Refugee Women in Kenya and Tanzania

Abstract

It is often stated in the academic literature and shown in media images of refugees that women make up the bulk of refugee populations throughout the world including Africa. Kenya and Tanzania are not the exceptions, although males made up a larger portion of the refugee population in Kakuma camp in Kenya. Despite the preponderance of women among refugees, the gendered dynamics and implications of the refugee experience have not received the attention they deserve. At the same time, women are only too visible in media representations of African refugees, but they are depicted as hapless victims, listlessly watching their emaciated children withering away with hunger or disease as they await humanitarian assistance. This chapter seeks to challenge both narratives—the analytical invisibility and the wretched depictions of women refugees—by highlighting women as refugees without portraying them as helpless victims. It is informed by the emerging feminist literature on refugees that attempts to examine the role gender plays in the generation, migration, and treatment of refugees (Forbes Martin 2004; Schafer 2002; Grieco and Boyd 2003; Langer 2002, Indra 1999; Macklin 1995; Camino and Krulfeld 1994; Hyndman 1997).