[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Hello and welcome to the Migration Oxford Podcast.
I'm Rob McNeil and I'm Jackie Brodhead. Today we've been speaking about women and displacement, uh, from the Ukrainian war.
Now, Jackie, why specifically have we been speaking about women in this context?
Thanks, Rob. I think we wanted to talk about this because the Ukrainian war is such an example of displacement
of women and children because of the rules in place by the Ukrainian government for fighting men.
That means that both the internal displacement within Ukraine and the external displacement.
A lot of that has been women. And so this research has been about exploring what does it mean?
How is it different? What is the same about a displacement crisis that is predominantly affecting women and children?
I mean, we've heard we heard a lot about the specific experiences of women in this situation,
about about how things feel from a female perspective and from my point of view as a man,
they were illuminating because they did shine a light on a different way of looking at things to the way that I tend to.
And um, yeah, one other thing that we that we have seen is that there's been a big change in perspectives on whether or not people are
intending to stay long term in countries like the UK and I presume in other European countries after this long period of time.
Now, Jackie, um, what what did you what did you take from that?
I think, you know, it's a very difficult topic during an ongoing conflict to ask people about what their intentions are.
Um, particularly because of, you know, very complex ideas of what it means to return home.
Something we hear about in the conversation. But in the UK we have seen a shift.
And that does have really profound consequences.
Um, for a programme that was thought to be temporary or was hoped to be temporary, that we're now seeing as people have laid down roots in the UK.
Um, especially with children who've now spent a considerable proportion of their lives here.
More and more people are saying that their longer term intention is to stay in the UK.
Um, and that feels important in the conversation about what will happen post conflict in Ukraine,
but also for those receiving countries and how they, um, how they focus on what they're going to do around integration and longer term inclusion.
Indeed. And we see we see this in a migration observatory briefing, which I'm just going to plug shamelessly before we go into this.
But on that note, I think let's let's listen to these very powerful testimonies.
I'm speaking to Darina Devenish Chen Co visiting research fellow at the Department
of Politics and International Relations here at the University of Oxford,
and Tanya Oliver, co-founder of the To Be Well project, an app to support the wellbeing of displaced and other people.
Darina, I want to start with you.
Can you tell me what role gender has played in Ukraine's displacement crisis and how your research sought to explore this?
Thank you jacki. Well, gender is widely recognised as one of the factors, which of course,
affects individual experiences and displacement in Ukraine caused by Russias full scale invasion has proved it vividly.
Just to illustrate the scale of the displacement crisis.
Right now, there are over 6 million Ukrainian refugees in Europe.
And in some countries, um, almost 90% of them are women.
Of all internally displaced people in Ukraine, 60% are again, women and women make up also 86% of all IDPs seeking actively employment.
So displacement generally exacerbates inequalities in all aspects women, young girls and other marginalised categories,
as for instance disabled people or the elderly are often at higher risks of human rights violations.
Also, the displaced individuals are often correlated with the experience of gender based violence.
With this in mind, get with my colleague Doctor Mani.
Hold. We started the research project, which is particularly focusing on exploring the experience of displaced Ukrainians,
those who got displaced internally. Our study is based on quantitative survey among 1000 respondents and 70 in-depth interviews,
which I conducted with internally displaced women from different regions in Ukraine.
Our primary goal was to amplify the voices of those who are absent from the discourse around the war,
and these are particularly women who got displaced and who faced lots of challenges related to their displacement.
Thanks so much for doing it, Tanya. Hearing from during there about how many women are kind of impacted.
Could you talk to us about some of the kind of common strategies that women have been using to cope with that displacement,
and the things that they've been doing and what you found? Yeah.
Thank you, Jeff, and thank you, Dr. Arena. Um, it's, uh, an interesting question.
You know, when I just came to the UK, I was trying to to do my best, uh, for myself, for my son, for my mother.
And I was seeking to communicate with, uh, other Ukrainians.
I wanted to, to know that they are here, that I can share with them.
What? What's happening to me? My pain. You know, what I'm going through.
