Lecture series Women* Reasons to Escape

Saturday, 24. October 2015
Experiences of Escaped Women*
with activists from Munich and Berlin
Language: English, Dari/Farsi, German

@ Frauen*café, Lange Gasse 11, Wien.
FLIT* only!

The event starts at 7 pm.
Please respect the invitation policies!
If you need translation, child care, travelcost funding and support or if you have questions regarding access please contact: 0043-68864941424


Afterwards:
*Solidarity Party* @ U5
For Women Support Women and
Housing Project for LGBTIAQ*-Refugees from RosaLilaTürkisVilla!

Women* Reasons to Escape - lecture series about women specific reasons to escape

Women* escape for the same reasons as men: war, torture, poverty, hunger, the lack of possibilities to self-sustain and access to medical care. Further women* often have to face human rights violations due to their gender such as Female Genital Mutilation, Forced Prostitution, Forced marriage, Stoning, Rape, Domestic Violence, Murder of Women* and Girls*, persecution related to sexual orientation and identity, Refusal of Education. On a global scale this is for Women* a bitter part of everyday-life.

Invisibility of Reasons to Escape

These women*specific human right violation are in many countries not acknowledged as reasons to escape. Women* are only considered as belonging to "a particular social group" within the Geneva Refugee Convention (1951). If female* asylum seekers get a right to residence in Austria, then by second instance only. The chances to obtain a safe legal status would therefore increase for women*, if women*specific reasons to escape are explicitly mentioned in the Asylum Law.

But these reasons are nearly invisible within our society and in the legal text. The State is not interested to change this. In Austria only §20(AsylG 2005) relates to gender specific persecution. According to this Paragraph asylum seekers have the right to be examinated by a person with the same sex, if they base their persecution on encroachment upon their sexual self-determination. They have to be informed about this right before their first interview. But this paragraph is often not applied, furthermore sometimes rejected. For women* who come from societies that strictly separate men* and women*, it can be impossible or traumatizing to speak in front of a man* about their experiences. Therefore women*specific reasons to escape are often concealed within the asylum procedure, escaped women* are threatened with deportation endangering their life and health.

Disastrous accomodation and lack of retreat

Not only the legal situation is disastrous, the way the austrian government accomodates Refugee Women* is utterly devastating and degrading. There are no separate rooms, no spaces to retreat for women* and no separate sanitary facilities. Medical care is miserable or not existing. Even tough many women* resist these conditions and complain for example, the staff usually does nothing to improve the situation.

Resolute Engagement against the european migration policy

Despite the solidarity many people in Austria showed in the last weeks, we should not forget about the ongoing problematic situation in the absolutely over-crowded Lager in Traiskirchen and the tightening of the Asylum Law. According to this change in law many refugees are (even more) criminalized and will receive no basic supply at all, while deportations are tracked up in unfair shortcut trials. At the same time borders are getting even more closed and militarized.

As an initiative we work actively to improve the situation of refugee women* by taking up on the visibility of the subject. To sensitize our society about women*specific reasons to escape and to push for a consideration within the legal text is what we aim at with this lecture series. Activists who work in the specific fields will discuss from their perspectives in each lecture, there is space to exchange and discuss.

Source, contacts and further information :: frauenaufderflucht.wordpress.com/kampagne.