Refugee women in Germany tell their stories in their own words.
“Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity….When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
We met H. on a Saturday afternoon in the refugee home where she is living in Berlin. The brownish Neo-Baroque house, built during World War I, was for a long time the City Hall of Friedenau, in the district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg. In 2016, the massive building was sold and it became what it is now:…
READ THE COMPLETE STUDY HERE: Study on Female Refugees Abschlussbericht_Final_ Spiegel online: Studie Frauen beklagen desolate Zustände in Flüchtlingsheimen Wie leben Frauen in deutschen Flüchtlingsheimen? Eine repräsentative Studie zeigt: Die Wohnsituation ist mies, es mangelt an Dolmetschern, Psychotherapien und Schutz vor sexuellen Übergriffen. Von Annette Langer Geschätzt ein Drittel der Flüchtlinge, die nach Deutschland kommen,…
Living in Refugee Camps in Berlin: Women’s Perspectives and Experiences, a collection edited by Hansjörg Dilger and Kristina Dohrn and written in collaboration with a Berlin-based organisation, International Women’s Space, seeks to focus in on the specific experiences of women living in different forms of asylum accommodation across the German capital. Jennifer Philippa Eggert welcomes this collaborative…
Click HERE to listen to the Radio F Interview with Damla Yıldırım. She is a Historian, Filmmaker from Istanbul and has been for the last three months in Germany seeking asylum. In the interview she speaks of the currently situation of women and intelectuals in Turkey and about what she has so far experienced in…
Click HERE to listen to the RADIO F interview with Camila von Hein, Lena Nahrwold and Katharina Epstude, three of the authors of the book “Living in Refugee Camps: Women´s Perspectives and experiences”, launched on the 16.12. at the Werkstatt der Kulturen, in Berlin. To order your book, click HERE. This book is our first…
SEE BELOW THE BACKGROUNG HISTORY: On the 7th of September, around 4 o’clock in the morning, in a Heim in Hennigsdorf, a refugee woman was again compelled out of her room, violently pushed in to a police car and taken to the airport in one more forced deportation attempt. They didn’t succeed because the…
سلام! من میریام هستم ازکشور کینیا. ۳۶ سال دارم و از ۱۹۹۷ بدینسو آلمان زندگی میکنم. سال ها پیش وقتی دختر خورد سالی بودم، همیشه از خودم سوال می کردم؛ اما تنها جوابی که همیشه می شنیدم این بود« زنان زیاد حرف نمی زنند». ازهمان آوان من اینرا درک کردم که زنان در افریقا از…
سرزمین من به گاو بیمار می ماند وقتی بینی بی بی عایشه از سوی شوهرش، که گفته میشد طالب بود، بریده شد، رسانه ها، این ماشین پروپاگاندای حکومت های غربی، از مظلومیت او به نفع خود استفاده کردند. آنها عکس بی بی عایشه را در پشتی مجله های مشهور غربی به نشر رسانیده و نوشتند…
Since I came back from my trip to West Africa, I’ve been thinking and crying every night for the women I met. Their words and stories are echoing in my mind, stories of extreme suffering in the hands of their husbands, about their fear of the darkness of the night, when they will be forced…
I arrived in Germany on the 2nd of December, 2015. When I arrived in Germany, I went to Lübeck. It is a city in Germany. It is a very nice city. I lived in Lübeck for five days in a Camp and after five days, when I went to the office manager to do…
IWS got to know Viviana when she was still living the emergency shelter at the Wiesenstraße, in Wedding, Berlin. On the 29th of January we went to the Notunterkunft to have a coffee with Viviana and see how she was. The moment we met, Viviana was already showing signs of stress. No wonder, she was…
“It is About Freedom of Movement” is one of the testimonials of refugee women in Germany published in our book IN OUR OWN WORDS / IN UNSEREN EIGENEN WORTEN. See the text below (in English or Deutsch) or listen to a reading by Devika Ranjan: I decided to leave my country because the time had come when…
This video of Sista Mimi was put together to be shown at the launch of IN OUR OWN WORDS / IN UNSEREN EIGENEN WORTEN, it shows Mimi during two of the most important moments of the refugee struggle in Berlin: the day of the eviction of Oranienplatz Camp and the resistance on the roof of the Ohlauer…
In 1989 I travelled from Calais to Dover. Whilst on the ferry, I requested a visa. The officer didn’t trust me and as we approached the UK, I was sent to a room, where a dog and a few officers sniffed around me and my luggage. For hours, maybe five, I answered all their racist…
I wake up every day and see a wall. The building I see through my window is a wall. I always keep my important things packed. When I go to Aldi, I look at goods I may need, but I don’t buy them. I think I won’t be able to take many things with me…
My name is Regina, I come from Uganda. I’ve been here in Germany for the last 13 years. I apply for political asylum, they reject. I apply again, they reject. I’ve been applying for so many times. And all this time I’ve been living with a ‘Duldung’, which simply means that I’m just being … they…
Im Jahr 2013 wurde ich von vier Männern aus meinem Haus vertrieben, weil sie Geld von mir gefordert haben, das ich nicht hatte. Sie haben mir Gewalt angedroht, wenn ich ihre Forderungen nicht erfülle. Einer davon war Polizeiinspektor in Novi Sad. Mehrfach sind sie zu mir gekommen, um Geld zu verlangen. Mehrfach habe ich ihnen…
Movement Magazine documents the history of Oranienplatz, the refugee movement in Berlin and much much more. iwspace interviewed some refugee women especially for the magazine.
Bintou Bojang is 21 years old, she went through Female Genital Mutilation at the age of 11 years old. In 2012 she came to Germany and applied for asylum. At first she was rejected. The authorities didn’t believe her story. She then appealed and got accepted under the Humanitarian Help.
One day when we still had the space in Ohlaher Straße we gathered a number of us together and wrote down little snippets of our experience here in Germany as refugee and migrant women. Here is an example what we women of iwspace had to say: I want to know what the government is: is it…
iwspace 