is the starting point all the time – we find ourselves in this starting point.

So I think that now, we are thinking during this revolution with the same strategy, which is leading to no point. We have to change our strategy and really this is my very important issue and question: what will we do, how we can do it, to change the result, because it is nonsense to do the same things and wait for different results. We have to change to get different results – to find a way to be part of the decision making.

I just wanted to add that the violence – the ignoring of women from the transition authorities after the revolution – means that they are keeping silent about every kind of violence which is happening to women, starting from the legislations, which is completely against women. All kinds of violence: domestic violence and Constitutional violence. This is what is what I mean when I talk about ignoring women is a very harmful kind of violence against women. Thank you.

SHOKOOFEH
The other amazing part of the Sudanese revolution for a lot of us was how you all connected internationally during and after the revolution. How was your experiences of these alliances? Did it help and how you are continuing to work in this form?

SHADIA
A lot, a lot, really. I should thank all the colleagues and comrades from different parts of the world and especially here in Germany, who gave us a chance from early 2018 when the Sudanese Communist Party in Sudan wanted to walk, to organize a demonstration, to talk to the government as the last regime about national budget. They give us chances and make different kinds of interviews with me, especially, and I get a chance to speak about how the European Union defends the government as a dictatorship in Sudan, how they are paying the Janjaweed, which is now part of the transition period by just taking the Sudanese revolution.

And I guess we talk about the revolution as a movement of Sudan and this is helpful. And also, they supported us – they stand with us at the demonstrations and during the revolution. This gives us a chance to let all the world know about the Sudanese revolution. Because once the revolution started really hard and there were people in the streets, nobody talked about them. The official media all over the world, just ignore what’s happening in Sudan, although hundreds of Sudanese people were dying every day, being shot down in the streets. I think this support and solidarity let the world listen and hear what is happening in Sudan, and what was happening in Sudan. I really thank all the people who stand with us.

SHOKOOFEH
Especially in Berlin, you’re also very good connected as a working group woman in the SudanUprising. How is this work for you? I mean, the feminists work inside your struggle, inside your fight.

SHADIA
Yeah, this is working very, very good for us and gives us the hope and the feelings to go forward. And they just support us all the time, even sometimes we feel very disappointed and feel very weak, after we see the result of the political situation in Sudan now after the revolution. Our comrades in this alliance, by giving us very, very strong support and helping us – this opportunity just to talk about violence against women, to talk about the Sudanese women movement – I think this is very nice or a very good kind of support. And thank you for this.

SHOKOOFEH
Thank you for being here and thank you for your input. You chose also a song for us: Azza Fee Hawak from Khalil Farh. Would you tell us a bit more about this song?

SHADIA
Yes, this song, it is a very old Sudanese song. Khalil Farh is the musician who make this song. He tried to motivate women to get up and stand against colonialism and for their rights and so on. And he just talks to a lady called Azza. She’s the wife of one of the parties in Sudan at that time. And now she is a symbol of the Sudanese and you can find so many Sudanese young ladies called Azza.

The song is telling the women to get up, stand for their rights and telling them that while you are sleeping and doing the hard house work: take care of your body, beauty, and so on. The women all over the world are just working and as they are heading off, you saw, this song is very motivating. And personally I like this song. This is my input.

SHOKOOFEH
Thank you very, very much, Shadia for your input. Let’s listen to the song.

SHADIA
And this song is from Khalil Farh initially and it is now by the choir of the Institute of Music in Sudan and I like it.

 

[SONG: Khalil Farh – Azza Fee Hawak]

 

SHOKOOFEH
Now we are back. We have heard now the experiences of women from SudanUprising and the Asamblea de Mujeres from the Bloque Latinoamericano.

Today, we also have Nujiyan with us by phone. She is a member of the Kurdish Women Movement and from the Ezidischer Frauenrat, the Yazidi Women Council in Berlin, which was founded after August 3rd 2014, the date of the femicide that happened in the Yazidi area called Shengal.

The Yazidi society right now is very worried about the agreements between Baghdad and the Iraqi government and the Kurdish regional government in Iraq, which tries to decide for the lives of the Yazidi people without them. Behind this shame are the USA and Turkey.

Nujiyan, can you tell us more about the situation and your ongoing struggle?

