Gender
This section explores factors that will need to be taken into account in integration planning to support the adjustment in gender norms, roles, identity and relationships that often accompany integration in a new country. It also outlines gender related differences in the refugee and resettlement experiences that need to be considered when planning integration programs in receiving societies, and ways to promote integration of a gender perspective into work across sectors. It is essential that integration support and processes consider intersectionality and take an age, gender and diversity (AGD) and refugee centred approach.
Placement
- family and community support services, public transportation and trauma counselling for at-risk women;
- childcare services for refugee families.
Case management
- individual and family-based casework and integration support;
- ensure separate intake with male and female adults in families, and individual interpretation (preferably with the option for a female interpreter);
- identifying and offering more intensive integration support to ‘at-risk’ refugees (e.g., members of the LGBTIQ+ communities, single mothers individuals with disabilities);
- community support networks;
- identification, referrals, and culturally responsive services for refugee families affected by domestic violence (including intimate partner violence, violence against children, child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation (FGM)).
Income support
- income support for single parents;
- strategies to foster the participation of refugee women.
Language training
- providing the option for female-only language training classes.
Orientation
- providing information relevant to the family (e.g. childcare services, child welfare issues, FGM, health services and programs for women, services for persons with disabilities, domestic violence, family relationships, customs and laws);
- providing childcare to promote participation of women;
- providing gender-focused orientation.
Housing
- safety and security issues, especially for women.
Employment
- job search assistance for women, including in non-stereotypical livelihoods initiatives;
- home based micro-economic enterprises, especially for families with childcare responsibilities;
- safety and security issues affecting women accessing employment (e.g. transport arrangements, working hours);
- availability of childcare.
Health care
- support for refugee families to access hospital based general healthcare and other relevant services for physical and mental health;
- support for comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare, including family planning, and birth control.
Welcoming and inclusive societies
- disseminating information within the receiving community on the sociocultural context and background of resettled refugee women;
- fostering opportunities for refugee women’s civic and community participation;
- gender sensitive community and recreation services (e.g. ‘women only’ swimming sessions).
LGBTIQ+
- Providing professional development and training for all staff, volunteers and interpreters on sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status
General
- wherever possible, resettled refugees should be able to choose the gender of their service provider;
- professional development, training and awareness raising activities for key staff and professionals to enhance their capacity to provide gender sensitive support;
- consideration of gender issues is crucial in the implementation of integration programs;
- specific needs and requirements of women must be considered and addressed in all integration program aspects;
Like everyone, refugees hold a number of important identities, including gender, that impact their resilience and vulnerability. Adding a gender lens and including analysis is an opportunity to consider other areas that also impact vulnerability and support, as part of a holistic approach to supporting individuals, families and communities to thrive.
Gender denotes the socially constructed roles of women and men, which are often central to the way in which people define themselves and are defined by others. Unlike sex, gender is not a biological determinant. Gender roles are learned, may change over time, and vary within and between cultures. Gender often defines the duties, responsibilities, constraints, opportunities and privileges of women, men, girls and boys in any context. These roles need to be taken into account in integration planning.
While some refugees will be resettled to countries which have similar gender roles to those in their countries-of-origin and asylum, many will have come from societies where gender roles are more clearly defined (e.g., in some refugee countries of origin, greater authority is vested in men as household heads and community leaders). This may result in tensions between men and women in refugee families and communities as women secure greater economic independence and embrace new possibilities in the receiving society.
Equally, role status changes affecting refugee children and youth have an impact on both men and women. The authority vested in refugee parents may be undermined as children and youth exercise the greater rights and freedoms often available to them in receiving societies.
Including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC)
While this section refers to men and women, it is important to understand that not all refugees’ gender identity is male or female. Additional resources can be found at this Handbook’s LGBTIQ+ section.
Gender assessment and analysis
In order to address gender barriers and opportunities across areas of work, it is important to apply a gender lens. If processes and programmes are gender exploitative, gender blind, or neutral, they may perpetuate (or even increase) gendered harm, while reducing the extent to which services can engage and support refugees, particularly women and girls. Gender sensitive and transformative programs, by contrast, integrate a gender lens and address and include gender to increase impact and equality. Use of a gender assessment scale can be a basic step in identifying gaps and steps to address them.
A gender analysis of the target population can provide important insights on the specific needs, vulnerabilities, strengths, opportunities and priorities of men, women, or youth, and can be used to inform work with new populations or making work more gender sensitive.
Gender Equality
Gender sensitive integration planning will ensure that both refugee men and women have access to the same rights and opportunities as their counterparts in the receiving community.
