Over one percent of the total world populations today consist of refugees. More than eighty percent of that number is made up of women and their dependent children. An overwhelming majority of these women come from the developing world. South Asia is the fourth largest refugee-producing region in the world. Again, a majority of these refugees are made up of women. The sheer number of women among the refugee population portrays that it is a gendered issue. This module is meant to portray that undoubtedly both displacement and asylum is a gendered experience. At least in the context of South Asia it results from and is related to the marginalisation of women by the South Asian states. These states at best patronise women and at worse infantilise, disenfranchise and de-politicise them. It is in the person of a refugee that women’s marginality reaches its climactic height.

The nation building projects in South Asia has led to the creation of a homogenised identity of citizenship. State machineries seek to create a “unified” and “national” citizenry that accepts the central role of the existing elite. This is done through privileging majoritarian, male and monolithic cultural values that deny the space to difference. Such a denial has often led to the segregation of minorities, on the basis of caste, religion and gender from the collective we. One way of marginalising women from body politic is done by targeting them and displacing them in times of state verses community conflict. As a refugee a woman loses her individuality, subjectivity, citizenship and her ability to make political choices. As political non-subjects refugee women emerge as the symbol of difference between us/citizens and its other/refugees/non-citizens. By taking some select examples from South Asia in this module we will addresses such theoretical assumptions. Here the category of refugee women will include women who have crossed international borders and those who are internally displaced and are potential refugees.

The partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 witnessed probably the largest refugee movement in modern history. About 8 million Hindus and Sikhs left Pakistan to resettle in India while about 6-7 million Muslims went to Pakistan. Such transfer of population was accompanied by horrific violence. Some 50,000 Muslim women in India and 33,000 non-Muslim women in Pakistan were abducted, abandoned or separated from their families.[1] Women’s experiences of migration, abduction and destitution during partition and State’s responses to it is a pointer to the relationship between women’s position as marginal participants in state politics and gender subordination as perpetrated by the State. In this context the experiences of abducted women and their often forcible repatriation by the State assumes enormous importance today when thousands of South Asian women are either refugees, migrants or stateless within the subcontinent. Abducted women were not considered as legal entities with political and constitutional rights. All choices were denied to them and while the state patronised them verbally by portraying their “need” for protection it also infantilised them by giving decision making power to their guardians who were defined by the male pronoun “he”. By insisting that the abducted women could not represent themselves and had to be represented, the State marginalised them from the decision making process and made them non-participants. Even today the refugee women do not represent themselves. Officials represent them. For the abducted women it was their sexuality that threatened their security and the honour of the nation. Thus, their vulnerability was focused on their body. This made all women susceptible to such threats and so had to be protected/controlled. By denying agency to the abducted women the State made it conceivable to deny agency to all women. Readings taken from Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s Borders and Boundaries portray the trauma faced by these women who could never be considered as full citizens.

Refugee women from other parts of South Asia reflect trauma faced by women belonging to communities considered as disorderly by the state. Ethnic tensions between the Tamil minority and Sinhala majority leading to armed conflict since 1980s have led to several waves of refugees from Sri Lanka. They are victims of a failed nationalizing project. By 1989 there were about 160,000 refugees from Sri Lanka to India, again largely Tamil women with their dependents. Initially the State Government provided these refugees with shelter and rations, but still many of them preferred to live outside the camps. They were registered and issued with refugee certificates. In terms of education and health both registered and unregistered refugees enjoy the same rights as the nationals. Nevertheless in absence of specific legislation their legal status remained ambiguous. The precarious nature of their status became clearer in the aftermath of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. All sympathy for these women disappeared after Gandhi’s assassination and in the Indian state perception they were tarnished by a collective guilt and so became expendable.

