The
Unrecognised and Underlying Violence against Women amidst the Crisis of
Displacement: The Identification of Women Abuse in the Refugee Lives Battling
for the Identity and Living in Duality
Ritesh Kumar Singh
Ph. D. Research Scholar
Department of English
School of Humanities & Languages
Mahatma Gandhi Central University, Bihar, India
Abstract:
The prolonged vulnerability of our society in the form of abuse and
violence against women is taking a grimmer turn. The forms of violence may have
changed down the ages but at the streamline, the trauma and terror of domestic
violence are still the same. It is evident that any kind of violence emerge
from the rigidity and the lack of agility in human behaviours, be it men or
women, but the one who suffers most is the women, as the superstructure of
power and politics favour the patriarchy, and eventually, the women are
subjected to the sub-human treatments in the society. The Violence against
women in the post-modern era is not limited to the physical tortures but
advances to the psychological, economical, and spiritual spaces. The violence
which starts from the home serves as the foundation for a larger crime against
the women, as it is not limed to the four walls of the houses, it goes beyond.
The threat to women’s life and dignity, in adverse scenarios like the refugee
crisis, multiply and makes the lives of women more vulnerable. Amid the crisis
of displacement, the wrongs with the women slip down from the so-called
parameters of crime or injustice and it goes unrecognized, the refugee women
face dual kinds of violence, one is domestic and the other during the
displacement, in the outside world. The objective of this paper is to access
the unrecognized forms of violence against women in the displaced domestic
settings and, in the external world.
Keywords: abuse, displacement, identity,
refugee-women, violence
General
Introduction
The post-modern world is known for destabilizing the very notion of
single superiority, and breaking down of meta-narratives that pushed back the
development of humans as a civilization, be it any conservative institution or
rigid centralized power structure, post-modernism has discarded such fixities,
but it has its limitations; the complexities borne out of post-modernism are
proving to be even more destructive than ever. The men women's relationship has
fallen into one of such devastating complexities of the post-modern world, the
element of violence against women were always there in our society, but the
kind of turn it has taken is a real threat to any rational and civilized
society. The violence against women is not limited to physical and sexual, but it
has transformed; from physic to psychic, from breaching of basic human rights
to assassinating them, from the closed domestic space to external abuse and
suppression, along with all these the women is subjected of constant trials, on
contrary men are not answerable in general. This situation of violence against
women becomes grimmer in adverse circumstances like the refugee crisis and
internally displaced masses. As per, 1993, General Assembly of the United
Nations, Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, gender-based
violence against women can be defined as:
Any act of violence that results in, or is likely to result in,
physical, sexual, or mental harm, or suffering to women, including threats of
such acts, coercion, or arbitrary, deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in
public or in private life.
UN has defined violence against women
precisely as anything which goes against women is unacceptable, be it physical,
mental, sexual; even threatening women is considered violence. United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees also finds this definition apt regarding the
violence against women. Hardships in the lives of women are mounted with the
harassment coming from the men. India and the world are struggling to provide a
sustainable and safe environment for women. The condition of women is not at
all sound around the globe, especially in underdeveloped and developing
nations. The private and public life of women are highly encroached, sexual or
unwanted intimidations, physical and mental harassment to the girls and women,
leads to a compromised future for upcoming generations. Such violence is done
under the vile of domestic integrity and false or pseudo- sense of male
superiority.
Domestic violence is now well recognized, and
for prevention, various majors are being taken by the government at the same
time society is also getting conscious and vocal about it, however, we still
have a long way to go. As per the global
data of WHO, there are more than 730 million women who faced violence
worldwide, and unfortunately, this number is increasing day by day. The
violence against women comes in different forms and shapes, the women suffer
from physical and sexual violence, unwanted pregnancy, violence during
pregnancies and post-pregnancy, torture for unwanted intimidation, labouring
and under the menaces, and baring the mobility, and many such cruelties. As far
as domestic violence in India is concerned, it is a real crisis, Indian women
are forced to live in packed walls, and face domestic violence mainly emerged
from marital disagreement and spousal violence, and one of the prominent
problems is the Dowry system; for its preventions government has made strong
laws, and another is martial sex which is becoming a severe problem in India;
this has emerged as one of the biggest threat to the married women, now the
government is also intervening as the women have raised their voices and become
vocal about it. Domestic violence is indeed a kind of curse in such a modern
and so-called civilized society.