NUJIYAN
On October 9th of this year, an agreement was reached between the central government of Iraq and the Kurdish autonomous regions, the PDG in Erbil, without the involvement of the Yezidi self-governing structures in Shengal in northern Iraq. We, as Yezidis, see this agreement as the basis for the continuation of the genocide, which took place on August 3rd, 2014.

As you know, 6 years ago, we witnessed through media reports the 74th genocide in the form of femicide against the Yezidis in Shengal in northern Iraq, which is the Yezidis’ main settlement area. About 7000 women and girls were abducted by the IS and bought, sold, and systematically raped in the sex slave markets opened by the IS.

After August 3rd, 2014, the Yezidis began to organize themselves. They founded their people’s councils, they founded their women’s councils, but they also founded the women’s military office, which means that the Yezidi women have their women’s defense units, but all of this happened after August 3rd, 2014.

I would like to give you some brief information about how August 3rd came about. Before the genocide of the Yezidi, there was a conference in Aman. At this Aman conference, there were secret agreements with the participation of Turkey, the USA and many other countries of the Gulf States, but also the KDP. The Kurdish party, the KDP, today makes decisions for the future of the Yezidis without the participation of the Yezidis.

And who else sat at the table at this Aman conference? The IS. This means that at this Aman conference before the genocide, before August 3rd, it was already agreed that Shengal, that Mosul and Shengal, would be handed over to the IS. It was already decided, it was predictable, that this killing machine would attack Yezidi.

Before the genocide, there were over 10,000 KDP Peschmerga in Shengal, who were responsible for the safety of the Yezidi and Yezidins. Not only did they retreat without a fight, but before they did, they took the weapons from the Yezidis who were with the Peshmerga and left them without a way to defend themselves. So this August 3rd could only be possible after all these secret agreements had taken place.

And today? Today, the authorities come, sit down, decide about the Yezidis, about their future, without consulting them and then they present to the Yezidis, here is the agreement, the Shengal agreement. That won’t work. It will be impossible. It will have devastating consequences because Yezidis are no longer the Yezidis they were before August 3rd, 2014.

The Yezidis have organized themselves. They have built their structures: their democratic self-governing structures. They also have their defense units, consisting of young Yezidi men and young Yezidi women. It will not be that simple.

SHOKOOFEH
The Kurdish women movement is already connected and organised worldwide. Can you also tell us about the way you organise yourself and how you see the relationship between the Kurdish women’s movement and the international feminist movements around the world?

NUJIYAN
I have already mentioned that on August 3rd, 2014, over 7000 women were caught by the IS and sold in the sex slave markets. This could only happen because we, Yezidi women, were not organized. After August 3rd, we organized ourselves according to the ideology of Sakine Cansız and her students, who came to Shengal from Kandil and Rojava, and rushed to help the Yezidis. We organized ourselves according to this ideology. Today, there are Yezidis all over the world, who organize themselves based on the democratic structures of the ideology of Sakine Cansız.

We, the Kurdish women’s movement, do not only see ourselves as part of the international women’s movement, we see ourselves rather in charge. I would like to tell the story of the Kurdish women’s movement very briefly. The Kurdish women’s movement has not just existed since yesterday or since August 3rd. It began in 1977, led by Sakine Cansız, who fought for the liberation of women from the beginning. It was clear to her from the beginning that the struggle for freedom could not be fought without women.

Unfortunately, Sakine Cansız was taken from us on January 9th, 2013. Together with her comrades Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez she was victim of a political assassination here in Europe, in Paris. But she has left a great legacy. She has left a legacy for us, the Kurdish women’s movement, which we will continue to lead and fight for until we have reached our goal.

Yezidi women organized themselves just like Rojava. They have founded their women’s councils. Today, there is a women’s movement from Shengal to Europe and worldwide. There are Yezidi women’s defense units following August 3rd, but they are based on the idea of Rojava: democratic self-governing structures.

And that’s why I say yes, it won’t be easy to go back to Shengal and say that we are deciding behind your backs. That will not work. It will have devastating consequences for the people involved, but for us Yezidi, too, it will be the continuation of the genocide with the difference that it will not be so easy. We are not making it that easy for the occupiers of Shengal.

The Kurdish women’s movement is globally networked, structured and organized and therefore has over 40 years of experience. We draw on over 40 years of experience from the Kurdish women’s movement. Yezidi women or Kurdish women have always resisted. That is not new in our 1000 year old history. But it was always local. This is how organized and globally networked we are with the organization led by Sakine Cansız since 1977.