The extent to which gender issues influence integration will vary, depending on:
- the extent of difference in gender roles and relations between refugee source countries and the receiving society.
- family status on arrival and in the early integration period. Women who do not have family or partner support, and single men may have more intensive integration needs.
Integrating a gender perspective and approach into work can have great impact on service use, and the success and outcomes of individuals and families.
Ensuring checks and bank accounts are in the names of both men and women as heads of household can promote shared control of resources. Gender inclusive planning is important for family economic self-reliance. Meeting separately with women and men in families during intake, and ensuring interpretation is available (preferably with both male and female interpreters available) increases the ability to build relationships and ensure accurate information is provided to female refugees, as well as identify gendered risks, challenges, and priorities. Female-focused transportation initiatives such as additional investment in women’s transportation orientations or driver’s license training and car loans or female refugees reduce isolation, help increase service access for children as well as women, and promote independence. Training, resources, and infrastructure building to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, gender non-binary and other clients (LGBTIQ+) with marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI) can improve all stages of service, well-being and outcomes for these clients. Integrating a gender analysis of population needs, implementation of programs and processes, and monitoring and evaluation. These measures will result in facilitating positive gender outcomes within communities, as well as for organizations and individuals.
Supporting refugee men
Resettlement may entail changes in gender roles and identity. For many refugee men, identity is integrally linked with their paid work, their roles as providers and their civic participation, may have particular difficulties in adjusting to the loss of social status that often accompanies resettlement, especially if they are unemployed or unable to work in their former professions. Similar disruptions in the ability to provide are often the result of displacement. For men this can result in a loss of a positive way to express masculinity. These stressors can create increased risk of intimate partner violence, particularly among communities where gender norms are accepting of violence against women.
Young single men from traditional societies may face the adjustment associated with the loss of natural male role models (such as fathers and uncles) that would otherwise have been available to them in the context of the extended family in their countries-of-origin.
Particular efforts may be required to link men in these circumstances with alternative sources of support and guidance. In Canada, for example, a Somali community supported the integration of young male resettled refugees by linking them with older Somali family men who had been in Canada longer. The older men served as mentors, imparting important social and cultural values as well as providing practical and emotional support.
Supporting refugee women
Integration planning should reflect and embrace women’s diverse roles as partners, carers, members of communities and paid workers. In many refugee families (as is the case in receiving societies), women assume primary responsibility in the domestic sphere. In many countries-of-origin, greater communal responsibility is taken for domestic tasks and the care of children, older persons and those with disabilities. This is in stark contrast to women’s experience in many resettlement countries where they are likely to have limited access to family and community support; where the nuclear family is the dominant family form and where far greater emphasis is placed on individual responsibility. For these reasons, social and community support will be particularly important to refugee women in the early integration period.
Particular efforts will need to be made to ensure that support is provided to women who remain outside of the labour force and may struggle to integrate into receiving societies. Women in these circumstances are vulnerable to social isolation. In a number of countries, efforts have been placed into bringing home based refugee women together, with the aim of reducing isolation, fostering mutual support and engaging women in addressing barriers to their integration. Refugee women also face multiple role adjustments in receiving societies as they may be assuming certain roles for the first time. For example, many women will be entering paid work and will require some support in this transition. Adjustment may also be a challenge for women from certain traditional societies in which women’s identity is linked to her relationship with a male family member, whether a father, husband or brother. It would also be important to engage men in couples budgeting classes, parenting classes, and other areas that can help continue to strengthen relationships as the families integrate into their changed context and communities.
Video - USA
The Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (OIRA) facilitated 30 "kitchen table" discussions with women from specific refugee and immigrant communities to gain feedback in how the police department could address neighborhood safety concerns. Refugee and immigrant residents raised such issues as language barriers and the need for interpretation and translation of resources. They also talked about the lack of information about valuable services, including 911 emergency calls. In response, this video was created and offers information about several topics around public safety, including when and how to call 911, domestic violence issues, identifying and reporting wage theft, and knowing rights.
Gender roles, expectations and norms impact children from birth, through adolescence and into young adulthood. In particular in adolescence, roles can begin to change and the ways in which norms impact boys and girls shift. Expectations around education, sexuality and sex, dating, family, and other areas evolve. Integrating a gender lens into all childhood, youth programming can help ensure children and youth are appropriately supported as they integrate and live in their new communities.