And, um, I think that one of the most important issue that I want to emphasise is, uh, ability to create a sense of community,
um, even in the most challenging circumstances, women want to, uh, to be together in a circle,
whatever, uh, uh, to be able to comfort each other, you know, with words or I know many, uh, women, uh,
giving, sharing information about jobs, about how even start a business together, uh, about childcare.
I know so many cases when and me as well, because I'm a mother of ten years old and I'm having this issue,
and I need to some time for myself, self time or time to for to do my work.
I am not able to leave my, uh, child alone and I'm asking my friends to do that.
We are helping each other. So one of the most, uh, important, I would say, I would, uh, say that this is this ability to create, uh, community.
And by the way, this is why, uh, this is a very important part of mobile application I'm working now on.
Uh, we have the, uh, huge part for community support, uh, like, uh,
trained listeners where Ukrainian people can support each other just by giving this, uh, this ability to top to speak about their issues,
you know, because when I came to the UK, uh, another problem that I saw that I faced was that there were no,
um, mental wellbeing support in my own language.
Right? I mean, there were initiatives, but, uh, the best what people could do, uh, those who didn't speak English could,
for example, um, have some art therapy to create some drawings or, uh, sing together.
Right. But it's not the same. It's not. It's great that we have it, but it's not the same.
We want to communicate, uh, same language.
We want to express ourselves in the language where we feel comfortable.
Another thing, as I, as I mentioned, you know, is children,
because most of the displaced people are women as they're in the set and they have children one, two, three, sometimes four.
And, um, one of the important thing, uh, for them, I, I've organised, uh, the other day from,
from the very beginning, this, uh, circle with, uh, um, uh, mined in, um, High Wycombe.
And we were asking what is the most important priority for you right away?
And they were saying, it's, um, our children well-being.
We want to give them this sense of normality.
You know, even in this such a dramatic, not normal situation like, uh, being and experiencing the war.
Because even though we are here safe in the UK, still we are, uh, touching it all the time.
We are communicating with our relatives, with our friends.
My son can play, uh, one of his, uh, computer game.
Right? And then all of a sudden, he has to stop because, um, other side, his friend has to go to basement, um, because of, uh, you know, sirens.
Mhm, mhm. You can hear, you know, when even when I'm talking now my voice is a little bit trembling because,
uh, I feel like when, just when I'm talking about it, I feel this, um, pain of, uh,
people being in different places and uh, like, we are not just people who are, for example,
in the UK, we are not just, uh, getting through our challenges and then use, uh, environment.
We also sort of feeling, um,
a little bit guilty that we are not experiencing the same what our beloved one and like at least me and lots of my friends, I've been discussing it.
They feel that this is really, um, unbearable, uh, to to to have it in your life.
So yeah, trying to focusing on your child well-being, trying to make everything fine.
To be the best mum, to organise the best environment, good school, you know, uh, for your child, having friends and so on.
Thanks so much, Tanya. Dorina, Tanya's just spoken, I think really powerfully about some of the complexities of displacement.
You know, the, um, the kind of disempowerment that you can feel and the lack of agency.
But at the same time, lots of things that that you can do in terms of building community and,
and the, you know, complex emotions around sometimes feeling guilty,
sometimes feeling disorientated, but also in, particularly in the case of, of parents wanting to do the best for their, their children.
I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit about how the women in, in your research have been kind of navigating that complexity.
Community networks play a huge role for displaced women, and I've seen a lot,
and I've talked to a lot of women who try to reinvent their sense of purpose and sense of belonging
by joining groups or by creating a shared space where they can feel the same support from others,
or they do it also from volunteering or helping others who shared the same experience.
For instance, I talked to one lady who got displaced in 2014 from Crimea after its annexation by Russia to Zaporizhzhia region,
and then as soon as Zaporizhzhia region, the place where she lived, was occupied in 2022, she got displaced the second time.
And being a teacher in Crimea and then a private inntrepreneur in Zaporizhzhia region after her second displacement,
she founded a non-for-profit organisation helping other displaced persons
because she truly believed that she knows what these people are going through.
She knows their needs and how to talk to them, and these experiences are not unique.
In these stories, we can see that. Women's agency is generally at the heart of resilience in displacement.
And women are not passive victims, and the experience shouldn't be understood solely through the trauma lens.