After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination the politicians began to shun the refugees. As most of these were women they were initially considered harmless but with the number of female suicide bombers swelling there was a marked change in GOI’s attitude to women refugees. Soon the government turned a blind eye when touts came to recruit young women from the refugee camps in Tamil Nadu to work as “maids” in countries of Middle East. Most of these women were then smuggled out of India and sent to the Gulf countries. Often they were badly abused. By April 1993 refugee camps were reduced from 237 to 132 in Tamil Nadu and 1 in Orissa. In Indian camps refugee families are given a dole of Rs.150 a month, which is often stopped arbitrarily. Women are discouraged from taking up employment outside the camps. During multiple displacements women who have never coped with such situations before are often at a loss for necessary papers. When separated from male members of their family they are vulnerable to sexual abuse. The camps are not conducive for the personal safety of women, as they enjoy no privacy. But what is more worrying is that without any institutional support women become particularly vulnerable to human traffickers. These people aided by network of criminals force women into prostitution. Millions of rupees change hands in this trade and more lives get wrecked every day. Asha Han’s paper in Refugees and the State portrays the predicaments faced by refugee women in South Asia.

Many displaced women who are unable to cross international border swell the ranks of the internally displaced. Paula Banerjee’s paper in Internal Displacement in South Asia portrays the trauma faced by IDP women. Even in IDP camps women are responsible for holding together fragmented families. Today roughly one-third of all households in Sri Lanka are headed by women and the numbers increase many fold in the camps for internally displaced. Although 89 percent women in Sri Lanka are literate, due to two decades of armed conflict women from North and East have lower levels of education with one in every four being illiterate. A report based on a research carried out at Mannar district portray that among 190,000 IDPs women often find it impossible to generate enough income for buying food for the whole family. In Illupakkadavai, all 36 heads of female headed households stated that they rely on dry rations for approximately 90 percent for their nutritional needs and that the children of women headed households are most vulnerable to exploitation. In Sri Lanka suicide rates for women have doubled in the last two decades.[2]

None of the South Asian states are signatories to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees or the 1967 Protocol. As India is the largest South Asian state it should be interesting to see how women refugees are dealt with here. In India Articles 14, 21 and 25 under Fundamental Rights guarantee the Right to Equality, Right to Life and Liberty and Freedom of Religion of citizens and aliens alike. Like the other South Asian states India had ratified the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1993. Although there is no incorporation of international treaty obligations in the Municipal laws still rights accruing to the refugees in India under Articles 14, 21 and 25 can be enforced in the Supreme Court under Article 32 and in the High Court under Article 226. The other guiding principles for refugees are the executive orders that have been passed under the Foreigners Act of 1946 and the Passport Act of 1967. The National Human Rights Commission has also taken up questions regarding the protection of refugees. It approached the Supreme Court under Article 32 of the Constitution and stopped the Expulsion of Chakma refugees from Northeast India.[3] Yet all these orders are adhoc in nature and the legal position remains nebulous. This is true not just of India but all of South Asia.

Pakistan also operated under the 1946 Foreigners Act. According to the provisions of this Act no foreigner could enter Pakistan without a valid passport or visa. Such an act can be detrimental for all persons fleeing for their lives and especially for women who are unused to handling documentation proving citizenship. When six to seven million persons entered Pakistan after partition this Act proved useless and had to be supplemented by the Registration of Claims Act of 1956 and the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act 1958. Such Acts did not establish a legal regime for refugees in Pakistan, only the claims of a group of refugees. The ad hoc nature of Pakistani refugee regime continued. As for Sri Lanka, it is not a refugee receiving country but a refugee generating country. There are two Acts, which are especially detested by displaced people, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and Emergency Regulations. Sri Lanka does not have any special acts that help or privilege internally displaced women who are vulnerable to abuse because of their gender. As for other state laws in South Asia, Nepal has an Immigration Act of 1992, which provide that no foreigner is allowed to enter or stay in Nepal without a visa. His Majesty’s Government has full authority to expel any foreigner committing immigration offences. Most South Asian states have punitive measures for immigration offences but hardly any measures for helping displaced people. Further, none of these States have made any special stipulations for women refugees although a majority of all South Asian refugees are women.

