Socialno delo, Vol. 44 (2005), Part 4-5
GLOBAL INEQUALITIES
ARTICLES
Strategies of Exclusion of Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and 'Paperless' People - 259, (Abstract)
Supporting Asylum Seekers: Practice and Ethical Issues for Health and Welfare Professionals in Europe - 277, (Abstract)
Unaccompanied Refugee Children and Adolescents in Belgium - 313, (Abstract)
Social Work with the Roma: A System of Control or a System of Help? - 325, (Abstract)
Abstracts
Vesna Leskošek
Global Inequalities
The author considers the fundamental social changes that have been brought about by the process of globalisation. In the first place, she addresses corporate globalisation, which is responsible for increasing differences between the rich North and the poor South. She observes the mechanisms within the process that have the strongest impact on the increase of poverty, especially privatisation and changes in labour relations. She finds a significant change in the 'rhetoric of democracy' – a turn from the principle of equality, which has been the basis of policies since World War II and has made possible, by including social justice, solidarity and freedom, the development of the welfare state, to the principle of differentiation. The principle of equality has warranted a decent life to all citizens, whereas the principle of differentiation marks a new order, which is the consequence of corporate globalisation, and creates distinctions between first-class and second-class citizens, such as between people with and people without papers. The crucial role in warranting equality is assigned to the social state.
Keywords: social state, equality, justice, neo-liberalism.
Dr. Vesna Leskošek is a senior lecturer at University of Ljubljana Faculty of Social Work and an activist against social inequalities.
Darja Zaviršek
Glowing Racisms of Western Democracies
The paper presents the development and character of racism in the Netherlands. In the world of global co-dependence and 'shrunken' geographic distances, it may serve as a representative case. Racism is linked with the social construction of power, and its historical development and its process nature are outlined. The concept of everyday racism is explained as originating in the power relations of a society, which are usually taken as unquestioned reality and normal life. Racism is inherent in cognitive experiences, Euro-centrism, the pressures towards assimilation, and the underestimation of minorities. The acceptance of the dominant interpretations of racism and the rhetoric of 'tolerance' and 'multiculturalism' by themselves diminish the opportunities for minority members to act against everyday racism. Community members are involved in the process of everyday racism in different ways on the basis of their gender, class, social status, etc. Gender specific dimension of racism is presented through a research on the experiences of black
women.
Keywords: multiculturalism, sexism, the Netherlands, everyday racism.
Dr. Darja Zaviršek is associate professor at University of Ljubljana Faculty of Social Work.
Jelka Zorn
Strategies of Exclusion of Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and 'Paperless' People
The refugee is a person who has been forced to leave his or her country of origin for any reason beyond his or her capacity to do anything about it, be it for hunger, poverty, the consequences of a natural disaster, devastation of villages or towns, chaotic conditions in the state, totalitarianism, war, oppression of minorities, or individual persecution. A key factor of exclusion is immigration controls. Immigration and asylum systems have been fashioned to discourage people to apply for asylum and gain the refugee status. The discouragement and exclusion of people has become normal with the support of administrative differentiation between asylum seekers on the one hand and illegal immigrants on the other. It has the additional effect of criminalisation, which is a widespread technique of dehumanisation and assumes various forms. Alongside the typical discourse of 'fight against illegal migration', its crucial method is preventive detention. People are not detained on the grounds of a judicial verdict for their criminal acts, but to prevent their avoiding deportation from the country. The presentation of these strategies of oppression is followed by a discussion on the role of social work in preventive detention and deportation of foreigners.
Keywords: immigrants, immigration controls, criminalisation, social work, detention.
Dr. Jelka Zorn is an assistant lecturer at University of Ljubljana Faculty of Social Work. Her field of research and activism is the rights of refugees and the 'erased' people.
Beth Humphries
Supporting Asylum Seekers: Practice and Ethical Issues for Health and Welfare Professionals in Europe
Movement is a normal process for people across the globe. However, over the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries, their movement has also been forced. People who are displaced as a result of globalisation, war, and persecution are compelled to seek refuge in countries other than their country of origin. The increase in the numbers of asylum seekers has compelled governments to produce an organised response to them. This response is driven largely by a determination to discourage asylum applications. This article examines policies adopted across the European Union, focussing particularly on UK immigration policy and practice. It considers both external and internal controls on asylum seekers, especially the ways in which welfare entitlement is increasingly dependent on immigration status, leaving asylum seekers deprived of the basic necessities for a dignified life. In particular the article looks into the role health and social work professionals are required to play in implementing asylum policies. It argues that this role contravenes professional ethics, and should be resisted collectively and internationally.
Keywords: international external and internal controls, women, children, health and social work professional ethics.
Dr Beth Humphries is a Reader in Social Work at the University of Lancaster, UK. She has researched and been active in the areas of immigration and asylum for many years. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies.