There are leaders who are empowering others.
In fact, our study proves that displacement can become catalysing for women's leadership,
where they can actively shape their future and contribute to the recovery of their communities.
Thanks so much to Rena. Tanya during this research has focussed on internally displaced people.
Um, and obviously in the UK we have seen externally displaced people and yourself coming to the UK and being welcomed in the UK.
I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the different experience for externally displaced people.
And Doreen, I'd love to hear kind of your reflections on the contrast between the between the two.
Um, Tanya, over to you. When you are moving to, uh, different place, different country.
Especially when you are not you. You didn't plan it. We didn't plan to go anywhere.
Oh, most of us had a good life in Ukraine.
Uh, I used to have my businesses, uh, good school for my some, uh, very set of life.
And I hear these stories so many times.
Uh, uh, and when I come here, for example, now I have, um,
a master's degree in clinical psychology, but I couldn't work here as a clinical psychologist.
Uh, I know people, doctors, you know, PhD scientists, right.
Doing some researches, but they cannot do the same here.
And especially if you don't know the language really well, then you only can try to work as in a shop, maybe, or as a cleaner.
Uh, it's very difficult to, um, to do something that you are good at that you used to do in your country.
It's very difficult, for example, to start a business because you don't know the rules, you don't know how the system works.
And just, uh, uh, just trying to learn about it takes so much of your time and resources, every, every bit of it.
You know how schools work. My son is, uh, uh, passing through his 11 plus, uh, which is completely different.
We don't have anything like that in our country and so, so new that I'm now anxious and I'm now in stress.
I don't know who is more stressed, my son or myself.
And so, uh, this new information from one site.
Yes. It's building, uh, new, uh, brain cells.
Right. It's making us stronger from this point of view.
At the same time, it's, uh, dragging our energy.
It's much more difficult to focus on, uh, new things.
So, uh, you don't always know what you don't know, right?
You sometimes could not understand where to go or who to ask or what are your rights, uh, which year?
For example, in Ukraine, you already got this knowledge by the age of even, I don't know, 20 or 25, you know how the system works.
So that's how I call it. Uh, here, you have to start from the scratch.
So your, uh, experience in most of the cases is not relevant.
You have to get through from the very beginning with lots of things you have to fight about where and how to rent, uh, uh, flat where you will live.
Right? It's so different from Ukraine.
You know, in Ukraine, you can, uh, you can arrange renting a flat in, uh, in an hour if you really need it.
And, uh, next day you will move. It's not the case here.
Right? And, uh, so many things like that, uh, that, um, you even doing or have to do without realising it.
And then another thing that, uh, you are solo mother here.
You're all the time have to take care about your child.
If you have children, you have to take care along.
And this is such a, uh, burden, you know, uh, lots of, uh, um, women and, uh, um, communicating,
uh, even breast a little bit about it because they don't have enough space for themselves.
They need it so much. And again, because they are so focussed on their children and want to bring this normality thing,
they are in this circle where, you know, it's difficult to give them normality when their mother is not happy.
Thanks Tanya and Doreen, of this situation of people right internally displaced,
I think Tanya spoke about some of the difficulties of navigating a system that you don't know.
Well, presumably for those internally displaced, it's slightly different, but there were kind of other challenges.
And I also wonder if your research has looked at the decision making processes
that people went through about where they are moving to when they are displaced.
And I know you've also done some work on the idea of people who are twice displaced, and I wonder if you could say a little bit about that.
So the challenge yourself, very much similar. The same people have to find new accommodation.
People have to change their sometimes they change their professions or find have to find a new job.
But what is different? These. That the environment is more or less similar, so they don't have to learn a new language.
They understand how the system works. Something that Tanya mentioned and they still can rely on the network network of friends relatives.
They are not separated from people who they love. For instance, it would talk about women who got displaced.
They are not separated from their husbands.
On the other hand, I believe that the security station, considering the missile attacks in almost all cities of Ukraine which happen constantly,
are making their experience more traumatic because these are simply attached to war every day.
So considering that the majority of internally displaced people are from cities where Russian language is more common.
So initially, while choosing their destination, their primary consideration was going as far as possible from the war.
