‘There are orphans in Africa still looking for my hands’: African women refugees and the sources of emotional distress

Abstract

This paper explores issues of emotional distress expressed by refugee women from Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea who now live in Western Australia. Qualitative data from interviews and focus groups are used to illustrate differences in understandings of distress, including depression and anxiety, and women’s understandings of the causes of, and solutions to, what have been defined by service providers as ‘mental health’ problems. The findings challenge Western biomedical approaches to dealing with prolonged grief and distress among migrant communities, which frequently reinforce disempowerment. We argue that it is the structural determinants of powerlessness that need to be addressed, rather than individual psyches.

Key Words:

• African
• culture
• depression
• mental health
• migrant
• refugee
• women
• health