How can we improve asylum-seeking women’s access to sexual
violence support services? It’s a question that, over the last three years, I’ve
heard both refugee support workers and sexual violence support workers asking.
I hoped that through our training seminars we’d bring people from
these different organisations together to start to talk about this issue – but the
seminars were so focused on learning there was no time for new dialogue. At
last year’s Rape Crisis England & Wales conference a group got together to
talk about it, but we knew we were only having one side of the conversation.
And then Vicky Canning wrote about her research findings in Women’s Asylum News.
So last Thursday 50 or so women from refugee-supporting organisations,
rape crisis organisations, and refugee women’s self-advocacy groups gathered to
see what ideas we could come up with to solve this problem together. The event aimed to be more than a talking shop,
so that after hearing from expert speakers, we held carefully structured
dialogue groups that sought to come up with real, practical ideas for action –
new projects, new research topics, new ways of working.
Our experts were engaging and interesting – and all came to
overlapping conclusions about what support is needed to help women seeking
asylum who have experienced sexual violence. Dr Canning took us through her
research on the intersection of conflict, gender, violence and asylum; psychologist
Dr. Eileen Walsh of the Traumatic Stress Clinic talked us through the
challenges – and rewards – of treating traumatised women seeking asylum; Nyasha
Kajawu Refugee Council’s Powerful Women project that provides both
advocacy and therapeutic support; and Nina Murray and Elaine Connelly from
Scottish Refugee Council talked through their experience of
working with the Refugee Women’s Strategy Group and statutory and
voluntary sector agencies to build powerful partnerships working together for
refugee women.
All the presenters, through different experiences, reached
one shared conclusion: that women seeking asylum need integrated support –
advocacy to help with their basic needs, and therapy to help with recovery. But
how do we make that happen?
So in our dialogue sessions we focused on what sexual
violence organisations, refugee organisations and refugee women can teach each
other. Together we found that everyone shared a concern that they lacked the
right knowledge – but also a real desire to work together to provide better
services, and to reach refugee women.
At the end of the day everyone pledged to take action... and
my pledge is to follow up from the day and take forward at least one of the new
project ideas and try to make it happen before the dissemination project closes
in December! I’m slightly daunted by the task before me, but I’m fired up by
the buzz of last Thursday’s enthusiasm to work together for traumatised women
seeking asylum. So watch this space!
For more information on our ideas, and to get involved in following it up, contact me at c.cochrane@csel.org.uk.
