Gender Relations in a Refugee Camp: A Case of Chechens Seeking Asylum in the Czech Republic

This article aims to give an account of how refugees' familyrelations are constructed in exile. It is based on fieldworkconducted among Chechen asylum seekers living in a refugee campin the Czech Republic in April 2004. It argues that althoughtraditional norms defining women's and men's position in Chechenfamilies have often been transgressed in the actual experiencesof men and women in situations of emergency such as war, flightand life in the camp, they remain relatively unchanged at thelevel of refugees' ideal notions of femininity and masculinity.It also shows that the environment of the refugee camp provides,on the one hand, some opportunities for the increase of women'spower in the family and men's involvement in childcare and householdduties. But on the other hand, the assistance in the camp isbased on an undiversified and gender-blind perception and constructionof refugees as passive objects of aid, and latently sustainsgendered violence.     

Predictors of the Authorities' Decision to Grant Asylum in Denmark

With the aim of identifying predictors for being granted a residencepermit, adult members of 149 refugee families from the MiddleEast answered a structured interview shortly after arrival onsocial and demographic background and family exposure to organizedviolence. At follow-up, 90 families (60.4 per cent) had beengranted a residence permit. This was positively associated withIraqi nationality, with the duration of the father's educationand the family's religion being another than Islam, and negativelywith being a single mother family. No association was foundwith exposure to war, having lived in a refugee camp or to humanrights violations. Without transparency of the asylum grantingdecision process the conclusion is that this seems to favourthe selection of socially and culturally well situated refugees,while human rights violations seem to play a diminishing role.In order to develop its quality, continuous and transparentmonitoring of the asylum granting decision process appears relevant.     

Asylum applications in the European Union: patterns and trends and the effects of policy measures

"Statistics on asylum applications have been used in a highly selective way in the debates on refugees and asylum policies in Western Europe, to justify restrictive measures. This paper provides a more systematic analysis of these statistics. It focuses on the pattern of origins and destinations for asylum seekers in the European Union in the period 1985-1994.... When the patterns of origin and destinations are compared for separate years, it becomes clear that the destinations of asylum movements have been constantly changing. Though some of the more remarkable shifts were clearly related to policy measures in the relevant countries, many measures produced only limited effects or failed to have any effect at all."     

Explaining the Crisis of the European Migration and Asylum Regime

Since 2013, the European migration and asylum regime has entered a phase of crisis, which reveals the deep interdependencies between its different components (including intra-EU mobility) and the unbalanced nature of its normative foundations. This original structural fragility had not fundamentally compromised the overall functioning of the regime until two major exogenous factors (the economic crisis, with its asymmetrical impact on the eurozone, and the wave of political instability and conflicts on the southern shore of the Mediterranean) brought its intrinsic limits to the point of rupture. The ongoing, highly contentious process of reform of the European migration and asylum regime is an unprecedented and crucially important test of the capacity of one the European Union’s key sectors to evolve under pressure and to adapt to a rapidly and deeply changing geopolitical, economic and demographic environment.     

Supporting Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Glasgow: The Role of Multi-agency Networks

The implementation of a dispersal policy in Britain has broughtasylum seekers to regions of the country which previously hadlittle experience of providing services for this group. Around10,000 asylum seekers have been resettled in the city of Glasgowsince 2000 as a result of the policy. Multi-agency networkshave been established in Glasgow as a medium for facilitatingco-operation across the voluntary and statutory sectors forthe provision of locally-based support services, while alsofacilitating community development. This paper explores theexperiences of these networks since their inception. While highlightingthe continuing importance of the voluntary sector in supportingasylum seekers and refugees, it raises concerns over the reactiveway in which services have been provided, where responsibilityhas fallen on voluntary and community organizations to fillgaps in statutory service provision. It further examines theimplications for social cohesion of housing-led resettlement,which has largely been in areas suffering from social deprivation.The findings highlight the frustrations of service providersworking within a disjointed policy framework, characterizedby contradictions between Scottish and UK policy goals.