Violence against women in a normally
operating society is so harsh than imagine the situation of refugee women, who
are forced to leave their homes, displaced from their native land, and
struggling hard to make a life in extreme adversities, where there is no
guarantee of life in the very next second, no guarantee of food and shelter, no
guarantee of anything normal. Then what would be the situation of women masses
that have to deal with all these along with the violence and torture against
them coming from their own people and also from the victimizers. The condition
for the women becomes unlivable. The cases of gender-based violence are growing
rapidly among the refugee and internally displaced women in the world, they are
being targeted by the war inflicting bodies, women are their first target,
apart from physical torture, sexual harassment, and molestation and eventually,
rape is used as a weapon. As per the reports of UNHCR, , describe the situation of refugee women and
internally displaced women as, “Refugee
and internally displaced women are especially vulnerable to gender-based
violence during armed conflict, during the fight from that conflict, and in
refugee camps” (819). The violence against refugee and internally displaced
women usually go unrecognized or doesn’t give a place in the trials and
discussions of justice, as it should be discussed, this is greater than any
crime. And to make it worse, the crisis of identity stands as an added enemy
against the existence of women.
The post-modern seminal text of refugee literature like The
Odyssey of Kashmiri Pandits by Dr. M.L. Bhat, which narrates the terror and
horror of violence against Kashmir women, The Ungrateful Refugee of Dina
Nayeri, gives the written testimony of traumas of victims of violence of all
kinds and The Sympathizer of Viet Thanh Nguyen, gives us an eye-opening
portrayal of violence, especially the sexual violence, which even women
sometimes fails to understand that what has happened with them. All these,
refugee crisis shows how women becomes an easy target of the hate mongers and
how they got exploited in the public and also in private, without any fault of
their own, the crime happened to them, only for just being a woman.
The current situation, even after so many advancements,
raise a question to us, that where we had gone wrong, why there is a need to
even discuss this, be it domestic violence or violence against the refugee and
internally displaced women, we need to give a check to our institutions and
agencies.
Recognition of forms of Violence against the Refugee and
Internally Displaced Women: Domestic and Public
There is a dual struggle in the life of refugee women,
one is being the refugee itself and another is the gender-based violence, both
domestic and public. The violence in refugee camps and during the making of a
refugee doesn’t get recognized as the focal length of discussion doesn’t focus
on the women as the victims of violence but as a refugee. The underlying violence against the refugee
women is more dangerous than the problems of displacement, a woman who just bears
the burden of supposed liabilities of women, has to go through physical and
sexual extortion on the daily basis, no matter their body allows it or not,
they have to do it willingly or unwillingly. And what makes it worse is that
there is no one to hear them, there is no mouth that can speak in their favor,
ironically, the magnitude of violence grows and the consequences lead to
compromised life or in some cases, death appears easier than life in violence.
Globally, 1 in 3, women experience violence in their
lifetime and if we responsibly add the violence against refugee women, the
frequencies go higher, however, UNHCR lacks statistically sound data. As far as
the condition of India is concerned, as per the data of the National Family
Health Survey- 5 (2019-21), 30% of women in India face spousal violence. These
data show that at what extent women are suffering from violence around the
globe. However, this data doesn’t speak for the refugee women because; we are
negligible about it for a long time. However, a sign of change is visible, as
the voices from the different spheres are rising in support of the rights of
refugee women. Jane Freedman, in her scholarly work, Sexual and Gender-based
Violence against Refugee Women: a Hidden Report of the Refugee “Crisis”,
unfolds the true situation of violence against European refugee women, she has
put stress on the recognition of such violence and the need of separate
discussion.
The new refugee writes such as M.L. Bhat, Dina Nayeri,
Viet, and others, are giving their due palace in the literary space, they have
portrayed the real scenarios without filtering out anything, they have
discussed the violence in real terms and left us to think about it, that what
should be done to safeguard the life and dignity of the women. These three
authors are contemporary and very much aware of the circumstances of refugee
life, as they are a refugee and displaced, one of the three is a woman, her
mother and she herself got victimized.