SHOKOOFEH
Especially after the movement in Rojava, the Kurdish women’s movement was worldwide known and famous for everyone and a lot of people around the world joined the struggle because they see the struggle as a part of their own struggles, too.

How is your local fight? You are in Berlin, you are not in Shengal. How is the fight, or the organising of your fight and struggle in Berlin?

NUJIYAN
We, the Kurdish women, also here in Berlin, understand and support the resistance of the women as an act of humanity and therefore we are also a part of the internationalist alliance here in Berlin. To get out of this spiral of violence, which is forced upon us by the war politics of the hegemonic authorities, it is necessary that we, women, organize and network ourselves because violence against women is a worldwide problem.

I always call it like a malignant cancer that is growing rapidly. Racism and violence against women, these two twins, are a malignant cancer. It is spreading quickly, women can only fight this together and we can only do this if we organize and network – and I mean worldwide.

Here, in Berlin, we are very well networked. As I said before, we are part of the internationalist alliance in Berlin, as [Ezidischer Frauenrat] Binevş e.V., as the Kurdish women’s movement. One has seen that the Kurdish women can. The Kurdish women have proved to the world – in Kobane, in Shengal – not only that we are politically active, but also at the front – that we fight for our rights and that we also defend the values of Europe, namely democracy and human rights. A sincere thank you to the right people would be in order here, from Europe, I mean.

SHOKOOFEH
Thank you, Nujiyan, for joining us from afar.

Now, we are excited to play the song that Nujiyan sent us. Let’s listen to it together.

 

[SONG: Koma Sehid Xebat – YBS Hatin]

 

SHOKOOFEH
Welcome back. Lavenda is again here with me in the studio so we can go straight to the topic. Right, Lavenda?

LAVENDA
Yeah, sure.

SHOKOOFEH
So I think everybody is a bit curious to know more about the Break Isolation Group, the project of International Women* Space. How was it formed?

LAVENDA
Thank you very much, Shokoofeh. The refugee women are self organized to speak about their own struggles, fights, and forms of violence. And the whole process, you know, goes back to the reasons why women apply for international protection. The reality is that once they get into the borders in Europe, they face all forms of violence and oppression, and the complexity of the violence within the whole process of asylum: the Lager system, the isolated accommodation, Residenzpflicht, and the different forms of control, just to mention a few.

You know, I would give a whole dozen more examples. But I will give some of these examples in this context. Everybody should have the right to have a bank account in this era of digitalization. It’s a very, very basic facilitation to have online transactions. But what do we see? You, as an asylum seeker, have to physically go there. You know, you have to present yourself to the Lagers to pick [up] your check. That means a lot of time wasted, and very, very, very inconveniencing. And the whole idea here is to control your movements and activities. Simply because you have to take the check from your own Landkreis [district].

Another example that I would want to share with you is when you’re not issued with your medical insurance card. It therefore means that when you’re sick and out of your Landkreis, you still have to go back to the same Landkreis to pick or get your Krankenschein.

This is very insane. For me, this is very, very insane. Because what happens when we have all the offices closed – it’s a weekend, it’s a holiday – and you’re sick. It means you have to stay with your sickness and your pain until it is a working day.

So my question has always been and it will always remain: if these are very obvious forms of oppression? Within one state where we have different districts and where different Heims [accomodations] are located, usually the rules are very, very different. And this brings a lot of confusion and clash in information within the asylum seekers to determine what is wrong and what is right for them.

Basically, this has got a lot of consequences. There is a lot of confusion and you are left without knowing what to claim as your right, or what to demand as your right – because there’s a lot of confusion and clash of information from one place to the other. Yet, all of us are in the same process of asylum.

This for us, is a form of oppression because we always say, and this has always been a slogan, that information is power. Then, when this information is not accessible or given to the refugees, it means that this is the opposite, which is lack of information, and therefore, it causes disempowerment and limitation of development.

You know, you are just left there. And this is very, very – it’s a very obvious reason why they keep [things] the way it is. They want you to remain on that level so that you do not know what is right, you do not know what is wrong. And therefore, you don’t ask or demand for your right.

This is one more reason why we brought the Break Isolation Group together, which we call the BIG. The aim was and it remains: to share information among ourselves, understand the system, and formulate our political demands. The system is so brutal. And if you don’t understand how it works, you take it very personal – and this can easily break you.

