Shaping Narratives: Media, Empathy and Women Refugees in Europe

13.12.2023

Rosário Frada

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are 35.3 million refugees across the globe as a result of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations^[1]Refugee Statistics. (n.d.). United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. https://www.unrefugees.org/refugee-facts/statistics/. Of these, 50 per cent are women and girls^[2]Women. (n.d.). United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. https://www.unhcr.org/what-we-do/how-we-work/safeguarding-individuals/women. Yet, media discourse on refugees is extremely male-dominated, condemning women refugees to invisibility^[3]Amores, J., Arcila-Calderón, C., & González-de-Garay. (2020). The Gendered Representation of Refugees Using Visual Frames in the Main Western European Media. Gender Issues, 37(1), 291-314. … Continue reading. This becomes significant when one learns that media coverage uses analytical frames that dictate the public’s moral and affective relationship with refugees, holding the potential to drive social support and inclusion^[4]Butler, J. (2000). Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. London: Routledge. As the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon officially claimed in 2016, the refugee crisis is “a crisis of solidarity^[5]Refugee Crisis about Solidarity, Not Just Numbers, Secretary-General Says at Event on Global Displacement. (2016). United Nations. https://press.un.org/en/2016/sgsm17670.doc.htm” and requires the mobilisation of humanity.

The experiences of women and men refugees differ; nevertheless, research on the media representation of refugees by gender is limited^[6]Forbes Martin, S. (2004). Refugee Women. Lanham: Lexington Books. Several studies on refugee representation and media practices focus on the ways in which the refugee emergency is framed^[7]Efe. I. (2019). A corpus-driven analysis of representations of syrian asylum seekers in the Turkish press 2011-2016. Sage Journals, 48-67 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/175048131880. Less focus on how vulnerable groups within the refugee community are pushed towards victimisation through media representation^[8]Narlı, N., Özaşçılar, M., & Turkan Ipek, I. (2019).Turkish Daily Press Framing and Representation of Syrian Women Refugees and Gender-Based Problems: Implications for Social Integration. … Continue reading, and fewer consider the specific representational practices employed in portraying women refugees^[9]Malkki, L. Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism and Dehistoricization. Cultural Anthropology, 11(3), 377-404. https://www.jstor.org/stable/656300. Nonetheless, understanding the misrecognition of women refugees is of fundamental significance as research demonstrates that it not only shapes public perception, but state obligations towards them, affecting the likelihood of their asylum claim being successful^[10]McKinnon, SL. (2009). Citizenship and the performance of credibility: Audiencing gender-based asylum seekers in the US immigration courts. Text and Performance Quarterly, 29(3), 205-221. … Continue reading. For example, the categorisation of those crossing the Mediterranean Sea on boats in search of asylum in Europe as “disguised economic migrants^[11]Sigona, N .(2017). The Contested Politics of Naming in Europe’s “Refugee Crisis”. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(3), 456-460. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1388423” has played a central role in legitimising increasingly restrictive asylum policies within the region. 

This prompts a central question: How is the intersection of gender and migration depicted and examined in western media discussions within the framework of the “refugee crisis”, and to what extent does this portrayal combat or reinforce stereotypes? 

By exploring the ways in which women refugees’ identities are constructed through media representations, this article sheds light on the ways in which power and discursive struggles permeate journalistic practices, simultaneously promoting care for refugee women while defining them as Others. Ultimately, it proposes ways in which the role of journalism may be reimagined to combat monolithic representations, reveal the complexity behind displacement,  and contribute to the humanisation of refugee women. 

Western Media: A Paradigm of Male Domination

Media narratives surrounding forcible displacement play a key role in shaping political will and policy regarding asylum as well as public attitudes in Western societies^[12]McCann, K., Sienkiewicz, M. & Zard, M. (2023). The Role of Media Narratives In Shaping Public Opinion Toward Refugees: A Comparative Analysis. International Organization for Migration (IOM), … Continue reading. In other words, language creates reality. Regarding news coverage of refugees, research suggests that tabloids frequently rely on the terminology of “migrants”, “immigrants” and the openly biassed “illegal” and “bogus refugees”, revealing discursive practices that delegitimize refugees’ dire circumstances^[13]Polonska-Kimunguyi, E. (2022). Echoes of Empire: racism and historical amnesia in the British media coverage of migration. Humanitarian Social Sciences Communications, 9(3). … Continue reading. In fact, The Times and The Sunday Times evoke metaphors including  “exodus^[14]The Times and the Sunday Times. (2023, November 07). https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1721958389016621555”, “flood^[15]Moody, O., Flanagan, J., & Dathan, M. (2022, February 26). Ukraine crisis: First wave of refugees flood across borders as 100,000 flee homes. The Times. … Continue reading” and “stampede^[16]Campbell, M., & Callaghan, L. (2016, March 20). Fear of stampede as migrants try to beat EU clampdown deadline. The Times. … Continue reading” to convey the idea of security threats, portraying refugees as people who bring violence over to their host countries as if violence did not already exist before their arrival. 

