On the 24th of May, Brigit Toebes, Veronika Flegar and Lucía Berro Pizzarossa participated in the seminar “Empowerment of Refugee Women”. This event was organized by Annemiek van Vliet & Anna Luna Bertram and sponsored by FREIA and the Women and Law Working Group.

The event addressed the challenges faced by forcibly displaced women and girls through integrating different approaches to the issue. The first speaker, Lucía Berro Pizzarossa introduced the academic perspective through an overview of gender as a factor in refugee empowerment and particular challenges faced by refugee women and girls. Following this, Nadine Imminga discussed the standpoint of the Dutch Council for Refugees and her experiences at the reception centre for asylum seekers in Ter Apel. She raised issues around the cultural difficulties experienced by refugee women during the Dutch asylum procedure. These presentations were followed by Mastoora Sultani who shared her own experiences as a former refugee and as the founder of Femina Foundation seeking to empower refugee women.

Brigit Toebes and Veronika Flegar discussed the presentations and offered thought-provoking insights from the health and vulnerability studies perspective. Both emphasized the need for a more nuanced approach in discussing the empowerment of forcibly displaced women and girls.

We thank the audience for their insightful questions and welcome the engagement of academia in these pressing issues.

Speakers and organizers (left to right): Anna Bertram, Nadine Imminga, Lucía Berro Pizzarossa, Brigit Toebes, Mastoora Sultani, Veronika Flegar and Annemiek van Vliet.