"We are Forgotten": Forced Migration, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, and Coronavirus Disease-2019. (July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Phillimore, Jenny; Pertek, Sandra; Akyuz, Selin; Darkal, Hoayda; Hourani, Jeanine; McKnight, Pip; Ozcurumez, Saime; Taal, Sarah
• Is Part Of: Violence against women. Volume 28:Number 9(2022)
• Page Start: 2204
• Page End: 2230
• Publication Date: 2022-07
• Subjects: COVID-19 -- pandemic -- structural violence -- forced migrant women -- SGBV; Abused women -- Periodicals; Women -- Crimes against -- Periodicals; Violent crimes -- Periodicals; Femmes victimes de violence -- Périodiques; Femmes, Crimes contre les -- Périodiques; Crimes violents -- Périodiques; 362.8292
• DOI: 10.1177/10778012211030943
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1077-8012

Abstract

Adopting a structural violence approach, this article explores, with survivors and practitioners, how early coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic conditions affected forced migrant sexual and gender-based violence survivors' lives. Introducing a new analytical framework combining violent abandonment, slow violence, and violent uncertainty, we show how interacting forms of structural violence exacerbated by pandemic conditions intensified existing inequalities. Abandonment of survivors by the state increased precarity, making everyday survival more difficult, and intensified prepandemic slow violence, while increased uncertainty heightened survivors' psychological distress. Structural violence experienced during the pandemic can be conceptualized as part of the continuum of violence against forced migrants, which generates gendered harm.