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The impact of policy on Somali refugee women in Canada.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which government policy and public discourse have operated to enhance and maintain the liminal status of Somali women refugees in Canada, and the ways in which Somali Canadian women have resisted these efforts in order to create meaning and a place for themselves and their families in North America. The policies and practices that obliged many Somali women to wait three to five years to apply for permanent residency status, Eurocentric definitions of the family that constrain family unification strategies, and economic marginalization due to lack of recognition of foreign credentials have had cumulative adverse effects on the health and well-being of Somali women in Canada.

Resume

L'article se penche, d'une part, sur la maniere dont les politiques gouvernementales et le discours public ont contribue a rehausser et a maintenir le statut liminaire des refugiees somaliennes au Canada et, d'autre part, sur la facon dont les Canadiennes d'origine somalienne s'y sont opposees afin de creer un sens et une place pour elles et leur famille en Amerique du Nord. Plusieurs facteurs ont eu des effets nefastes sur la sante et le bien-etre des Somaliennes au Canada : les politiques et les pratiques qui les obligent a attendre de trois a cinq ans pour demander un statut de residence permanente, les definitions eurocentriques de la famille qui restreignent les strategies d'unification familiale de meme que la marginalisation economique decoulant du peu de reconnaissance de la certification etrangere.

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Long ago in Somalia, we had no problems. Our problems began with the war. They killed my husband in front of me, but we go ahead with life. They're having all those problems, but still some people here think that there we didn't have electricity, water, houses, cars ... The Canadian people think we have nothing, but we are Somalians and we are rich ...--Aman, age 70, widowed, mother of nine children

A man (1) is one of more than seventy thousand Somali refugees who found asylum in Canada in the 1990s. (2) While the numbers of Somalis admitted into Canada as Convention refugees has declined from over twelve hundred in 2000 to just over five hundred in 2002, (3) only an estimated I per cent of all Somali refugees have been resettled in a safe country. (4) This paper explores the ways in which government policy and public discourse have operated to enhance and maintain the liminal status of Somali women refugees in Canada, and the ways in which Somali Canadian women have resisted these efforts in order to create meaning and a place for themselves and their families in North America. Specifically, I argue that the policies and practices that obliged many Somali women to wait three to five years to apply for permanent residency status, Eurocentric definitions of the family that constrain family unification strategies, and economic marginalization due to lack of recognition of foreign credentials have had cumulative adverse effects on the health and well-being of Somali women in Canada. Values of perseverance, mutual aid, and kinship, however, facilitate Somali women's ability to create refuge in Canada as individuals and as a community.

Background

Somalis comprise one of the largest single ethnic groups in Africa and occupy the region represented by the nation-states of Somalia and Djibouti and parts of Ethiopia and Kenya. Kinship forms the core of Somali social organization and segmentary lineages serve as the basis for political alliances and loyalties. Women maintain natal clan affiliation and can draw on affinal kinship networks throughout their lives. (5) Islam is one of the major identifiers of Somali culture and society and has acted to unify Somalis against the potential entropy of clan divisions. Introduced to the region in the fifteenth century, Islam drew upon indigenous traditions, resulting in a syncretic form of practice and beliefs. (6)

Until the imposition of borders by British, Italian, and French colonial regimes, Somalis migrated throughout the Horn of Africa region. After World War II, Britain retained control over British and Italian Somaliland and parts of Ethiopia, uniting ethnic Somalis under one administration. In 1969, a military coup led by Muhammed Siyad Barre led to the establishment of the Somali Democratic Republic. Barre established himself by appealing to indigenous egalitarian ideas and Soviet aid. To develop pan-Somali identity, Barre invested in education and infrastructure, discouraged public identification of clan identity, and funded the development of the Somali orthography. His efforts to reclaim territory occupied by Somalis in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia was met with failure. The loss of the war and the effects of a subsequent drought led to unrest. (7) Barre responded by consolidating power in the hands of his allies and Darood (Marehan) clan members. Opposition to the regime was solidified when the Somali Nationalist Movement was formed by members of the northern Isaaq clan. The struggles for power occurred both within and without the government and clan divisions. An estimated 350,000 people died in the civil war between 1988 and 1995. (8)

Somali Women

Who can stop a Somali woman? Drown her, murder her--yes, but as long as she has breath in her body, she'll talk. (9)

In general, Somali gender relations and roles are inscribed by Islamic thought and practice and despite Orientalist assumptions--and fundamentalist claims--gender remains a contested rather than static issue in the history of Islam and in contemporary Somali society. Ahmed (10) maintains that claims to both an egalitarian tradition in Islam and one which strictly proscribes women's behaviour originate in ethical and spiritual assertions in the Qu'ran that support the former while judicial interpretations that have in practice varied over the years have been employed to reinforce the latter. Notably, Sufism, the form of Islam most prevalent in Somalia, allowed women greater opportunity for spiritual exploration. Although Islamic ideals of virtue and...

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