The forms of violence that a woman has to deal with are
no less than a capital crime, it's crucifying all the rights of women and
treating them just like an object for labour and pleasure. The prominent one is
Sexual Abuse and sexual torture; these get demonised at the lowest level, which
a normal human being can’t even imagine. The barbarism of Nirbhaya Kind
happens with the refugee women often, but unfortunately, it skips from the
sights. Next in the series is Physical torture like beating, cutting, whacking,
and damaging the body, by cracking the bone and tearing the ligaments.
Psychological and Spiritual violence, these two distinct
kinds of violence are the product of all other violence, psychological and
spiritual violence is widely neglected and in any society, these aren’t
considered violence, so, again there is a need for identification of such
violence against the women.
Kashmiri Women and violence
In the history of India, the biggest refugee crisis is
missed out from history significantly, more than 62, 000 thousand families were
forced to leave their motherland and thousands of women becomes the victim of
jihad at the hand of jihadists. In modern Islamic invasion, humanity dies every
next second, the women were their first prey, and eventually, they got
succeeded on January 19, 1990, with the ethnic cleansing of Hindu Kashmiri pandits
from the valley.
Kashmiri
Women were raped in gangs before the eyes of their families, they got killed in
a Halal manner, in bits and pieces, they were stone plated till death,
and many such brutalities happened to them only for the cause of Islam. The
scale of violence is such huge that it needs a separate discussion. Dr. M.L
Bhat, writes, “The most common spoils of tribal warfare are women. Raiders kill
the men, abduct the nubile women, gang-rape them, and allocate them as wives”
(46).
Violence against Kashmiri women was public and community
violence, very systematic and well thought out. A whole lot of Jihadists did
this and they are proud of it, slogans like “we want Kashmir with panditayin”,
write Dr. Bhat, “The Soldiers of the “Holy War” in Kashmir want Kashmir and
that too with the Kashmiri Pandit Women” (47).
Sexual violence was used as a weapon of war, the refugee women suffer
the most, Michelle Hyne, Writes in the scholarly work Sexual Violence
against Refugee Women, that “the preparations of war find women an easy
target, and sexual exploitations of the women give them an advantage, they use
sexual violence rather say rape as the weapon of war”(819). A harsh but apt
example of the use of this weapon can be seen in the Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits:
A
Kashmiri Pandit nurse working at the Soura Medical College Hospital in Srinager
was gang-raped and then beaten to death. Another woman was abducted, raped, and
sliced into bits and pieces at a sawmill……And ten thousand Kashmiri pandits
across the valley take a painful decision: to flee their homeland to save their
lives from rabid Jihadis. Thus takes place a 20th century Exodus.
(62-63)
Violence against women is not limited to domestic
violence but it is being used as a weapon even in this era and the Violence
against the Kashmir women are the victims of such violence, waiting for justice
for years.
Iranian women and violence
The lives of Iranian women are no lesser than lifelong
impressments, where they have very limited liberty and basic human rights, the
orthodoxy controls their much of lives and those who rebelled against it had to
leave the country in order to save their lives. The Iranian revolution of 1979,
created millions of such women, who were the subject of domestic and public
violence. Even today, the Iranian women have to live according to the law
prescribed for them, and if they violets any rule, they have to bear the consequences.
Dina Nayeri, the author of The Ungrateful Refugee is a product of such
wrongs to the women; firstly her mother suffered from domestic violence, even
though she was educated and her husband was Dentist. Nayeri’s mother belonged
to another faith, she converted to Christianity and her husband never liked it,
she faced religious violence along with physical, describe one such incident,
Nayeri, writes, “he smoked opium and beat my mother” (36). Along with domestic violence, Nayeri’s mother
also experienced physical violence in the public by the moral police
administrated by the government:
(H)er,
scarf slipped back a few inches revealing half a head of loose hair. Then we
heard the shouting, a pasdar was pointing and ranting at Maman. ‘Watch
your hijab, woman! As he crossed the asphalt, his shouting grew louder, anger.
He began to curse, calling her vile names… But he towered over her,
threatening, spitting. (Nayeri 36)
To have a violence-free life, she eventually left her
country and become a refugee, but the gender-based violence didn’t stop here,
this continues even after becoming a refugee. Nayeri herself experienced
gender-based violence as a child:
As I
pulled on the handle, a boy grabbed my hand and shoved it into the doorjamb.
