Mainstreaming gender in refugee protection

Abstract

The issues of gender-related persecution and violence against women have been put onto the international agenda, largely thanks to lobbying by feminist NGOs and transnational networks. There is a question, however, of how successfully this agenda-setting has translated into effective policy-making and policies that will increase the protection of women who are victims of gender-related persecution. One of the problems with policies to support women refugees and asylum seekers lies in a failure of transmission of the goals of gender sensitivity through all the various bureaux and representatives of a large bureaucratic organization such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). For nearly twenty years, since the early 1990s, the UNHCR has identified ‘refugee women’ as a policy priority, and yet, despite this prioritization of concerns about women refugees and gender issues in the asylum and refugee process, it could be argued that little progress has been made in implementation of policies on refugee women. This article will examine the way in which the concept of gender has been adopted within the UNHCR and the processes that have been put in place to mainstream gender within refugee protection activities. How far has mainstreaming managed to move policies to protect women beyond a mere focus on ‘vulnerable’ groups, and to integrate a gendered understanding of the global processes that produce refugees, and of the protection needs of these refugees?

Notes

¹ Although these interviews were all carried out in Europe, the interviewees included UNHCR employees who had previously worked in positions in refugee protection in countries outside Europe. These interviewees were able to provide reflections on their work in refugee camps, for example. Interviewees at UNHCR headquarters also included those specifically involved in promoting gender-based refugee protection within the organization.

² The 1951 Convention is the only universal treaty that provides for the protection of refugees; in those countries in which the Convention has not been ratified and adopted into national legislation as the basis of asylum law, the UNHCR uses the Convention as the basis for deciding refugee claims. The Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention on the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (Addis Ababa, September 1969), and the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees (Cartagena, 1984) provide some elements of regional refugee definition which are applicable to situations in Africa and South America, respectively.

³ The actual number of women refugees globally is still a question that is open to debate. Some over-inflated figures have been put forward, particularly in order to urge the international community to action, as will be discussed below.

⁴ Interviews with the author, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

⁵ Interviews with the author.

⁶ Cynthia Enloe has explained eloquently the ways in which the utilization of the category ‘womenandchildren’ acts to identify man as the norm against which all others can be grouped together into a single leftover category, reiterating the notion that women are family members above all, and allowing the state and international institutions to play a paternalistic role in ‘protecting’ these vulnerable women and children (Enloe 1993).

⁷ This definition is as follows: ‘Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.’

⁸ The ten largest donors are in order the US, the European Commission, Japan, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Canada.

⁹ See, for example, Agier and Valluy's critiques of the UNHCR's role in European policies for the ‘externalization’ of asylum (Agier and Valluy 2007).

¹⁰ For a more detailed discussion of the ‘externalization’ of asylum and its gendered consequences see Freedman (2007), in particular, chapter six.

¹¹ By the mid-1990s UNHCR employed over 5000 staff worldwide.

¹² Interviews with the author at UNHCR headquarters and in national bureaux in Europe, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

¹³ Interviews with the author, 2007 and 2008.

¹⁴ Interview with the author, 2008.

¹⁵ For example, interviews in Belgium and Sweden.

¹⁶ Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Greece, India, Syria, Venezuela, Zambia.