As someone who works primarily with unaccompanied minors let me just smash this continued women & children first myth re: refugees.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
1) women are always at risk in conflict. We tend to pay the highest price. There was an entire summit on this in 2014 by Angelina Jolie & UN— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
2) so many refugees & minors happen to be male is largely because they're fleeing conscription into fighting. This isn't rocket science.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
3) there is a long and rich history of young boys & teenagers being roped into fighting wars they neither understand nor want part of.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
Families will send their at risk children away from war to give them a chance of survival. This is the first deployment of women & children.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
So if you live in a constantly under siege town where 14yr old boys are being rounded up to go& fight, you're gonna try to get then out.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
This isn't really groundbreaking information. The use of child soldiers is as old as time. So these young boys & men become the refugees we— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
see. And they're just as vulnerable as women & young girls fleeing sexual violence in conflict. But because we have been conditioned to...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
view males from nations under conflict as collateral damage, they don't get the same sympathy. And because we propagate the idea that...
only the very youngest are deserving of aid or humanitarian support we create a situation where more and more kids are sent away alone.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
Because their families are also thinking women & children first. And the mothers are thinking "my child first". So guess the 1st question...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
most unaccompanied minors ask after their asylum screening interview (which now lasts about 6-7hours)? "When will I see my parents again?"— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
Fleeing as a family is expensive. As someone who came as a child migrant being ripped from your parents with no idea when you'll next..— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
see them changes you permanently. But the flip side to this is the pain of leaving your entire world behind, your parents, wife, children...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
to try to reach a place where you are safe and they can join you. A hierarchy of refugees destroys the very people it's supposed to help.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
But there's another issue at play here and it's being ignored. These refugees aren't white. So the normal rules of "women & children 1st"...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
don't apply. Because children of colour are denied their childhood. Denied their innocence. Denied their youth. Denied humanity.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
That's how 12yr old Tamir Rice was read as a threatening adult that needed gunning down. That's why 15yr old girls groomed by ISIS got no...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
sympathy, and that's why 16yr old boys fleeing some of the worst conflicts in the world are being demonised in the British press.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
Children of colour are denied a childhood & sympathy at every turn, even when they fit the criteria. That's racism. That's white supremacy.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
You don't need NGOs or politicians or me in a professional capacity to tell you any of this. Just ask child migrants. There's millions of us— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
2014 this country commemorated the centenary of a war that wiped out an entire generation of young boys & men so you'd think they'd get it.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
Sorry to keep going on but I've started so I'll finish - the wildest & most upsetting part in all this is that we don't even realise how...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
this hierarchy of sympathy affects our own lives. Or we get it when the rhetoric is "deserving & undeserving poor" but not refugees.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
Even the refugees we see & and are urged to care about is subjected to this. The War in Congo is the deadliest conflict since WW2. But we..— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
don't think of Congo when we think of refugees. Even those deploying the "women & children" myth ignore that until it was surpassed by...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
Afghanistan a few years ago, the DRC was the worlds most dangerous place for women, with 1,152 women raped every day. That's 4 every 5mins.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
But it's not en vogue to care about DRC. And the Colombian ceasefire was only fleetingly acknowledged despite Colombia being the 6th...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
most dangerous place to be a woman, not as bad as Somalia in 5th but worse than Egypt in 7th. So you see how perceptions of nations...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
most dangerous place to be a woman, not as bad as Somalia in 5th but worse than Egypt in 7th. So you see how perceptions of nations...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
and conflict distort our ability to accurately tackle any issues arising from conflict. This is white supremacy. When these perceptions...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
are weaponised it creates the false notion that some wars are worse than others. Actually, all worse are awful for the people who live them.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
A Syrian woman is not comforted by the fact she lives in a safer country for women any more than a Congolese man is comforted by the fact...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
there have been fewer battle deaths in Congo than in the Iraq war, especially given that men in DRC have the 3rd lowest life expectancy...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
in the world. Everything we know, everything we care about is pushed through a specific lens built not to help the most vulnerable in this..— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
world but to entrench & protect the materials, wealth and privilege of the most powerful. It applies as much to the plight of refugees as...— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
it does to the NHS, social housing and the welfare state. We cannot pick & choose who most deserves help. All our lives are interlinked.— Congolesa Rice (@judeinlondon) 23 October 2016
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