Simultaneously, the dominating portrayal of mass displacement as a “sea” or “blur of humanity”, places refugee bodies pressed together in a confusing, frantic mass and creates a spectacle of a “raw”, “bare” humanity^[17]Malkki, L. Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism and Dehistoricization. Cultural Anthropology, 11(3), 377-404. https://www.jstor.org/stable/656300. This pervasive depersonalization of the refugee, who transforms into an anonymous, helpless body helps in no way the audience to realise that each of the people fleeing persecution has a name, histories, opinion and relatives, conveying the idea that they must display helplessness if they are to be helped. Paradoxically, however, while this helplessness is what perhaps encourages political help, it also hinders the formation of a relationship between the viewer and their underlying humanity^[18]Sigona, N .(2017). The Contested Politics of Naming in Europe’s “Refugee Crisis”. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(3), 456-460. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1388423. While it is better to feel some compassion than none at all, this discursive violence appears when the refugee can only speak to the audience in a particular way: wordlessly, erasing knowledge and silencing history. 

To exacerbate the sense of moral panic, journalistic practices also focus on furious scenes between migrants, with EuroNews reporting a “shooting between migrants near the Serbia-Hungary border^[19]EuroNews. (2023, October 27). Shooting between migrants near the Serbia-Hungary border leaves 3 dead and 1 wounded. EuroNews. … Continue reading”. Moreover, capitalising on cultural and religious differences, The Times covers several criminalised border crossings, focusing, for instance, on the “suspected jihadist^[20]Sage, A. (2015, September 10). Police hunt suspected jihadist among 3,000 Calais migrants. The Times. … Continue reading” among 3,000 refugees in the Calais refugee camp. This report centres on a man who is wanted by the French Intelligence “for the safety of the State^[21]Sage, A. (2015, September 10). Police hunt suspected jihadist among 3,000 Calais migrants. The Times. … Continue reading”. Despite its humanitarian stance, The Guardian also tends to focus on illegal activities, enhancing the smuggling of refugees across the English Channel and thus, despite describing it as a crime of compassion, still places refugees within the realm of wrongdoing and law-breaking^[22]Beesley, Pat. (2021, July 08). A civilised country is one that treats refugees with compassion. The Guardian. … Continue reading. Taken together, these stories narrate a dangerous security threat encroaching from all sides of the supposed “refugee crisis”. 

Women Refugees and the Media’s Need for the “Spectacular”

European media further marginalises refugee women by casting them as vulnerable and in need of saving, reinforcing patriarchal values. Headlines often condescendingly portray women as submissive victims, emphasising vulnerability and helplessness, ultimately contributing to the annihilation of refugee women. Take a look at the following examples of media headlines: in 2023, the Middle East Eye released a piece titled “Queer Omani woman takes her own life while waiting for asylum^[23]Hearts, K. (2023, September 20). UK: Queer Omani woman takes her own life while waiting for asylum. Middle East Eye. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-oman-queer-woman-asylum-seeker-takes-own-life”, while in 2019, Cite News highlighted a story about a “Nine-year-old refugee girl die[d] by suicide^[24]Nine-year-old refugee girl dies by suicide. (2019). City News. https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2019/04/14/nine-year-old-refugee-girl-dies-by-suicide/”.

This one-dimensional portrayal not only oversimplifies the complex experiences of refugee women but creates the monolithic idea that women are in need of saving; they become victims to passivation, portrayed as isolated bodies in pain that lack survival resources^[25]Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press.. The media’s focus on women’s corporeal vulnerability as a property that defines refugee women eclipses their ability to rationalise as well as the structural causes of their displacement, normalising their condemnation to sub-citizenship^[26]Hyndman, J. (2000). Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.. Furthermore, reporting on their behalf reinforces their subjection to political voicelessness; for their rights to be upheld, their voices must be marginalised. This reduces women to an essentialised and simplistic categorisation that is both gendered and racialised; they are categorised as vulnerable a priori, with disregard for the contextual and structural causes of this vulnerability. 