As for international actors UNHCR is acquiring some importance in the region for their efforts regarding refugees and internally displaced. There are around 20,000 refugees who are protected by UNHCR in India, of whom a majority are Afghans. The UNHCR has a guideline for the protection of women refugees but it is left to the discretion of countries to follow these recommendations. In patriarchal states where policies are weighted against women, if these guidelines are left to the discretion of the government then it does not succeed in its purpose. Further, the programmes of these institutions such as UNHCR are built on certain practices. Similar to state practices the practices of international organisations such as the UNHCR also delegate woman to the status of victim, which is a disenfranchising phenomenon. The women have little or no say on policies that govern their lives and bodies even in camps run by the UNHCR. Albeit the UNHCR concern itself with the protection of these women but they do not work towards their agency. This is not to suspect intention of UNHCR but many of their policies such as the policy of repatriation can work against women who have acquired agency over their own person. Decisions regarding their relocation also assume that refugees/women cannot have any say in it. Even international agencies such as the UN Gender Mission can contribute to depoliticising women. A case in point is Angela King’s mission to Peshawar and Islamabad. When Afghan women requested the UN through Ms. King that they should try to mobilise educated Afghan women in peace-making, Ms. King reportedly asked them to apply for UN jobs instead. After the meeting the women felt “confused, insulted, hurt, angry and substantially ignored.” But they noted bitterly “this is not an unusual situation – neither within our societies, nor within the UN agencies”.[4] Thus the gender bias found in state policies regarding women’s dislocation might also be reflected in the attitude taken by international agencies.

The overwhelming presence of women among the refugee populations is not an accident of history. It is a way by which states have made women political non-subjects. By making women permanent refugee, living a savage life in camps, it is easy to homogenise them, ignore their identity, individuality and subjectivity. By reducing refugee women to the status of mere victims in our own narratives we accept the homogenisation of women and their depoliticisation. We legitimise a space where states can make certain groups of people political non-subjects. In this module we intend to discuss the causes of such depoliticisation that often results in displacements. We will also discuss the situation of displaced women in South Asia and consider policy alternatives that might help in their rehabilitation and care.

References

Paula Banerjee, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury and Samir Das, Internal Displacement in South Asia, chapter 9.
B.S. Chimni, International Refugee Law – A Reader (Sage Publications, 2003), section 1
Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries, chapter 3.
Joshva Raja, Refugees and their Right to Communicate, chapter 8.
Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Refugees and the State (Sage Publications, 2003), chapter 9.
Ranabir Samaddar, The Marginal Nation (Sage Publications, 1999), chapter 12.
Refugee Watch, Nos. 10-11

Web-based

1. UNHCR Policy on Refugee Women
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_92.htm

2. Select UNICEF Policy Recommendation on the Gender Dimensions of Internal Displacement
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_92.htm

3. CEDAW : http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/econvention.htm

4. RW.: Dislocated Subjects : The Story of Refugee Women
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_8.htm

5. RW.: War and Its Impact on Women in Sri Lanka
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_4.htm

6. RW : Afghan Women In Iran
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_6.htm

7. RW.: Refugee Women of Bhutan
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_5.htm

8. RW.: Rohingya Women – Stateless and Oppressed in Burma
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_5.htm

9. RW.: Dislocating the Women and Making the Nation
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch17_1.htm
http://www.unifemantitrafficking.org/main.html

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[1] For a scholarly account of gender in the politics of partition refer to Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition (Delhi: 1998) and Urvashi Bhutalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (Delhi: 1998).
[2] Paula Banerjee, “Agonies and Ironies of War,” Refugee Watch, No. 2 (April, 1998) p. 21.
[3] See National Human Rights Commission vs. Union of India (1996: 1 SCC 295); Also Khudiram Chakma vs. Union of India (1994: Supplementary 1 SCC 614).
[4] Cassandra Balchin, “United Against the UN: The UN Gender Mission Attitude Towards Afghan Women Refugees Within its Own Rank is Glaringly Hypocritical,” Newsline (April, 1998) p. 95.