Women in Refugee Law (WiRL)

Women in Refugee Law (WiRL) is a global network that brings together refugee women, scholars, practitioners, judges, policymakers, and activists to re-centre the experiences and rights of women within refugee law, policy and practice.

Founded in 2021 by Dr Christel Querton (UWE Bristol) and Dr Moira Dustin (University of Sussex), the initiative challenges the assumption that legal and policy changes in the last 30 years have displaced the need for continued research and advocacy efforts.

WiRL aims to safeguard advances, and to identify and address contemporary obstacles to the protection of refugee women globally.

WiRL's objectives

• Refocusing attention on the needs and experiences of refugee women in all their diversity.
• Providing a platform for refugee and asylum-claiming women to contribute to refugee policy and law.
• Ensuring that women’s voices and interests are included in academic and policy discourse relating to refugee protection.
• Reviewing the state of protection in domestic jurisdictions, regionally and internationally.
• Identifying unrecognised setbacks to adequate protection.
• Creating new knowledge to improve the quality of protection for refugee women.
• Highlighting gender diversity in refugee protection and incorporating the views of women and men.
• Creating opportunities for collaborative work to address new and persistent challenges.
• Supporting the development of young and early career scholars and practitioners, especially women.
• Building an open and inclusive global network to take forward all of the above objectives.
  
  

Contact

If you have any queries about WiRL, please contact either Dr Christel Querton (Christel.Querton@uwe.ac.uk) or Dr Moira Dustin (M.Dustin@sussex.ac.uk).