Frequently, refugee women are blended with children, especially in media representations that “rely heavily on feminised and infantilized images of “pure” victimhood and vulnerability^[27]Sigona, N. (2014). The Politics of Refugee Voices: Representations, Narratives, and Memories. In Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Loescher, G., Long, K., & and Sigona, N. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of … Continue reading”. Take a look at the following headlines: in 2013, The Guardian featured a story named “Lampedusa victims include mother and baby attached by umbilical cord^[28]Davies, L. (2013, October 10). Lampedusa victims include mother and baby attached by umbilical cord. The Guardian. … Continue reading” and in 2023, Al Jazeera reported on a tragic incident in the Mediterranean with the headline “Pregnant woman, four-month-old die in Mediterranean boat tragedy^[29]Pregnant woman, four-month-old die in Mediterranean boat tragedy. (2023, February 03). Aljazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/3/italy-recovers-eight-bodies-from-migrant-boat-in-distress”. 

Women are not only perceived as vulnerable victims but as occupying a victimised position within different systems of power relations and placed in an essential role within displaced families, being merely covered “as part of a family unit, as mothers and wives and sisters in need of male protection^[30]Kneebone, S. (2005). Women Within the Refugee Construct: “Exclusionary Inclusion” in Policy and Practice – the Australian Experience. International Journal of Refugee Law, 17(1), 7-42. … Continue reading”. This points to the issue of the depoliticisation of females’ flight motives, wherein the “exclusion of women from the debate on refugee movements at once acknowledges and reinforces their subordinate role and status in society and their association with the domestic sphere^[31]Bloch, A., Galvin, T., & Harrell-Bond, B. (2000) Refugee Women in Europe: Some Aspects of the Legal and Policy Dimensions. International Migration, 38(2), 169-190. … Continue reading”.

Scholar Kimberle Crenshaw contends that diverse vectors of identity including gender, race, social class and ethnicity interact in a manner that ends up subordinating displaced women in an overlapping structural system^[32]Crenshaw, K. (1990). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039. This way, women refugees not only suffer persecution in their countries of origin, but are subjugated into the structural and political violence characterising the countries in which they seek protection. Seeking to escape violence, they become recipients of new types of violence in new societies, perpetrated through the media’s biassed and gendered coverage^[33]Amores, J., Arcila-Calderón, C., & González-de-Garay. (2020). The Gendered Representation of Refugees Using Visual Frames in the Main Western European Media. Gender Issues, 37(1), 291-314. … Continue reading. It thus seems important that the media be capable of combatting or at least escaping this structural situation that perpetuates harm against refugees. 

Intersectional Exclusions: Gender, Race and Religion in Media Portrayals of Refugees 

Traditionally, Western media discourse on refugees has perpetuated a male-centric perspective, emphasising men’s flight motives while sidelining diverse narratives outside the heteronormative male category^[34]Bamberg, K. (2016). Narrating agency: The Refugee Experience of Women Fleeing to Germany. Migration Out of Poverty. … Continue reading. Professor Javier Amore, Carlos Arcila-Calderón and Béatriz Gonzalez-de-Garay reveal a mere 10% depiction of women without men in refugee photographs between 2013 and 2017 across Western European media, implying that in a media-dominated society, women refugees are relegated to a secondary role despite constituting approximately half of all forcibly displaced individuals arriving at European borders^[35]Amores, J., Arcila-Calderón, C., & González-de-Garay. (2020). The Gendered Representation of Refugees Using Visual Frames in the Main Western European Media. Gender Issues, 37(1), 291-314. … Continue reading. This aligns with Professor Lynn Zoch and Judy VanSlyke Turk’s argument, which establishes that news coverage historically neglects women as news sources and story topics^[36]Zoch, L., & VanSluke Turk, J. (1998). Women Making News: Gender as a variable in source selection and use. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 762-775. … Continue reading. 

The underrepresentation of displaced women in Western media can be viewed as the origin or consequence of the political and structural intersectionality that favours the submission of such women in modern societies^[37]Amores, J., Arcila-Calderón, C., & González-de-Garay. (2020). The Gendered Representation of Refugees Using Visual Frames in the Main Western European Media. Gender Issues, 37(1), 291-314. … Continue reading. Media narratives embed gender norms within journalistic power relations, portraying women as vulnerable caregivers defined by their femininity and maternal roles. This vulnerability is fundamentally gendered^[38]Ticktin, M. (2017). A world without innocence. American Ethnologist, 44(4), 577-590. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12558 and drives the misrecognition of women, who are transformed into “ideal victims^[39]Abbas, MS. (2019). Conflating the Muslim refugee and the terror suspect: Responses to the Syrian refugee “crisis” in Brexit Britain. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(14), 2450-2469. … Continue reading” capable of mobilising support. In contrast, men are often depicted as threatening criminals, devoid vulnerability or family responsibility^[40]Ryan, H., & Tonkiss, K. (2022). Loners, Criminals, Mothers: The Gendered Misrecognition of Refugees in the British Tabloid News Media. Sociological Research Online, 0(0). … Continue reading. These gendered misrecognitions and gendered conceptualisation of vulnerability contribute to the vilification of refugee men and the exclusion of their protection needs, serving Europe’s agenda on migration control^[41]Messina, A. (2014). Securitization Immigration in the Age of Terror. World POlitics, 66(3), 530-559. https://doi.org/10-1017/S0043887114000148.

