Women in Exile
Start: December 2024
Women in Exile e.V. is an initiative that was founded in 2002 by refugee women in Brandenburg to stand up for their rights and the rights of refugee women. We decided to organize ourselves as a refugee women’s group because we have experienced that refugee women are doubly victims of discrimination: As refugees, they are marginalized by legal restrictions and racism, and as women, they are sexistically discriminated against. In addition, mixed-gender refugee organizations are often dominated by male refugees who focus on other topics and put the special problems of women in refugee accommodation to the back of the queue.
Women in Exile is one of the few interfaces between the women’s movement and the refugee movement. In 2011, we set up the Women in Exile & Friends group, in which activists without a refugee background also work in solidarity. In our work, we see that women can relate to each other across all differences such as age, origin, religion, status, sexual orientation, etc. and make a difference together. Our roots lie in the self-organization of refugee women. Thus, a central component of our actions is to develop all demands, strategies and activities jointly by and with refugee women.