That means that they got displaced the western part of Ukraine, where Ukrainian is predominantly spoken by citizens.
So it's not surprising that a lot of displaced people then change their destination and get displaced again,
move again to the cities, which are linguistically or culturally more understandable to them.
For instance, those which are located in central part of Ukraine or southern part of Ukraine, or the capital of Ukraine.
Um, but that doesn't mean that these experiences can be considered as twice displacement, because that was their conscious choice.
But Ukraine is one of those unique countries where people got forcibly displaced several times just within the last ten years.
First time it happened in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea and occupation of parts of Donbas,
and the second time after 24th of February 2022, when Russia invaded the whole territory of Ukraine.
And the experience of those who got displaced for the second time is different from those who experienced it for the first time.
We might assume that the prior experience might help you to get prepared, but unfortunately it doesn't work like that.
And my interviews I conducted with a lot of respondents shows that 30 out of 70 interviewees were those who were displaced for the second time,
and they mentioned many times that they could see a lot of differences in their experience of the first and second displacement.
For instance, the second displacement happened much more rapidly, and they couldn't get prepared for it.
It was much more stressful and much more traumatic.
During the first displacement in 2014, people still had the chance in some cases to get back to their hometowns,
collect things, see their relatives well after 2022.
It's not the case as some towns got vanished just within several weeks.
The second main difference in the experience of those who got displaced for the
second time is that they stopped hoping for their return to their hometowns,
something that they anticipated during the first displacement.
They really thought that they would come back very soon, and it would last just for several weeks or months after the second displacement.
They don't have any dreams like that any longer. And of course,
we have to keep in mind that financial resources were already limited for people who got displaced for the first time before the 24th of February,
2022. According to the prior research, the average income of IDPs in Ukraine before 2022 was twice lower than the average income of other Ukrainians.
And that means that people who got displaced forcibly for the second time were in much more vulnerable position.
In most of my interviews, those who got displaced for the second time talked a lot about their homes and how it is to lose home for the second time.
And some stories are so moving that they would love to share with you one of them.
For instance, one of the respondents was struggling a lot to feel home in her new place when she got displaced after 2014,
she moved from the north to Mariupol and she really missed her kitchen cups,
her windows though she told me that home is not about walls, but it's about atmosphere.
It's about smell, it's about feelings. You experience it there.
So she saved a lot together with her husband, and they managed to buy a new flat in Mariupol,
and they spent all their money on decorating this flat and designing it the same way as she had her home in Venice before 2014.
Her housewarming party was on the 1st of January 2022.
Can you imagine that she could just enjoy being in her new home for less than two months?
And then on the 24th of February five, a she could hear the first explosions and she realised that she lost her home again.
So these stories actually show how moving.
I'm sorry. A lot of respondents shared with me.
There is sentiments that they don't get attached to home or as things any longer.
They're trying to reinvent home in other categories,
like the place where their children are or where their family is, but not the place which has the specific location.
Thank you so much for sharing that, Darina. It's so powerful and also shows the incredible value of the research and the
stories that you've collected in understanding the experiences of of people.
I, I want to ask as a final question to both of you.
Obviously, we know that the future is uncertain. And, um, I'm not going to ask you about what's going to happen within the conflict.
What I wanted to ask was about to renew your the point that you just made about
hopes and intentions for what comes next in the people that you've spoken to,
both those who have been internally displaced or twice displaced and and Tania yourself understanding the community,
um, of people here in the UK and, and the communities that you know,
what do you think are the kind of hopes and intentions and things that people would like?
Not not in relation to the conflict, but in relation to their sense of home and, and and what comes next.
We know in the UK, for example, I think some of the research shows a shift for Ukrainians in terms of their intentions that more
people are saying that they see a longer term future in the UK than they did at the start of the war,
for example. Um, and it would be it would be great to hear your thoughts on, on on the future.
Tania, we'll start with you and then Darina. Thank you.
Um, it's, uh, really very difficult issue, uh, to discuss because, uh, what I said before, uh,
especially about, uh, moms with children, we always trying to to do the best for them, right.
To, uh, to organise everything.
Uh, they need time to accommodate a new situation, to, uh, adopt to new schools, friends, uh, make friends.