Post-9/11 and in efforts to legitimise tighter border control practices, the portrayal of refugee men became increasingly associated with crime, threat and terrorism, particularly for young men with dark skin who appear to infringe upon perceived societal boundaries^[42]Chouliaraki, L., & Stolic, T. (2017) Rethinking media responsibility in the refugee ‘crisis’: A visual typology of European news. Media, Culture and Society, 39(8), 1162–1177. … Continue reading. Through the language of criminality and illegality, and the instrumentalisation of the opposition between cultures and religions, refugee men become defined as active agents of violence, justifying their exclusion from access to resources and opportunities available to ordinary citizens^[43]Haynes, A., Breen, M., & Devereux, E. “Smuggling Zebras for Lunch”: Media Framing of Asylum Seekers in the Irish Print Media. Études Irlandaises, 30(1), 109-130. … Continue reading. Approaching displacement through criminality generates an Othering process that dehumanises and silences refugee voices while advancing the social distance between “us” and “them^[44]Sigona, N .(2017). The Contested Politics of Naming in Europe’s “Refugee Crisis”. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(3), 456-460. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2018.1388423”. This division redefines social problems in terms of race and categorises migrants as outsiders who must be kept out, as Professor Teun Van Dijk argues^[45]Van Dijk, T. (1987). Communicating racism: Ethnic prejudice in thought and talk. Sage Publications, Inc.. In turn, a sense of common threat is produced which scapegoats male refugees and justifies actions that attempt to control them. Not only is this process gendered, but racialised, with non-white male refugees more likely to be portrayed negatively by the media than white refugee men^[46]Park, Y. (2008). Making refugees: A historical discourse analysis of the construction of the “refugee” in US social work, 1900-1957. British Journal of Social Work, 38(4), 771-787. … Continue reading.

Evidently, stereotypes deeply permeate media narratives, portraying men as sources of insecurity who require larger scrutiny to meet the requirements of asylum^[47]McCann, K., Sienkiewicz, M. & Zard, M. (2023). The Role of Media Narratives In Shaping Public Opinion Toward Refugees: A Comparative Analysis. International Organization for Migration (IOM), … Continue reading. Namely, Muslim men are not only positioned as a threat to Muslim women, but to western societies with which their values are assumed to be in opposition. As Professor Karla McKanders concludes, the ways in which gender interfaces with Islamophobic and xenophobic bias excludes men from Muslim-majority countries from international protection, enabling their rights and protection needs to be marginalised^[48]McKanders, K. (2019). Gender, Islamophobia and refugee exceptionalism. In McKanders, K (Eds). Arabs at Home and in the World. Routledge.. However, by characterising refugee men as dominant and powerful, little room is left for alternative approaches to masculinity, disregarding their domestic and caring roles, promoting an unbalanced vision of the roles of women and men in society ^[49]Kangas, A., Haider, H., & Fraser, E. (2014). Gender: Topic Guide. Revised edition with E. Browne. Birmingham: GSDRC, University of Birmingham, UK. … Continue reading. These stereotypes also intersect with the experiences of LGBTQ+ refugee men: the oversimplified portrayal of masculinity can contribute to the erasure of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities within refugee communities.

Ultimately, the framing of refugee women in media narratives must be understood in the context of gendered discrimination that excludes refugee men. Just like border policies fail to be linear, instead hierarchizing people’s movement according to gender-constructed roles, media discourse produces and reiterates specific configurations of gender for people on the move ^[50]Rigo, E. (2017). Re-gendering the Border: Chronicles of Women’ Resistance and Unexpected Alliances from the Mediterranean Border. An International Journal for Critical Geographies. … Continue reading. These foster hyper visibilities, erauses and (mis)alignments in accordance with national governments’ interests and international political discourses. This symbolic instability re-establishes the victim/villain dichotomy that governs migration politics, becoming a political technology that consolidates anti-migrant violence while simultaneously solidifying the illusion of a tolerant, liberal white civilisation.