We already know that the women already have their own existing forms of trauma. Now, in addition, [there is] the whole process of asylum. This makes it even worse for them. And the idea of us coming together has made us understand that it’s a problem of the whole structure. And therefore we don’t take it personally. That is why we have this project inside of IWS.

SHOKOOFEH
So you explained to us the necessity of forming this group. But we wanted also, in this episode, to be a bit more focused on women’s organizing the struggle and resistance, and how they build alliances. Can you tell us also a bit more about the activities of this group?

LAVENDA
As the Break Isolation Group (BIG), we are connecting to the broader objective and agenda of the International Women* Space (IWS), which is to self organize, and formulate our political demands. We are very firmly committed to fighting all forms of oppression. And in the process, ensuring that we are visible – very, very visible, not just visible – and documenting our struggles without waiting for the media to do it for us. Because the moment they do it for us or they portray us, they will either do it in a very negative way or in a victim position. And we totally, completely do not agree with this.

SHOKOOFEH
The very first episode of IWS Radio was about the situation of women living in the Lagers during the corona pandemic – that was in the form of reports. A lot of groups were unable to stay organized because of the quarantine during COVID-19. How did the Break Isolation Group manage to stay organized and what new strategies did you develop to respond to this pandemic or the problems that this pandemic bring?

LAVENDA
With the corona pandemic coming in, we also are not left behind. A good example is that during the Corona pandemic, when we were the last people to receive information, as we were cut off from the rest of the society, we decided to do it our own way. We initiated our own way of being heard and being visible, so to speak. And were it not for the self organization of the Break Isolation Group of sending the audio reports to the International Women Space comrades, who are the people who are out of the Lagers, to share it on our social media platforms. I tell you, for sure, that no one – completely no one – would have known what was happening to us in the Lagers.

It is in this process that developed into podcasts that connected us to other political struggles by women, not only as refugees and migrants, but other women all over the world. Through this podcast, we are very much able to project the different forms of violence, ranging from domestic, psychological, physical, and for us, it has also become and it has remained a platform for us to bring information to the women and the world. So they basically get to know what is happening to us as women in the Lagers.

SHOKOOFEH
IWS, International Women* Space, was one of the groups that was involved in the very first moments of forming the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists in Berlin. I want to mention here, how Lavenda tell us before, that IWS was born from the idea of self organizing as a self defense of women from the Global South. And because of this, it was always important for IWS to organize with other women from the Global South who have the same agenda.

LAVENDA
Exactly that. The International Women* space (IWS), therefore connected with other self organized migrant groups to form the larger Alliance of Internationalist Feminists. And the aim was to continue projecting the different forms of violence perpetrated against women – not only locally, but also internationally.

And we ensure that on such days as the 25th of November, which is just around the corner – and the 8th of March, which we know is the International Women’s Day – where the agenda is elimination of all forms of violence against women, we take our stand, we take our space in the streets to fight for our rights as women. These are the days that are usually marked internationally to also fight against racism, sexism, class, patriarchy, among other forms of violence.

Our organized structure built from the grassroots to fight the political systems, which forms our very, very biggest cause of oppression. And this is for sure: this is the biggest cause of oppression among the women. These grassroots groups remain the only ones that are on course and they remain the legitimate groups who objectively fight for our freedom.

With these different grassroots groups, we also form our intersectionality. We are here and we will remain. We will be here fighting to reclaim our power. Because nobody else can do it for us. We do it our own way. We do it to make sure everyone else gets to know what we want – fighting all forms of oppression.

SHOKOOFEH
Also today, Lavenda chose for us a song. Can you tell us a bit about it before we listen?

LAVENDA
Yes, there’s this song that I love very much. It’s from one of the Kenyan female artists. Her name is Muthoni Drummer Queen. And the title of her song is power. It’s a song that calls on all women to be out and talk about their own rights. It’s a call to women to stand up for their own right because they are made very invisible. And it’s only when they pick and talk about themselves is when they will be visible.

 

[SONG: Muthoni Drummer Queen – Power]

 

SHOKOOFEH
We were listening to the song Power from Muthoni Drummer Queen.

Thank you so much to all the women who joined us today. It was really great to hear about your different experiences and it was really powerful.

I want to give a short info about the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists: we are different groups, networks & people who define themselves as women* and/or trans* people. Our feminism is intersectional and positions itself against all power structures and relations such as racism, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and imperialism.

In the following audios, you will also listen to the call out of Alliance of Internationalist Feminists for the 25th of November demo and we would be very happy to see all of you there.