And, uh, I know, uh, at the beginning of the war, when I moved here and I'm here already almost two and a half years, which is a lot.
And this is a case for many people. So I remember at the beginning of the war, there were children, especially teenagers, that were very depressed.
And they wanted to come back a badly. So much to Ukraine.
And they were, uh, staying at their rooms.
They didn't want to go out, even though it's, uh, nice and lovely here.
And it was spring and summer time.
Uh, they were devastated to lose their friends, to lose, uh, uh, the environment they been growing.
Um, and, uh, now those children who are staying here for, uh, two plus years and more years, yet they, uh, getting their new friends.
So I see and I can hear that, uh, you're right that, uh, more and more Ukrainians, uh, started to put down their roots here.
They, uh, starting having better jobs, uh, learning English, uh,
understanding how everything works, their children having friends there, uh, studying at schools.
My son, my son, for example.
He loves schools here. And, uh, now I'm having this choice whether to come back and get through again, a new adaptation for him or stay here.
I don't know, I don't have the answer myself.
What would I do? But, uh, at the same time, I want to tell you, uh, one more short story.
Uh, at the beginning of the war, I was, uh, hoping that the war will finish, uh, in a few weeks, maybe few months.
Okay. Not longer than half a year, you know? And we all had this thought process.
And I remember having this discussions with my friends, we were guessing, uh, when the war will end.
And I was putting, uh, reminders, uh, to my phone, uh, about this end of the war and all of the reminders, uh, already gone.
You know, I don't have any more reminders.
So it's so difficult to to even think about it because you are hoping for the best.
You are hoping it will be over, but it's still there.
We are all in limbo.
And this is also, of course, affecting us, but I hope that when they will have choice, then they can do this choice without, uh, a huge pressure.
Thank you. Tanya.
Uh, the well, the decision to return home or stay in host communities depend on lots of various factors and also individual circumstances.
According to the quantitative survey, among 1000 internally displaced women we conducted,
over 50% of servant would like to come home to return home as soon as the war is over.
However, when I conducted the in-depth interviews, a lot of respondents admitted that though they would like to return home,
they already accepted the idea and the fact that it might never happen in their life.
There is a special group of people who never hope to return home.
These are those, for instance, who witnessed horrific events in the cities where they lived before,
or who underwent harrowing, um, experiences like tortures or extreme forms of violence.
For instance, one of my respondents talked about how she was burying her neighbours under the trees in her yard and for her.
And now Mariupol is bombed out houses.
Is just graves. It's impossible to stay there, and it's impossible to consider it home, because home is always associated with a safe refuge.
So these people. Definitely. Don't have these hopes of returning home.
Other considerations behind the decision not to return home are related to possible ecological destructions and catastrophes,
which might happen in Ukraine. For instance.
Another respondent who I talked to, she's from.
She was from Nova Cahokia, a small city in here, some of which was occupied in 2022.
And she shared with me her hopes that actually she really wanted to return home before 2023, before June, when Russia destroyed the Cahokia Dam.
And the fact the very fact of destruction of Cahokia Dam in the hershon Oberst made her reconsider her decision.
For instance, she shared that similar or even worse catastrophes may happen in the future,
so you'll never know what to get prepared for when Russia is your neighbour.
Others, for example, talked a lot about people who remained in their hometowns, their neighbours, who, for instance,
started collaborating with the Russian authorities after occupation of the cities, or whose children went to Russian schools.
So for people who got displaced from these cities, it's hard to imagine that after their occupation,
they will come back and they will have to make friends with their neighbours,
or their children will have to go to the same schools with those who were brainwashed.
So with all of these factors should be taken into account.
When international partners and Ukrainian government are designing the plans of recovery,
the recovery plans shouldn't be just to fight with the idea that people want to return home.
Those who are displaced should be given the choice and should be given the options to get integrated into their host communities,
and they will welcome these choices as well.
Thank you so much to both of you both for discussing what I know is such a difficult topic,
and also for sharing such incredibly important and vital research findings.
Thank you. You've been listening to the Migration Oxford podcast.
I'm Jacki Brodhead, and I'm Robert McNeil.