This blog post is part of Migrant Women Press’s 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.
By Dr. Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi (Center for Migration, Gender, and Justice / University of Portland)
Photo by Caniceus at @Pixabay
Feminist economic perspectives place gender as a fundamental category in inquiries of economic-political power relations in global governance regimes such as the Refugee Coordination Model (RCM) (Agenjo-Calderón and Gálvez-Muñoz (2019); Benería, Berik, and Floro (2016); Power (2004).
The RCM was established in 2013 to consolidate coordination practices across displacement situations through multi-stakeholder engagement (UNHCR). Within the RCM, Regional Response Plans (RRPs), including the Refugee and Migrant Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (RMRP-Venezuela), operate as multi-partner and multi-sector frameworks (R4V). In RRPs, violence against women (VAW) presents a priority area as part of operational and funding structures on gender-based violence (GBV).
In the RMRP-Venezuela, for example, which reaches its five-year mark this year, GBV-related programming is prioritized given the high risks of VAW along migratory routes and in destination countries (Ibid.).
Yet, despite this prioritization, funding to prevent, mitigate, and respond to GBV has been scarce. In 2021, only 2% of the financial requirement to address GBV was met and in 2022, despite an increase in funding, more than 75% of the financial requirement still remained unmet (FTS 2021, 2022; R4V, 2023).
This falls in line with general trends in GBV-related funding in humanitarian contexts globally where only 20% of financial requirements were reached on average last year, thus reflecting a severe underfunding of what is deemed a priority area (Humanitarian Funding Forecast, 2023).
The pervasive underfunding in displacement settings has crucial consequences for GBV operational structures. In terms of the RMRP-Venezuela, in 2022, out of the 1.82 million people identified in need of GBV-related services and resources, only around a quarter of them were targeted through the Response Plan and in actuality reaching only 4% (R4V, 2023).
These discrepancies between ‘people in need,’ people targeted, and people reached point to prevailing gaps in GBV prevention, mitigation, and response, particularly in border areas and other ‘hard-to-reach’ spaces as well as in challenges for ‘community buy-in’ and local partnerships (Ibid.).
In regards to the latter, the discrepancies also gesture to power-imbalances between donors, funding recipients, and implementing partners, as in 2022, funding was solely received by two intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and two international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) (FTS, 2022).
The case of five years of the RMRP-Venezuela calls for feminist economics approaches in displacement to #EndGBV.
With its focus on ‘situated’ knowledges and processes that underpin risks of GBV (i.e. operational and funding structures), feminist economics must be considered in demands to invest to prevent, mitigate, and respond to GBV, as is this year’s theme of the #16Days of Activism (Tejani, 2019; True 2010).
Prevailing ‘flexibility’ vis-à-vis funding in displacement settings necessitates critical inquiry and dismantling of power-relations that are intentionally designed and maintained as such at the expense of a life free of GBV for women, girl, LGBTQIA+, and gender diverse migrants.
Dr. Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Global Affairs and the Co-Director of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Portland. Her work concerns issues pertaining to the intersection of migration and gender in a global context. Golesorkhi is also the Founder, Executive Director, and Advocacy Director at the Center for Migration, Gender, and Justice (CMGJ). In her various capacities at CMGJ, Golesorkhi has contributed to the organisation’s vision of gender justice beyond borders by shrinking spaces between migrant communities and governing bodies across institutional levels, notably through the development of the Gender-Migration Index and the directing of the Youth Engagement Academy (YEA!). Most recently, Golesorkhi became a W7 Advisor to the G7, as part of which she coordinated the working group on Gender-Based Violence and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and delivered demands to key stakeholders at the W7 Summit. As a scholar-practitioner and a migrant woman, Golesorkhi combines expertise in the field and lived experience in her academic and policy work.
LinkedIn: @Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi / @Center for Migration, Gender, and Justice
Facebook: @Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi / @migrationgenderjustice
Instagram/Twitter: @cmgj_ngo
References:
Agenjo-Calderón, A. and L. Gálvez-Muñoz. 2019. “Feminist Economics: Theoretical and Political Dimensions.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 1. DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12264.
Benería, L., Berik, G., and M. Floro. 2016. Gender, Development and Globalization. New York: Routledge.
FTS. 2021. “Venezuela Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) 2021.” UNOCHA. https://fts.unocha.org/plans/1021/summary
FTS. 2022. “Venezuela Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) 2022.” https://fts.unocha.org/appeals/1069/flows
Humanitarian Funding Forecast. 2023. “Gender-based violence.” Sectors and Forecasts.
https://humanitarianfundingforecast.org/gbv/#:~:text=Funding%20to%20the%20GBV%20sector%20in%202
Power, M. 2004. “Social Provisioning as a Starting Point for Feminist Economics.” Feminist Economics 10(3): 3–19.
R4V. 2023. “End-Year Report 2022 – Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela.” R4V. https://www.r4v.info/en/document/rmrp-2022
Tejani, S. 2019. What’s feminist about feminist economics? Journal of Economic Methodology, 26:2, 99-117,
DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2018.1556799
True, J. 2010. “The Political Economy of Violence Against Women: A Feminist International Relations Perspective,” Australian Feminist Law Journal, 32:1, 39-59, DOI: 10.1080/13200968.2010.10854436.