Leveraging Gender Violence for European Border Fortification

Defined as a practice of power through which a political community is invited to treat something as an existential threat, securitisation may be perceived as humanitarian when, as in the case of the refugee emergency, this threat is simultaneously constructed as a referent of vulnerable humanity^[51]Wæver, O. (1995). Securitization and Desecuritization. In Lipschutz, R (Eds). On Security. New York: Columbia University Press. Subsequently, as a practice of power, humanitarian securitisation operates through a contradictory discourse that is supposed to humanise and care for those it also regards as its “Others^[52]Chouliaraki, L. & Zaborowski, R. (2017). Voice and community in the refugee crisis: A Content Analysis of news coverage in Eight European Countries. International Communication Gazette, 0(0), … Continue reading”. This contradiction is resolved in practice when states close their borders. 

Given the relentless rate of tragic circumstances defining the arrival of refugees in Europe, news coverage across Europe produces stories that negotiate narratives of security with narratives of care for refugee women who are at particular risk of sexual and gender-based violence. Through these narratives, the European Commission claims a key source of knowledge emerges through which the continent’s collective perception of refugees is shaped^[53]European Commission. (2011). Eurobarometer on Migrant Integration. European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/MEMO_11_529. This has become evident through the sensationalist portrayal of gender-based violence in Europe’s “fight against irregular migration”, which has evolved into a narrative framed as the “fight against human trafficking^[54]Plambech, S. Henriksen, S., Chemlali, A. (2021, May 20). Victims or Heroines? Images of women migrants in global migration. Danish Institute for International Studies. … Continue reading”. This shift has elevated women as a specific vulnerable group, and justified tighter European border politics. Take a look, for instance, at the case of Salermo. In 2017, a funeral was held in the Italian city of Salerno for twenty six Nigerian women who drowned in the Mediterranean^[55]Italy Holds Funeral For 26 Nigerian Women That Drowned At Sea. (2017, November 17). Sahara Reportsi https://saharareporters.com/2017/11/17/italy-holds-funeral-26-nigerian-women-drowned-sea. The funeral mobilised mass attention and, although only two of the Nigerian women were identified, the New York Times forced them into further vulnerability, quickly concluding “it is very likely that the twenty six girls were, in fact, victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation^[56]26 Young Women From Nigeria Found Dead in Mediterranean Sea. (2017, November, 07). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/europe/italy-migrants-teenagers-dead.html”. 

Standing in stark contrast with the restricted legal mobility actually afforded to refugees, the figure of the refugee woman swiftly travels across borders and mobilises political and humanitarian support worldwide. The ease with which their complex stories were reduced to the well-known narrative of women refugees as victims of human trafficking underlines just how persistent and robust this discourse is. Simultaneously, it also shows how the public figure of the refugee woman is essential in mobilising public and political attention. 

These narratives fit into the broader pattern of gendered constructions of victimhood, where gender-based violence is often sensationalised and framed as spectacular with references to mass rape, sex slavery, and sexual violence^[57]Plambech, S. Henriksen, S., Chemlali, A. (2021, May 20). Victims or Heroines? Images of women migrants in global migration. Danish Institute for International Studies. … Continue reading. Similar to the Salerno funeral, the broadcasting of a slave market in Libya in 2017 triggered a global outcry and justified tighter border control mechanisms through gendered notions of sexual exploitation^[58]Libya Migrant “Slave Market” Footage Sparks Outrage. (2017, November 18). BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42038451. Images reinforced gendered notions of victimhood, with women migrants being described as sex slaves whereas men were solely depicted as slaves^[59]Libya Migrant “Slave Market” Footage Sparks Outrage. (2017, November 18). BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42038451 . This quickly mobilised political attention, with Presidents such as Emmanuel Macron calling for an emergency security council meeting after stating that the slave trade in Libya is a “crime against humanity” and that the West must go “further in the fight against traffickers who commit such crimes^[60]France Calls UN Security Council Meeting Over Libya Slave Auctions (2017, November 22). France24. … Continue reading”. While preventing human trafficking is crucial, are genuine efforts being made when the EU collaborates with the same authorities accused of enslaving migrants to deter them from reaching Europe through training and funding^[61]United Nations Security Council. (2017, June 01). Letter dated 1 June 2017 from the Panel of Experts on Libya established pursuant to resolution 1973 (2011) addressed to the PResident of the Security … Continue reading? Rather than preventing the condemnation of migrant women to sex slavery in Libya, Europe should focus on guaranteeing the enjoyment of their human right to seek international protection. The images of women migrants as sex slaves mobilises support for European migration control initiatives that lacked rhetorical strength, incorporating gender into the broader sociopolitical agenda of European borders and safeguarding the West’s self-image of humanitarian^[62]Ayoub, J. (2017, November 29). How the EU is responsible for Slavery in Libya. Aljazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2017/11/29/how-the-eu-is-responsible-for-slavery-in-libya.