Family centred integration planning
While it is important that integration planning addresses the needs of refugee men and women in their own right, the whole family unit will need to be taken into account. Hence the importance of receiving societies adopting strategies to support the adjustment of both refugee men and women to gender role expectations, family relationships and women’s and children and youth’s rights and responsibilities in receiving societies. These will be particular considerations in the provision of early integration support. Orientation programs also provide an opportunity to provide resettled refugees with information about gender and family issues in receiving societies (e.g. laws relating to family violence and marital and property rights).
There are several barriers to meaningful participation of refugee women and girls in integration activities. For example, in some cases, they may not want to participate in language training and orientation programs in a mixed sex environment. In other situations, it could be that they participate, but not in a meaningful manner. In some cases, women may not be motivated to attend meetings due to the various responsibilities they have to shoulder including making a livelihood and/or care responsibilities. In cases where the primary responsibility of domestic care work falls on women, it is likely that opportunities that can be afforded to them to engage in formal livelihoods initiatives are deprioritized by their families.
It will be important that integration support staff are able to recognize these barriers. Wherever possible, refugee women should be given the option of indicating preference for a female service provider especially in the areas of health care, language assistance, language training and orientation.
What is intersectionality?
A theoretical framework that allows recognizing how power and discrimination intersect and how different groups of people experience them differently. It means understanding that gender identity, race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, age, disability, socio-economic status and others do not exist in isolation from each other but rather are intertwined and influence how we experience the social world and how it perceives us.
Participation in paid work can speed the process of integration for refugee women (through language acquisition and social contact), support the integration of their families, and prevent their isolation in the home.
There are a number of factors to consider in determining expectations of participation in paid employment for women:
- adjusting to paid work may be stressful for some women if they have not worked outside of the home in the past.
- women with limited prior formal participation in paid employment may require more intensive job placement support and training.
Video - Coding for refugee women
Free coding and digital courses at the ReDI School for Digital Integration are enabling refugee women in Germany gain computer skills and join a growing network of women working in technology.
As a consequence of gender inequality in countries-of-origin and countries-of-asylum, refugee women may be less likely than their male counterparts to be literate or to be educated. Low literacy levels and lack of prior educational and labour force experience will need to be considered in the design of language training, orientation and employment placement programs.
Supporting women’s equal participation in language training and orientation programmes
Countries of resettlement have attempted to ensure that language training and cultural orientation programmes are sensitive to the needs of women by:
- holding separate ‘women only’ sessions or classes, where women may feel more comfortable to speak and participate.
- ensuring male relatives are not used as translators and that women have the option to access a female interpreter, where possible.
- delivering orientation and language training on an outreach basis through established women’s support or social groups or by contracting community-based providers.
- ensuring that orientation and language training programs address issues of particular relevance to women of different ages such as sexual harassment, domestic violence and gender discrimination.
- organizing programs so that they are accessible to women (e.g. scheduling sessions in daylight hours, offering transport and childcare, offering home tutor options).
- fostering awareness of gender issues for staff delivering training.
The resettlement process can be difficult for refugees; many express that the process is itself traumatic. Resettlement countries may need to invest additional thought and effort into gender sensitive approaches to engage resettled refugees in psychosocial support programmes.
Women may be reluctant to disclose experiences of sexual violence owing to the level of shame and a fear of being ostracised by their partners and communities. Refugee men, for whom emotional strength is more integrally linked with masculine identity, may be reluctant to acknowledge psychological problems for fear that this may be construed as a sign of weakness. Like their counterparts in receiving societies, refugee men may also be less likely than women to seek ‘talk-based’ solutions to emotional difficulties through either their informal support networks or professional providers.
Further resources on gender equality and refugee women can be found here: Council of Europe
Domestic violence
Domestic violence is a global issue. However, refugee women who are subject to domestic violence are a particularly vulnerable group as they may:
- lack family and community support in the resettlement country.
- be unaware of laws prohibiting domestic violence in receiving societies.
- be unable to communicate in the language of the resettlement country, not be able to have private meetings with counselors and case workers, and have limited knowledge of the resources available to them to leave a violent relationship (e.g. housing, income support).
- encounter difficulties in accessing legal and social support owing to language and cultural differences, and lack of legal information or access to legal aid lawyers.
- be wary of involving the police and legal personnel in family matters.
It is beyond the scope of this resource to explore broader strategies for preventing and addressing domestic violence in the context of resettled refugees. However, in an integration context, both refugee women and men should be provided information in orientation programs about the law as it relates to domestic and intimate partner violence and the services and support available to affected families. Integration support staff and service providers in contact with resettled refugees should also receive training on domestic violence issues.