Refugee women target of new church project

Press, 30 July 1986, Page 14

Refugee women target of new church project

Refugee and migrant women living in New Zealand are being encouraged to share their problems and define their needs with other women through a special project organised by the National Council of Churches women’s committee. A national two-pronged project to mark the end of the United Nations decade of women to help refugee and migrant women has been launched by the women’s committee. The second prong of the fund-raising project is to give financial support for the "Empower” project, which aims to release exploited women and children from prostitution exploitation in Bangkok. The refugee project has been given a $3OO grant from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, and is also being assisted by Christian World Service, the Inter-Church Commission on Immigration and the United Nation’s High Commission for refugees. The project would focus on health and education and translation work, but the emphasis would be on letting the refugee women identify and talk about their needs, and ask for help where they felt it was appropriate, said the committee’s secretary, Mrs Margaret Hamilton. While researching possible areas in New Zealand for which funds might be used, Mrs

Hamilton said, it had become increasingly obvious to members of the women’s committee that it was no longer appropriate for donors of such aid to lay the groundrules for the recipients, by saying how and where to spend the aid money. Any money raised in the project would allow the women to be empowered within their own communities in the area of greatest concern. Once they had decided what they needed then they could ask for help if they wanted to, said Mrs Hamilton.

Learning about some of the social, medical and cultural problems encountered by refugee women in their new environment was a slow, but educational experience for the New Zealand church women involved in researching the project, said Mrs Hamilton.

Talking about health subjects was often a sensitive matter for many of the women.

Many refugee women arriving with their families in New Zealand from Vietnam were embarrassed about health matters, especially when confronted with a medical examination by a male doctor, said Mrs Hamilton.

In their cultural background, gynaecology was often a taboo subject for the women.

“Sometimes it might not be appropriate for doc-

tors, especially those in the field of gynaecology, to treat these women the same say as they may treat us (pakeha women),” said Mrs Hamilton. “Even we find ourselves objecting to some of the treatment we get.”

Migrant women, who have been defined by the committee as often being Polynesian women, are those who have chosen to come to New Zealand to earn more money. In reality, however, they often found jobs hard to find because of “our own unemployment problems” as well as the differences in language and culture.

Translation work played a large part in enabling refugee and migrant women to express their problems and needs. As a result, the committee had sought out bi-lingual women who can gain the confidence and trust of refugee and migrant women groups, and who could, by listening to problems and experiences, enable the women identify their own needs, said Mrs Hamilton.

The project would work mainly through women’s groups and organisations rather than seeking out individual families, as the groups were the ones that could build up confidence with the women, said Mrs Hamilton.

Helping the refugee women also played an important part in helping their families, she said.

In most families it was the men who had control, and the women and children often came off “second or third best." “I think because of the nature of women, they would use any aid for their own education and betterment as well as that of their children.”

By gaining trust and confidence in the women’s groups, either from within their cultural background, or outside that background, the refugee women might be able to overcome the natural barrier of pride in asking for help, said Mrs Hamilton.

It might be that women might not choose to function like the pakeha women, and that was also important to find out, she said.

The “Empower” project in Bangkok was being supported by the N.C.C.’s women’s committee, bcause it was the former prostitutes — and the women working with them to stop the exploitation — who had identified their needs and, in learning to cope, had asked for help.

Refugee women’s groups as well as other women’s organisations seeking to get in touch with refugee women in their areas, should write to Rona Thorpe at the E.S.L. (English as a Second Language) Unit, P.O. Box 2612, Christchurch.