We say goodbye here with some call outs from our comrades from the AG Trostfrauen and Women in Exile.

Thank you very much for listening and we will see you on the 25th for these actions.

 

[AUDIO: AG Trostfrauen Call Out]
Hello Everyone! My name is Nataly Jung-Hwa! I’m from the AG Trostfrauen of Korea Verband.

You know, one month ago, the Bezirksamt Mitte of Berlin tried to remove our peace statue due to pressure from the Japanese government, although we’ve got an official permission to erect the statue. Just because the perpetrator doesn’t want to be reminded of his crime, we, the women, should once again be silent in the name of “male” diplomacy.

The scandal about the peace statue concerns not only the women in Asia, but all women in the world and especially in Berlin!

Then the statue is not only a symbol of sexual slavery, sexual violence by the Japanese military during World War II, but also a symbol of victim’s courage for the breaking silence, a symbol of the most successful feminist movement in the World.

It is a most positive example of overcoming patriarchy colonialism through women’s power!

We demand that this meaningful peace statue in Berlin remain forever!
It should be the sign of the end of the patriarchal denial!

We are beginning our rally on November 25th at 2pm at the peace statue (at the corner of Birkenstr. / Bremerstraße) and continue the demonstration “We are the peace statue / Wir sind die Friedensstatue” with 400 chairs at 4pm at the Gendarmenmarkt. After it, we will join the march of the Alliance of Internationalist Feminists at 6pm.

Come in large numbers and become: “We are the Peace Statue”! Thank you very much!

 

[AUDIO: Dziewuchy Berlin Call Out]
“If you’re not angry, you’re either a stone, or you’re too sick to be angry.” – Maya Angelou

Polish people are at war with an ultra conservative government who claims the right to our bodies together with the Polish Catholic church. Since October 22nd, women, people with uteruses, queer people have been organizing protests, city blockades, solidarity actions abroad, and more.

But solidarity is not enough. We need resistance.
We must resist the violence caused by patriarchy and white supremacy.

As Dziewuchy Berlin, we have been active since 2016 – but the fight is not over yet. That is why on November 25th, we are joining the demo for the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Join us.

 

[AUDIO: Women in Exile & Friends Call Out]
Women in Exile & Friends organize a rally on the International Day Against Violence Against Women on the 25th of November in front of the BAMF in Eisenhüttenstadt to say loud and clear that:

Eisenhüttenstadt is not only a dangerous corona hot-spot but also a hot-spot for sexual assaults and harassment against vulnerable women particularly lesbians.

Please join us from 12:00 in front of the Eisenhüttenstadt receiving center and Lager. You are also welcome to meet with us at Alexanderplatz at 10:00 to take the train and travel together to Eisenhüttenstadt.

 

[AUDIO: Alliance of Internationalist Feminists Call Out]
Call to all women*, lesbians, trans* and inter persons for the revolutionary 25th November Demo for International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women*.

When: 25. November, 2020 at 18:00
Where: Auswärtiges Amt, Werderscher Markt 1, 10117 Berlin

All over the world, governments are guided by imperialist agendas that are destroying the people. These agendas are colonization, neoliberalism, embargo policies, border regimes, deportation policies, extractivism, which robs the resources of the land and the people, and forces settlements, imposes occupation, and expulsion. People are fleeing from their homes because of white supremacist destructive politics.

Let’s be clear, white supremacy is destroying lives in the name of human rights with, on the one hand, war and arms industry, and on the other hand, detention centers and bloody borders.

We believe that women’s* struggle, self-organization and self-defense is our strength in fighting fascism, patriarchy, and racism. We will continue struggling and defending ourselves against all forms of structural, political, social and economic violence and injustice.

Sisters* solidarity is not enough. It is about resistance.
Only resistance will put an END to colonial Borders and imperialist Agenda.

Let’s be organized.
Let’s be uncompromising.
Let’s dream big.
Let’s stand up.

Our struggle has been there all along and is connecting us around the whole world. We stand hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder together.
Because the fight of each sister* is the fight of all sisters*.

Another world is possible.

We call all women*, lesbian, trans* and inter persons, especially trans*women, working class women*, disabled women*, refugee women*, Black women*, Indigenous women* and women* of Colour to show our determination and resistance beyond borders.

Bring your slogans and signs! Cis men are not invited, they are advised to take another action to stop violence against women*.