This framing exemplifies “sexual humanitarianism^[63]Mai, N., Macioti, P.G., Bennachie, C., Fehrenbacher, A., & Giametta, C. (2021). Migration, sex work and trafficking: the racialized border politics of sexual humanitarianism. Ethnic and Racial … Continue reading”, a term coined by the Researcher Nicola Mai which refers to how neoliberal constructions of vulnerability associated with sexual behaviour are implicated in humanitarian forms of support and control of migrant populations. In her comparative study, she demonstrates that the sexual humanitarian rhetoric is increasingly used to justify extreme bordering policies and interventions, playing a significant role in restricting the freedom of movement of refugee women who have been strategically reduced to “pure^[64]Sigona, N. (2014). The Politics of Refugee Voices: Representations, Narratives, and Memories. In Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Loescher, G., Long, K., & and Sigona, N. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of … Continue reading” victims of oppression. This presents a significant dilemma: while it is crucial to emphasise that refugee women are disproportionately targeted by human traffickers, exposing them to higher risks during the migration journey compared to men, there is also a failure to address sexual violence against refugees in Europen policy^[65]IOM UN Migration (n.d.). What Makes Migrants Vulnerable to Gender–Based Violence? IOM UN Migration.. The inability to prevent sexual violence and other abuses against refugees is sustained by the framing of the crises in terms of “human trafficking”, where actions including pullback and containment are perceived not as worsening vulnerability but as disrupting criminality and thereby benefiting the refugee population. 

Fetishization of Difference: Racialised Narratives and the Media’s Role

Researcher Alicia Perekrest reveals that the Swedish media’s portrayal of Ukrainian refugee women is highly discriminatory, conveying that they are beautiful women in need of being taken care of^[66]Perekerest, A. (2023). Ukrainian Refugee Women as The Subject of Images and Discourses in Swedish and Ukrainian Media. Lund University. … Continue reading. The recent speech of a Brazilian politician regarding Ukrainian refugee women also exemplifies the misogynistic remarks that fetishise their bodies, with him saying “I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of beautiful girls. The refugee queue… it’s like 200 metres long or more just of total goddesses^[67]‘They’re easy as they’re poor’: Brazil politician’s remarks on Ukrainian women go viral. (2002, March 08). … Continue reading”. This gender-specific notion of humanitarianism leads to the fetishization of the bodies of refugee women, contributing to harmful stereotypes and depicting refugee women as submissive and quiet. Describing refugee women as “total goddesses^[68]‘They’re easy as they’re poor’: Brazil politician’s remarks on Ukrainian women go viral. (2002, March 08). … Continue reading” in the context of waiting in a queue perpetuates a problematic narrative of subservience, reinforcing the idea that their value lies in their perceived beauty rather than their individuality, skills, or resilience. Such depictions contribute to a culture where refugee women are viewed through a myopic lens, limiting opportunities for the understanding of their diversity and potential.

The politician’s statement underscores a disturbing trend where the combination of beauty and vulnerability of Ukrainian refugee women translates into a commodity or service, particularly catering to the preferences or desires of powerful, Western men. This dehumanising perspective perpetuates a troubling narrative that reduces women to mere objects of desire, stripping them of agency and individuality. The consequences of such objectification are compounded by the alarming surge in online searches for sexual content related to Ukrainian refugee women immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as observed by the OSCE^[69]Leistner, A. (2023). “Ukrainian refugee porn” raises risk for women fleeing the war. EuroNews. … Continue reading. The intersection of these various forms of violence against refugee women during their displacement journey creates a harrowing landscape of vulnerability; beyond the physical and emotional challenges of fleeing conflict, the commodification of their beauty exposes them to the risk of exploitation, as their vulnerability is exploited for the gratification of others^[70]Leistner, A. (2023). “Ukrainian refugee porn” raises risk for women fleeing the war. EuroNews. … Continue reading.

Understanding the racialised logics behind the sexual objectification of refugee women is  crucial for developing a sensitive approach to gendered narratives of displacement. With lighter skin than the majority of refugee women arriving at European borders, the discourse around Ukrainian women reveals politics of preference for those who look “like us”. It even goes beyond preference to the longing for a privileged “Other”, with the desirability of the “Other” being dependent on existing power structures of the western society which afford privilege, acceptance and opportunity to white women while serving the quest to limit the number of non-white refugees in Europe^[71]Varghese, J. (n.d.). Fair & Lovely: Ideas of Beauty Amongst Young Migrant Women in Chennai, India.  https://www.wsanz.org.nz/journal/docs/WSJNZ311Varghese59-69.pdf. 

