Sexual and gender based violence in the refugee crisis (SEREDA)
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) against refugees is a global challenge that demands urgent attention given the scale of forced displacement, and a problem at the nexus of three global challenges identified by the Europe and Global Challenges programme: global health, migration and social inequality. SEREDA uses a social constructivist framework to understand the incidence and nature of SGBV experienced by women, men and child refugees who have fled conflict in the Levant Region.
Background
The past few years have seen the forced displacement of people from around the world on an unprecedented scale. Sexual and gender based violence has been a key feature of the experience of forced migrants yet one which has attracted little attention from policymakers and practitioners. Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) includes rape and sexual assault, as well as physical, psychological or emotional violence; forced marriage; forced sex work; and denial of resources, opportunities, services and freedom of movement on the basis of socially ascribed gender roles and norms.
The SEREDA Project aims to understand the nature and incidence of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) experienced by refugees who have fled conflict and are residing in countries of refuge. The study has a number of phases which include interviewing forced migrants (whether documented or not) who have experience SGBV about what they feel needs to happen, interviewing “stakeholders” who work with survivors and running some workshops to explore potential recording mechanisms and recommendations for interventions at different stages in the journey.
The SEREDA project is focusing initially on refugees originating from the MENA region but is exploring the possibility of expansion to include refugees originating beyond this region. The research will increase understanding of the incidence and nature of sexual and gender-based violence experienced by refugees, to strengthen mechanisms for recognising and recording the extent of sexual and gender-based violence, and for providing appropriate responses – particularly within countries of refuge. The project will examine how the health and social consequences of sexual and gender-based violence are identified and treated, and how they shape inequalities in life chances in different countries of refuge and as refugees seek to integrate.
The SEREDA Project is a major research initiative that is being undertaken across the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden and Turkey by a multi-country research team from the University of Birmingham, University of Melbourne, Uppsala University and Bilkent University. The Institute for Research into Superdiversity at the University of Birmingham is leading the SEREDA Project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, Volkswagen Stiftung and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond through the Europe and Global Challenges Initiative.
The project is being conducted in partnership with national and international NGOs providing services and support to refugees who have experienced violence, including the Women’s Refugee Commission, Doctors of the World, Foundation House and the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants (ASAM).
Funders
Funders
Europe and Global Challenges Programme
This funding initiative encourages European and international researchers to work together on important global issues.
- Find out more about the Europe and Global Challenges Programme
Volkswagen Stiftung
This funding initiative encourages European and international researchers to work together on important global issues.
- Find out more about Volkswagen Stiftung
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ)
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) is an independent foundation with the goal of promoting and supporting research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. RJ supports interdisciplinary research with an international impact and promotes the free mobility for researchers on an international level and between universities.
The research team
The research team
Researchers from the University of Birmingham
Hoayda Darkal
Pakinam Hassan (PhD Candidate)
Researchers from partner institutions
Professor Hannah Bradby Uppsala University, Sweden
Professor Bernadette McSherry Melbourne Social Equity Institute, UoM
Dr Cathy Vaughan Centre for Women’s Health, Gender & Society, Faculty of Medicine, Dental and Health Sciences, UoM
Dr Karen Block Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Team, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, UoM
Ms Jeanine Hourani, Centre for Health Equity, University of Melbourne jeanine.hourani@unimelb.edu.au
Dr Saime Ozcurumez Bilkent University, Turkey
Dr Selin Akyüz Bilkent University, Turkey
PhD researchers
Sara Alsaraf University of Birmingham, UK
Sian Thomas University of Birmingham, UK
Hala Nasr, University of Melbourne
NGOs Partners
NGOs Partners
Women’s Refugee Commission
The Women's Refugee Commission improves the lives and protects the rights of women, children and youth displaced by conflict and crisis.
Doctors of the World
Doctors of the World is an independent humanitarian movement working at home and abroad to empower excluded people to access healthcare. Through 400 programmes in 80 countries run by more than 3,000 volunteers we provide medical care, strengthen health systems and address underlying barriers to healthcare.
Foundation House
The Victorian Foundation for the Survivors of Torture (Foundation House) provides services to advance the health, wellbeing and human rights of people of refugee backgrounds in Victoria.
The Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants (ASAM)
For more than 20 years, ASAM has dedicated itself to create solutions to the problems that refugees and asylum seekers encounter in Turkey, to help them to fulfill their primary needs and to support them to provide access for fundamental rights and services.
Output
Reports and briefings
Reports and briefings
Forced migration and sexual and gender-based violence: findings from the SEREDA project.
- International Report
- International Executive Summary
- International Short Summary
- International Briefing
Findings from the SEREDA project in the UK.
- UK Fact Sheet
- UK Short Summary
- UK Executive Summary
- UK Full Report
- UK Asylum and Immigration systems briefing
- UK Health Briefing
Findings from Queer SEREDA (UK)
Findings from the SEREDA project in Scotland.
Findings from the SEREDA project in Wales\canfyddiadauprosiect SEREDA yng Nghymru.
- Welsh full report (in Welsh)
- Welsh full report (in English)
- Welsh briefing (in Welsh)
- Welsh briefing (in English)
Roundtable outcome note
Publications
Publications
Phillimore, J., D’Avino, G., Fajth, V., Papoutsi, A. and Ziss, P. (2023) Family reunion policy for resettled refugees: governance, challenges and impacts. Frontiers in Human Dynamics.
Bradby, H., Papoutsi, A., Hournai, J., Akyuz, S. and Phillimore, J. (2023) Something is (still) missing? Feminist services for forced migrants surviving sexual and gender-based violence in Sweden, Australia, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Women’s Studies International Forum Volume 98.
Pertek, S., Block, K., Goodson, L., Hassan, P., Hourani, J. and Phillimore, J. (2023) Gender-based violence, religion and forced displacement: Protective and risk factors. Frontiers in Human Dynamics.
Phillimore, J., Block, K., Bradby, H., Ozcurumez, S. and Papoutsi, A. (2022) Forced Migration, Sexual and Gender-based Violence and Integration: Effects, Risks and Protective Factors. Journal of International Migration and Integration.
Papoutsi, Anna, Jenny Phillimore, Selin Akyüz, Hannah Bradby, Lisa Goodson, and Cathy Vaughan. (2022) "Geographies of Shame: Diachronic and Transnational Shame in Forced Migrants with Experiences of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence." Journal of Refugee Studies (2022).
Phillimore, J., 2021. Refugee-integration-opportunity structures: shifting the focus from refugees to context. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(2), pp.1946-1966.
Phillimore, J. Pertek, S., Akyuz, S., Darkal, H., Hourani, J., McKnight, P., Ozcurumez, S., Taal, S. (2021) “We are Forgotten”: Forced Migration, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, and Coronavirus Disease-2019. Violence Against Women.
Phillimore, J. and Cheung, S.Y., 2021. The Violence of Uncertainty: empirical evidence on how asylum waiting time undermines refugees’ health. Social Science & Medicine
Ozcurumez, S., Akyuz, S. and Bradby, H. (2020) The Conceptualization problem in research and responses to sexual and gender-based violence in forced migration, Journal of Gender Studies
Akyüz, S. and Özgün T. (2019) “When Syrian ‘Girls’ meet Turkish ‘Boys’: Mapping Gendered Stories of Mixed Marriages”, Middle East Critique.
Bailey, I. and Darkal, H., 2018. (Not) talking about justice: the unspoken challenges of integrating energy and environmental justice in renewable energy siting. Local Environment. 23(3), 335-351.
