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Interview :: Civil & Human Rights : Gender and Sexuality |
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Reporting from Egypt: The Plight of Sudanese Refugee Women |
Current rating: 0 |
by Scott Edwards
Email: scottisimo (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!) |
28 Jan 2005
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I. Project Overview
II. Conditions in Cairo
III. Women’s Experiences
IV. Moving Forward |
Click on image for a larger version  Report from Egypt: The Plight of Sudanese Refugee Women |
Click on image for a larger version  Report from Egypt: The Plight of Sudanese Refugee Women |
Report from Egypt: The Plight of Sudanese Refugee Women
Release: Public (UC-IMC)
CERRV Index: GEN-004-05
Date: 05 Jan 28
Author: Scott Edwards
I. Project Overview
II. Ground Conditions in Cairo
III. Women’s Experiences
IV. Moving Forward
I. Project Overview
I am currently in Egypt, simultaneously working on my dissertation and a documentary project entitled: Lion’s Cry: Women’s Experiences as Refugees from Violence. My work in Cairo is the first of three trips to the field scheduled this year. The project compares and contrasts, cross-culturally, women’s experiences as refugees from a number of violent conflicts. Currently, I am interviewing refugees from Sudan living in Cairo (their stories summarized below). Additionally, I will be traveling to Nicaragua and Honduras this summer, as well as the Paw Yaw refugee camp on the Thai/Myanmar border in Fall. This phase of the project is being partially supported by the Film for Humanity Cooperative and the AU Forced Displacement and Refugee Studies Program.
II. Ground Conditions in Cairo
Rough estimates indicate there are somewhere around 20,000 Sudanese nationals living in Cairo. Very few have been granted asylum by the Egyptian government, and an overwhelming majority of these refugees from Sudan’s decades-long conflict are here illegally, unrecognized by the Egyptian government, the UNHCR, or other international organizations. Although I refer to these people as refugees, I do so in the politico-moral sense and not the legal sense (as they have not been granted refugee status by any authority).
In my time here thus far, I have interviewed 15 Sudanese refugees. Of the 15, ten have dependants with them, and 6 of the 15 are homeless. Of the fifteen I have been able to interview, only 4 have been women. I attribute this to be an artifact of strong cultural norms about gender and communication, as opposed to a lack of shared identity and experience among Sudanese refugee women. Women appear to be less accustomed, and to feel less of an entitlement, to assume authorship of narrative expression. Of the 21 Sudanese refugees I have approached, 6 have declined to be interviewed, 5 of them women. When women did speak, they did so timidly and with short sentences, more like the give and take of dialogue, as opposed to the longer sustained narrative form I encountered among the Sudanese men.
Those who chose to be interviewed were compensated between 3 and 10 Egyptian Pounds, but only after being interviewed, and without prior knowledge. Interviews were conducted in Boulak, Rod El Farag, El darb El Ahmar, and Shoubra.
Of the 15 interviewed, 9 spoke enough English to dispense with a translator. None of the English speakers were women, however, likely an artifact of education disparity (or statistically, random chance, though I suspect not). All three translators who assisted me with interviews were women.
A very brief and generalized summary of narratives is below.
III. Women’s Experiences
In interviewing both men and women, a number of similarities among their experiences were obvious. Regardless of gender, the Sudanese refugees in Cairo have strong feelings of being “outside” and told that “racism” was common in everyday life in Cairo (Sudanese, even Sudanese Arabs, tend to be darker-skinned than most Egyptians). All refugees told of extreme poverty (including a handful of homeless interviewees), difficulty finding work, and fear of attempting to access government and private resources.
Additionally, both men and women told of similar events in Sudan that forced them to leave (i.e., violence at the hands of paramilitaries, destruction of property, etc.) Two women mentioned that "rape happened", though I did not question further.
A number of differences between men and women were apparent, however. Eight of the 11 men interviewed had asylum applications pending, or were appealing rejected asylum claims. Only one of the 4 women had applied for asylum, and after her application was denied, she did not appeal (since the interview I have put her in touch with a free legal aid organization based in Cairo specializing in asylum claims).
Three of the four women had children. Sadly, 2 of these families are homeless (I met with one family in the ally they sleep in, situated on my way to the University).
All 4 women told of concern about their health, or their children’s health. None had seen a practitioner since coming to Cairo (ranging from 3 months to 5 years).
One homeless mother of two is diabetic, with a foot obviously long-since needing amputation. While her children appeared healthy, she has no way to monitor her blood, and (according to her 9-year-old son) frequently “falls asleep”. The two homeless women with children identified as being alone in the city, with no other family or friends. All three women with children made what little money they could by selling goods on the street. For some reason I have not been able to determine, all 3 women with children exclusively sold packets of tissues. These packets sell for the equivalent of about 8 cents. The 2 women with children of walking age depend on them to help sell the tissues, and the third sits on a black cloth on the sidewalk of Talaat Harab Street (across the Nile from Zamalek); her young son draped asleep in one arm, and a box of tissues packets in the other.
Another difference I detected between the men and women interviewees is that the women were much less optimistic about their prospects. While the men often told of securing work sporadically (e.g., cleaning sidewalks in front of shops and delivering grain on a bicycle) and the hope of gaining government recognition, the women told of hopelessness, helplessness, and loneliness.
When asked about the possibility of returning to the Sudan, answers seemed to be a complex mixture of prediction and desire. Few of the refugees, men or women, thought return was likely in the near future. Men, however, seemed to be more willing to stay in Cairo, while women expressed a stronger desire to return home when possible (likely a function of economic and social opportunity disparities between men and women refugees in Cairo).
IV. Next
While there are clear gender-based differences in the experiences of Sudanese refugees living in Cairo, I suspect as this project progresses throughout the year, the gender-unique struggles, hardships, and opportunities that women in refugee-like circumstances face will be prove to be cross-culturally analogous, regardless of the conflict from which they fled.
As this project develops, the full narratives of each of the Sudanese women will be made available. |
This work is in the public domain |