Silke Bercht
Origins of the Social Rejection of Asylum Seekers
Immigrants and refugees who daily cross European borders are always at least in part dehumanised and perceived as a 'disturbance'. Their inclusion into institutions makes them partly provided for and restrained. They become the concern of the agencies of prosecution as well as of social workers, pedagogues, a variety of animators, and medical staff. Though dubbed as 'social problem' and 'the burden of globalisation', few people realise or want to realise that many of them have survived political torture and are heavily traumatised. The author analyses the psychoanalytical concept of trauma and its later interpretations, as well as the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder. She analyses the relations between the torturer and the victim, and presents personal strategies to escape the traumatic situation and the consequences of torture that causes a life-long trauma. She further points out how traumatic experiences continue during flight, waiting for asylum, and confrontation with the new conditions in the destination state. Her proposal is that the staff in asylum centres and other institutions for refugees and asylum seekers gain better knowledge on the consequences of an endured trauma and on the inner world of the survivors of torture.
Keywords: trauma, political torture, psychosocial help, asylum seekers.
Silke Bercht, M. A., is a social worker and psychologist working as a private practitioner in Ljubljana. She has co-founded the Institute for the Problems of Identity Conflicts and critical
Reflection.
Katja Dolinar, Tina Glavič, Saša Zupanc
Living as a Refugee in Slovenia
Integration policy in Slovenia has not yet been systematically settled on structural and social-cultural levels. The main problem is accommodation; refugees have no access to non-profit tenancy, they experience discrimination from owners, and their allowance hardly suffices for the rent. As a consequence, they can't register as permanent tenants, which is a condition to obtain a refugee passport. In the field of employment the major drawback is the requirement that they can speak Slovenian. They meet obstacles in the verification of their diplomas and the acknowledgment or working experiences in their countries of origin; furthermore, they experience discrimination from employers. They don't have the same access to medical services as other citizens; they can get a voucher from the ministry of the interior with which the staff of health services is not properly acquainted.
Keywords: integration, accommodation, documents, employment, education, health. services
Katja Dolinar, Tina Glavič and Saša Zupanc are students of ethnology and cultural anthropology at University of Ljubljana Faculty of Arts. For several years they have been researching in the field of anthropology of migrations. They are active members of the Association for Intercultural Links 'Metafir', which is concerned with deprivileged groups.
Ilse Derluyn, Eric Broekaert
Unaccompanied Refugee Children and Adolescents in Belgium
Unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents – refugee minors living without the support of their parent(s) – are amongst the most vulnerable people within the entire refugee population. The situation of this group in Belgium is exemplary for many unaccompanied refugee minors living in Europe. In Belgium a separated care and protection system created for these minors has to meet their basic needs and fulfil their rights for protection and care until they become of age. In this care system it remains unclear whether these children and adolescents should be primarily considered as refugees or as children. They are a heterogeneous group (regarding gender, age, nationality, background, experiences), though they all share several crucial experiences: migration, loss and grief, uncertain future perspective. All this may put them at great risk for the development of emotional and behavioural problems. Almost half of these youths have severe or very severe symptoms of internalised problems (anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress symptoms). Some may therefore need advanced support and care, but mental health provisions for these groups are almost inexistent in Belgium.
Keywords: youth care, guardianship, immigration statistics.
Dr. Eric Broekaert is a tenure professor and head of Department of Orthopedagogics, Ghent University, Belgium, and is mainly involved in research on drug (ab)use and emotional and behavioural problems. Ilse Derluyn executed various studies on the emotional wellbeing of former child soldiers and unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents within the same Department.
Simona Žnidarec Demšar, Špela Urh
Social Work with the Roma: A System of Control or a System of Help?
Universalistic perspective dominates social work with the Roma. Frequent racist practices in relation to the Roma are the consequence of non-reflected internalised images of the Roma as a homogenous group. These practices include restrictions while delivering financial aid as well as other forms of control and oppression. On the grounds of their 'different culture' and the entailing social exclusion the Roma are all too often mere passive recipients of social services, often in the exclusive form of financial aid. In this way social work itself becomes part of the oppressive social structure. The new ways of working with the Roma require the formation and maintenance of a working relationship that creates changes together with them, and is based on respect for the complexity of the existential conditions of every individual, taking into account his or her idiosyncrasies and capacities, as well as on the anti-racist approach that directly deals with structural inequalities. The authors discuss how racism affects the Roma, how social services contribute to the creation or perpetuation of racist practices, how they respond to them, and how they may be overcome.
Keywords: social exclusion, racism, human rights
Simona Žnidarec Demšar, M. A., is an assistant lecturer at University of Ljubljana Faculty of Social Work in the field of community social work. Špela Urh is a junior researcher at the same Faculty.