Pertek, S.I, Sharifa, A. (2018) Don’t Force Me, A policy brief on early and forced marriage, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Birmingham. (PDF, Accessed 13 June 2018)
Surti A., Pertek S.I. (2018) Lessons learnt from Somali Regional State of Ethiopia: Combating Gender-based Violence against Women and Girls in Dekasuftu Woreda. Faith inspired action to end GBV. Islamic Relief Worldwide. (Accessed 10 May 2018)
Phillimore, J., Humphris, R. & Khan, K. (2017) Reciprocity for new migrant integration: resource conservation, investment and exchange. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Bronitt, S. and McSherry, B. (2017) Principles of Criminal Law. Sydney: Thomson Reuters (1,041 pages)
Goodson, L. and Grzymala-Kazlowska, A. (2017) Researching migration in a superdiverse society: challenges, methods, concerns and promises. Sociological Research Online 22(1), February 2017. DOI: 10.5153/sro.4168
Hannah Bradby, Kristin Liabo, Anne Ingold and Helen Roberts ‘Visibility, resilience, vulnerability in young migrants’. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine online first pp1-18
Hannah Bradby 'Taking story seriously’, Social Theory and Health, 15(2): 206-222. doi:10.1057/s41285-017-0028-3 (2017)
Dunne Breen M., Easteal P., Holland K., Sutherland G., Vaughan C. (2017). Exploring Australian journalism discursive practices in reporting rape: the pitiful predator and the silent victim. Discourse and Communication, 11(3): 241-258
Ozcurumez,S. and Yıldırım, D. "Syrians under Temporary Protection, health services and NGOs in Turkey: the Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants and the Turkish Medical Association" In Scott L. Greer, Matthias Wismar, Gabriele Pastorino, and Monika Kosinska (eds), Civil Society and Health: Contributions and Potential, Copenhagen (Denmark): European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies; (2017).
Almugahed, N., Pertek, S. I., Fida, N. (2017) An integrated approach to gender-based violence and child protection: Key findings from Mali, Niger and Pakistan, Islamic Relief, Birmingham. (Accessed 13 June 2018)
Nasr, H. (2017). Gender Justice and the Politics of Sexual Harassment in Cairo. In Women, Urbanization and Sustainability (pp. 221-245). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Humphris, R., & Bradby, H. Health Status of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Europe. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Public Health (eds) David V. McQueen and David Ashton. Retrieved 17 Oct. 2017
Cheung, S. & Phillimore, J. (2016) Gender and refugee integration: a quantitative analysis of integration and social policy outcomes. Journal of Social Policy
Block, K. (2016). Marginalised Populations. In H. Keleher & C. MacDougal (Eds.), Understanding Health (Fourth ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vaughan C., Devine A., Ignacio R., Lacsamana W., Marco MJ. Zayas J., Sobritchea C. 2016. Building capacity for a disability-inclusive response to violence against women and girls: experience from the W-DARE project in the Philippines. Gender and Development, 24(2): 245-260
Ozcurumez, S. and Yetkin Aker, D. What moves the highly skilled and Why? Comparing Turkish Nationals in Canada and Germany International Migration, 54(3),61-72, (2016).
Akyüz, Selin, (2016), ‘Overcome Your Anger If You Are a Man’: Silencing Women’s Agency to Voice Violence Against Women Women’s Studies International Forum, 56. (with Feyda Sayan-Cengiz)
Pertek, S.I. (2016) Gender Study: Conditional Cash Project for Vulnerable Syrian and Jordanian Children in Irbid, Jordan. Islamic Relief Worldwide. Birmingham. (Accessed 13 June 2018)
Phillimore, J. (2015) Migrant maternity in an era of superdiversity: new migrants' access to, and experience of, antenatal care in the West Midlands, UK, Social Science & Medicine, Available online 25 November 2015, ISSN 0277-9536
Vaughan, C., Murdolo, A., Murray, L., Davis, E., Chen, J., Block, K., Quiazon, R., & Warr, D. (2015). ASPIRE: A multi-site community-based participatory research project to increase understanding of the dynamics of violence against immigrant and refugee women in Australia. BMC Public Health, 15
Pertek, S.I. (2015) Gender Justice Policy, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Birmingham. (Accessed 13 June 2018)
Darkal, H., (2014). Heather E Bullock, Women and poverty: Psychology, public policy, and social justice. Feminism & Psychology, p.0959353514549298.
Ozcurumez, S. and Yetkin, D. “Limits to Regulating Irregular Migration in Turkey: What constrains public policy and why?”, Turkish Studies, 15(3), 442-457, (2014).
Akyüz, Selin, (2014), Gendered Insecurities: Refugee Camps in Southeastern Turkey, Journal of Conflict Transformation and Security, Vol. 4 no.1-2,(with Bezen Balamir-Coşkun)
Block, K.,Riggs, E., & Haslam, N. (Eds.). (2013). Values and vulnerabilities: The Ethics of research with refugees and asylum seekers Brisbane: Australian Academic Press
Goodson, L. and Phillimore, J. (2012) Community research for community participation: from theory to method. Bristol: Policy Press.
