Deutsch hier: Das wahre Gesicht der Europäischen “Menschenrechtspolitik”
We are documenting here our speech for the demonstration of the Refugee Schulstreik Berlin on the 24th of April:
The events of the last two weeks are showing us once again the true colours of European human rights politics on refugees. Let us take a minute and think what it means to flee from different dangers or circumstances.
This means you are looking for freedom from whatever you are fleeing from, maybe it be war, hunger, and lack of good governance or economical woes. This fear is so strong like the woman who crossed the Mediterranean with her two kids and husband narrated to us the other night, that one does not see the danger. It means either you die from one danger or the other, from the sea or from war and hunger before.
If you are one of the lucky ones to survive these dangers and to enter Germany then you are isolated in remote areas where you are exposed to racist attacks.
You are entitled to a 6qm² space.
The result of all this, is depression either because of the inhuman living conditions in the “Heims” or because of awaited deportations under Dublin III and a lack of a working permit.
Is the German government so helpless to improve this precarious situation? Or is it that there is no political will at all in improving the living conditions of refugees, because the idea is to deport them as soon as possible?
In contrast to the policy of the German government we are grateful to all the welcoming initiatives, anti-racist, feminist and human-right organisations in different parts of the country, that are supporting refugees and illegalized persons and trying to make live bearable to us who are living in these conditions.
As if the before mentioned conditions would not be bad enough, we furthermore have to experience physical violence in the Lagers. If in these cases any consequences are taken out of that at all, the aggressor is often being removed from one Lager and put into another, which means that he is still a danger for other women and children.
In addition to that on an everyday-life basis we have to struggle with a lack of privacy, with unbearable hygienic conditions of the common bathrooms and with rules of the “Heims” – which for example do not allow us to have visitors or even when allowed we are forced to pay for them. We also have to live with fear and with the fact that our lives are literary being dictated by the discriminative laws of the government.
How much longer will fear determine our lives? During the long journey to Europe we go through numerous risks. Fear accompanies every single border crossing we are trying to achieve and gets even stronger when we manage to do so. We live in constant anxiety for deportation, with fear of being deported within the EU from one „save“ country to another for the umpteenth time and in anxiety even worse living conditions in these countries like Greece or Bulgaria or Poland. We struggle every day with the fear of physical assaults and any other racist attacks in the streets of Europe. Every Day all of us have to struggle with all these kinds of fear and anxiety.
Refugee women are double victims to these circumstances and living conditions. They suffer the most, because they are the ones who take up the responsibility to ensure that their families function in these circumstances. In addition they struggle not only as refugees or illegalised persons, but also as women. That is why we keep on saying: “No Lager for Women! Abolish all Lagers!”
The German government is doing all in its power to make a fortress Europe, see that only the refugees who are economically viable can enter the country, while the rest are either straight deported to their countries of origin, or to other European countries as Dublin III victims.
We demand from the federal government:
Step back from your policy to keep refugees from entering Germany or force them to leave again – this policy ends in so many thousands of death.
Stop harassing refugees and let them live a dignified life.
