Women at risk: globalization, gendered fear and the Canadian state

ABSTRACT

This article considers the challenge of globalization in the context of evolving refugee populations, particularly in terms of gendered movements dynamics, from the 1970s to the present. Specifically, the article considers the history of the Women at Risk (AWR) Refugee Program that was initiated as a pilot project in 1987 and continues to operate three decades later. Through an examination of policy correspondence, reports from the field, eyewitness accounts and oral history interviews, the article traces the tensions between the federal government’s international commitments to refugee protection and the manner in which protection and assistance was understood by civil society actors. Building on a close reading of the early years of the AWR program, the article suggests that the experience of women refugees in particular highlights the tensions between protection and resettlement imperatives, which continue to animate questions of refugee protection and assistance in the present day.

RÉSUMÉ

Cet article porte sur le défi de la mondialisation dans le contexte des populations changeantes de réfugiés, en particulier en matière de dynamique des mouvements selon le sexe, des années 70 à nos jours. Plus précisément, il se concentre sur l’histoire du programme de réfugiés pour les femmes à risque (AWR) qui a débuté comme projet-pilote en 1987, et qui continue d’opérer trois décennies plus tard. À travers une analyse de la correspondance politique, des rapports de terrain, des témoignages oculaires et des entretiens d’histoire orale, l’article revient sur les tensions entre les engagements internationaux du gouvernement fédéral pour la protection des réfugiés et la façon dont protection et aide pour les réfugiés ont été comprises par les acteurs de la société civile. En se basant sur une lecture attentive des premières années du programme AWR, l’article suggère que c’est surtout l’expérience des femmes réfugiées qui met l’accent sur les tensions entre les impératifs de protection et de réinstallation, à la source, encore aujourd’hui, des débats sur la protection et l’aide envers les réfugiés.

KEYWORDS:

• refugees
• women
• gender
• globalization
• humanitarianism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Laura Madokoro is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University.

Notes

1 A country of first asylum is, as the name suggests, the country or territory to which refugees first flee across an international border for protection. Refugees often wait years for opportunities to leave countries of first asylum for resettlement opportunities elsewhere.

2 A Convention Refugee is someone who meets the definition of a refugee as established in the 1951 United Nations Convention. There are an additional 5.3 million Palestinian refugees who fall under the mandate of United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency (UNWRA). There are another estimated 43.1 million forcibly displaced people (individuals forced to move for various reasons e.g. natural disasters) and 10 million stateless individuals worldwide. See United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2017).

3 The questionnaire distributed to NGOs sought to reassure the respondents that their funding would be in no way affected by the character of their responses.

4 Blended visa applications split support for refugees between government and sponsors (six months each).