Refugees, gender-based violence and resistance: A case study of somali refugee women in Kenya

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, the world had witnessed natural and human-made disasters, such as the 1984 Ethiopian famine, the 1991 collapse of the Somali state, the 1991 American attacks on Iraq, the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the 1995 Balkan wars. Similarly, the present century began with the 11 September 2001 attacks against the United States, the invasion of Afghanistan and the continuing Iraqi occupation. Other less publicized crises also transpired during these periods, namely those in Sudan, Sierra Leone and Liberia. All these ‘disasters’ caused humanitariancatastrophes resulting in the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. Confl icts such as the American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq drew much international media attention, whereas others, such as those in Somalia and Sudan, disappeared into oblivion after fi ve minutes in the limelight. Amid competing catastrophic discourses in this ‘age of terrorism,’ silence surrounds the condition of millions of refugees around the world.