Another boy slammed it shut and I heard a sickening crunch. At first, it didn’t
hurt-just a prick at the base of my pinky nail and a numbness spreading up
through my hand. But then there was blood- a lot of it – seeping out of hinge
and creeping down the doorframe. (31)
Further
in their life as a refugee, she encountered such violence, not only her,
several women like her experiences physical and sexual violence; until found
asylum in America. The Iran women are fighting hard for their freedom and human
rights.
Vietnamese women and violence
Vietnamese refugees are borne out of the Vietnamese war
or the second Indo-china war. Sexual violence stands at the top, the Vietnamese
women fell prey to the American and other asylum givers and also to the
soldiers of both sides. Incidents like killing the woman while fight appeared
normal to them. Nguyen, writes, “a spat between a husband and wife that started
with the usual name-calling suddenly erupted into a full-blown fight. We saw
none of it but heard the unmistakable sound of flesh being slapped, followed by
the woman screaming” (74). The Vietnamese refugee women suffered from such
incidents on daily basis, and many of them accepted violence as their fate.
The Vietnamese refugee women struggled with sexual
violence which often comes in compromised marital relationships, the refugee
women dealing with the crisis of identity fell prey to the American, French,
and Vietnamese of different cultures and ideologies. Vietnamese refugees in the
woe of a good life and to establish an identity and choose to get married to
non-natives and eventually become the victim of physical and sexual violence.
They were treated unwell during the displacements. While they were struggling
with displacement and a refugee in general, they were also in a constant fight
for dignity. Viet has portrayed the apt and true condition of Vietnamese
refugee women, along with the refugee in general. The unnamed narrator the
Sympathizer, appears as a misogynist, he slept with various women, just for
sexual manipulation, he did every wrong to the women, whether it is emotional
violence or sexual, or physical, women's dignity got compromised at every stage
of life.
Vietnamese refugee women never become the center of
attraction, their voices remain unheard, and the crimes which happened and
still happening in the home and on the land of asylum is unmeasured. The life
of refugee women amid the crisis of identity is no lesser than hell and the
most unfortunate thing is that there is no way home, as far as safety and
sanity are concerned. Viet has
deliberately raised the issue of violence against the refugee women, although
in a much-layered manner but it speaks in volume, violence amidst the refugee
crisis is something like starving in the desert, where everything stands
against the human. The refugee women find refuge in the duality, where they
transform themselves as per the conditioning of life, the violence somehow made
them stronger than others. It is said that the damaged women are the best
women, but, reality asks the question to us, why the violence.
Conclusion
The crisis of Identity for the women along with the
gender-based violence makes their lives even harder, be it Kashmiri, Iranian,
Vietnamese or any other refugee woman, life seems difficult in such
circumstances. The identity crisis weakens the fight of refugee women against
violence, as they don’t have the proper identification to be named, and the
vices take undue advantage of this identity crisis and do the wrong to women,
as they have no one assigned to deliver justice to them. In the above-discussed
refugee crisis, none of the women got justice, they compromised with their
situations. Lack of identity results in a lack of visibility o the world, if
one is not visible, no one can do anything for them, no matter how right or
wrong they are. However, the courage of women keeps them alive and now the
voices are coming in their support, commenting on the courage of the women, , in the works Resilience and survival: refugee women and
violence, write that only the courage of women can bring significant change
in the violence against them. However, the courage of women also needs the
support of a proper justice system, the recognition of violence against refugee
women would be one such step; only after the recognition of the criminal
justice take place. The dual struggle of refugee women is not limited to
Kashmiri, Iranian, and Vietnamese, but all refugees in general. The fight for
survival is not easy for a woman in a society with a normal setting then what
would be the condition of refugee women in a war-like situation where every
ordinary thing seems expensive and asking for justice is like a utopian thing,
it is like a snake in Iceland.
The identification of
violence against the refugee and internally displaced women is the need of the
time, a larger section of society is forced to live a compromised life and out
of the justice system, only because the violence against them is not recognised
or it's getting overshadowed by the refugee and identity crisis.
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