Nevertheless, the objectification of Ukrainian refugee women must also be understood within the pervasive exoticisation of women, particularly those from Oriental regions. Deeply rooted in colonial legacies, this phenomenon hyperssexualises non-Western women and distorts their identities by subjecting them to a double layer of sexualisation – both as refugees and as individuals with exotic cultural or ethnic identities. This way, the granting of protection to Oriental refugee women serves as a means to save “brown women from brown men^[72]Spivak, G. (1999). A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Harvard University Press.”, becoming a form of imperialism that perpetuates pathological colonial binaries that clearly sets apart Western women from Oriental ones, who are dehistoricized, homogenised and see their political subjectivity erased.  

Importantly, refugee bodies become processes of silencing. The fetishisation of displaced women in a palpable body reveals the preference for the physical over psycho-social factors. This reinforces traditional gender norms and raises questions about who is considered deserving of protection and care, perpetuating unequal power dynamics. Moreover, it also indicates a decreasing interest in individual stories, reconfiguring their bodies as bearers of protection^[73]Fassin, D., & d’Halluin, E. (2005). The Truth from the Body: Medical Certificates as Ultimate Evidence for Asylum Seekers. American Anthropologist. 107(4), 97-608. … Continue reading. Beauty becomes accepted as a reliable source of knowledge over the words of those people on whose bodies beauty is found, creating a patronising enterprise that infantilises refugees, making refugee women finally fit narratives of victimhood that were constructed for them throughout refugee law, as claimed by Professors Georgina Firth and Barbara Mauthe^[74]Firth, G., & Mauthe, B. (2013). Refugee Law, Gender and the Concept of Personhood. International Journal of Refugee Law, 25(3), 470-501. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eet034.

The Dilemma of Refugee Narratives: Agency vs. Victimhood

By contrast, across the West, the strategic and survival skills of refugee women are taking centre stage. In 2018, the humanitarian organisations International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps partnered with Google, Microsoft, Cisco and TripAdvisor to expand the project Signpost across Europe, Jordan and El Salvador^[75]Mercy Corps. International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Google, Microsoft, Cisco and TripAdvisor Expand One-Stop Informational Portal for Refugees Under the Newly Formed Global Platform, Signpost. … Continue reading. This initiative consists in a platform focused on providing humanitarian support and potentially lifesaving information to refugees across several regions in both the Global North and the Global South^[76]Mercy Corps. International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Google, Microsoft, Cisco and TripAdvisor Expand One-Stop Informational Portal for Refugees Under the Newly Formed Global Platform, Signpost. … Continue reading. Having supported over 600,000 people to make informed decisions already, the Signpost Project Director, Reynaldo Rodrigues claims it is “a testament to the power of partnership in helping solve society’s most pressing issues. With [these companies’] support, we are able to expand this critical information pipeline to tens of thousands of the world’s most vulnerable people^[77]Mercy Corps. International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Google, Microsoft, Cisco and TripAdvisor Expand One-Stop Informational Portal for Refugees Under the Newly Formed Global Platform, Signpost. … Continue reading”.

With the phrase “information is power^[78]Signpost. (n.d.). Signpost. https://www.signpost.ngo/” on the website’s landing page and an image of refugees teaching and learning, Signpost deliberately communicates an image of refugees that is intended to contest the usual victim narrative, placing emphasis on refugee agency and moving away from victimhood tropes. As claimed by the International Rescue Committee, “We’re shifting the power, which is normally held by service providers themselves, back to people affected by the crisis (…) It’s a whole new approach towards treating people with dignity^[79]International Rescue Committee. (2020). How the IRC is using social media to fight the coronavirus. International Rescue Committee. … Continue reading”. Implicitly, this corporate-humanitarian partnership understands that crucial to human dignity and international protection is the need for a power shift. 

However, the corporate-humanitarian partnership’s adoption of such an agency trope includes gendered references to violence and bravery. For instance, Signpost’s website features the article “A mother’s brave escape^[80]Plambech, S. Henriksen, S., Chemlali, A. (2021, May 20). Victims or Heroines? Images of women migrants in global migration. Danish Institute for International Studies. … Continue reading” which talks about a young Sudanese woman fleeing from a violent husband. Another story reveals the experiences of 27-year-old Marie from Cameron: “I was raped, and I saw many rapes. But I had a goal in mind and I wanted to reach it. So, I decided to move on and not to look back or to think about what happened^[81]Plambech, S. Henriksen, S., Chemlali, A. (2021, May 20). Victims or Heroines? Images of women migrants in global migration. Danish Institute for International Studies. … Continue reading”. In both these stories, refugee women are depicted as heroes rather than victims. Nevertheless, their agency is related exclusively to their gender, with references to violence (as rape) and bravery (as a mother protecting her child). While politicians use the victim narrative to justify stricter asylum and border policies, humanitarian and tech companies use stories that portray refugee agencies to market their services as key instruments for refugee empowerment. It thus seems that different images of refugee women enable and legitimise different stakeholder agendas, requiring careful scrutiny as novel agents mobilise around women’s forced migration. 