Ozcurumez, S. and Wylie, L. “Strategies for Change among Institutional and Societal Actors” (with L. Wylie), in Migrants and Health: Political and Institutional Responses to Cultural Diversity in Health Systems (Edited by Christiane Falge, Carlo Ruzza and Oliver Schmidtke), pp. 139-176, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, (2012).
Ozcurumez, S. and Senses, N. “Europeanisation & Turkey: Studying Irregular Migration Policy”, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 13(2), 233-248, (2011).
McSherry, B. and Kneebone, S. (2008) “Trafficking in Women and Forced Migration: Moving Victims Across the Border of Crime into the Domain of Human Rights” The International Journal of Human Rights 12(1): 67‑87.
Bernadette McSherry, (2007) “Trafficking in Persons: A Critical Analysis of the New Criminal Code Offences“ Current Issues in Criminal Justice 18(3): 385‑398.
Working paper series
Working paper series
Hourani, J., Vaughan, C., and Block, K. (2022). Experiences of Arabic-speaking refugee survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence living in Australia. IRiS Working Paper Series, No. 48/2022 (PDF)
Akyuz, S. and Bradby, H. (2021), The views of forced migrant survivors of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in Sweden, Working paper No. 47/2021, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Goodson, L., Darkal, H., Hassan, P., Taal, S., Altaweel, R. and Phillimore, J. (2021) Conceptualising experiences of sexual and gender based violence across the refugee journey: the experiences of forced migrants from the MENA region in the UK. IRiS Working Paper Series, No. 46/2021 (PDF)
Akyüz, S. and Bradby, H. (2021) SGBV in the Governance of Forced Migration: Service Providers’ Perspective in Sweden. IRiS Working paper series, No. 45/2020 (PDF)
Goodson, L., Darkal, H., Hassan, P., Taal, S., Altaweel, R. and Phillimore, J. (2020) Forced Migration and Sexual and Gender-based Violence: the experiences of forced migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa in the UK. Working paper No. 44/2020, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Ozcurumez, S. and Akyuz, S. (2020) Thinking through the SGBV experience from the survivors perspective: Protection, resilience and integration, No. 35/2020, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Thomas, S., Darkal, H. and Goodson, L. (2020) Forced migration and SGBV: Service provider perspectives from the UK. IRiS Working Paper Series, NO. 34/2020, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Ozcurumez, S. and , Akyuz, S. (2020) Risks and Prospects in SGBV Prevention, Intervention and Protection: The Service Prodivers' Perspective in Turkey, IRiS Working Paper Series, No 33/2020, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Buscher, D. (2019) Understanding Sexual and Gender-Based Violence among Refugees in Transit and Resettlement Contexts, IRiS Working Paper Series, No 32/2019, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Phillimore, J., Pertek, S. and Alidu, L. (2018) Sexual and gender-based violence and refugees. The impacts of and on integration domains, IRiS Working Paper Series, No. 31/2019, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Block, K., Nasr, H., Vaughan, C. and Alsaraf, S. (2018) What responses, approaches to treatment, and other supports are effective in assisting refugees who have experienced sexual and gender-based violence?, IRiS Working Paper Series, No. 30/2019, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Thomas, S., Darkal, H. and Goodson, B. (2018) Monitoring and reporting incidents of sexual and gender-based violence across the refugee journey, IRiS Working Paper Series, No. 29/2019, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Simon-Butler, A. and McSherry, B. (2018) Defining Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Refugee Context, IRiS Working Paper Series, No. 28/2018, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Ozcurumez, S., Bradby, H. and Akyuz, S. (2018) What is the nature of SGBV?, IRiS Working Paper Series, No. 27/2019, Birmingham: Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Contact us
For any enquiries regarding the SEREDA Project please contact:
Ann Bolstridge,
Institute for Research Into Superdiversity,
School of Social Policy,
University of Birmingham
Tel: +44 (0)121 414 4967
Email: sereda@contacts.bham.ac.uk
Twitter:@sereda_IRiS