Opportunities for Empathy: The Ukrainian Crisis As A Potential Paradigm Shift

Among European media channels, critics denounced commentators, journalists and reporters for discriminatory language and offensive comments in the early stages of the Ukraine-Russia war, drawing comparisons between Syrian and Ukrainian refugees based on attire, religious practices, dietary habits, and language^[82]The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA) Statement in Response to Coverage of the Ukraine Crisis. (2022). The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association. … Continue reading. For example, CBS Journalist Charlie D’Agata made on-air remarks insinuating that Ukraine was more “civilised^[83]Bayoumi, M. ((2022, March 02). They are “civilised” and “look like us”: the racist coverage of Ukraine. The Guardian. … Continue reading” than conflict-ridden places like Iraq or Afghanistan” while, Al-Jazeera Commentator Peter Dobbie referred to the Ukrainians’ appearance describing them as “prosperous” refugees who are “not obviously” attempting to escape from “areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war^[84]Bayoumi, M. ((2022, March 02). They are “civilised” and “look like us”: the racist coverage of Ukraine. The Guardian. … Continue reading”.  

This dehumanising comparison gradually shaped a positive narrative around the protection of Ukrainian refugees due to their perceived similarity to Europeans in behaviour, cultural values, and democratic principles. However, the immediate outpouring of solidarity toward Ukrainian refugees provides an opportunity for a paradigm shift in media discourse and its role. This situation highlights the potential for empathy and support toward all refugees, irrespective of their origin. It demonstrates people can unite in solidarity, recognising the common humanity that transcends geopolitical boundaries. The empathetic response to Ukrainian refugees opens a new chapter, emphasising the importance of extending such compassion to refugees worldwide, fostering a more inclusive and compassionate approach to addressing the global refugee emergency.

Promoting Fair Media Practices: A Call for Ethical Reporting

Knowledge about the gendered representation of refugees can inform new initiatives and measures for human rights reporting. This may involve informing and recommending good practices to media professionals, providing training on migratory movements and the consequences of gendered and racialised coverage, and supporting collaborative projects that include the voices of refugees and migrants^[85]Amores, J., Arcila-Calderón, C., & González-de-Garay. (2020). The Gendered Representation of Refugees Using Visual Frames in the Main Western European Media. Gender Issues, 37(1), 291-314. … Continue reading.

Philosopher Diana Meyers proposes an ethical code of conduct for journalists reporting on rights violations, emphasising the centrality of narration to human agency and self-reflection^[86]Meyers, D. (2016). Victims’ Stories and the Advancement of Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.. Similar ethical considerations could guide solidaristic storytelling practices by refugee-supporting individuals and collectives. Deploying alternative media channels allowing minority groups to produce their own messages can help create a third space free from colonial dichotomies and stereotypical structures that seek to exclude. For this sphere to be human-centred, it must push away from gendered dichotomies, with racialised refugee women being (re)presented as in need of paternalistic protection and racialised refugee men as threatening and never vulnerable.

Significant questions remain in need of further exploration: Will pushing for extensive quotations from refugees and asylum-seekers improve the quality of reporting? Unfortunately, evidence suggests that even when refugees provide quotes, the framing within articles normally undermine or alter their intended meaning, obscuring insightful quotes or distorting their significance^[87]Buchanan, S., Grillo, B., Threadgold, T., & Mosdell, L. (n.d.). What’s The Story? Results from Research into Media Coverage  Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK. Article 19.. Moreover, should the reporting of human rights violations focus on refugee agency  or victimhood? On one hand, ascribing sovereignty to people who have little control over their lives conceals historical and political obstacles confronted by refugees. On the other hand, notions of victimhood and destitute bodies place refugees closer to “our” heart but outside of “our” humanity. This ambivalence moves refugees across the spectrum of (sub)humanity, reproducing unstable moral and political notions of responsibility. 

To quote this article : Rosário Frada. (2023). Shaping Narratives: Media, Empathy and Women Refugees in Europe. https://igg-geo.org/shaping-narratives-media-empathy-and-women-refugees-in-europe/

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