For many years Women in Exile & Friends have been making summer tours to different German federal states to connect with other refugee women*, especially those living in lager. This summer we will move to Hamburg, Bremen and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

We want to empower refugee women* to become politically active, in order to fight for their rights as women* living in this society. We also want to address the question of opening political structures to refugee women*. Our main political fight is against the lager system. We believe the shared and isolated accommodations work as a catalyst to sexual violence, traumas and depressions leading to (attempted) suicides.

We want to:

• bring into public isolation, racism, sexism, reports on traumas on those experiencing sleepless nights for fear of deportation and the effects of the corona pandemic.
• encourage and network with refugee women*, groups and individuals working with refugee women*.
• break borders preventing our participation and build bridges to connect us to communities.
• be given the opportunity to choose where we want to live in dignity.
• connect with the refugee women* fighting for their children`s right to birth certificates.

The corona virus pandemic continues to severely affect the refugee communities. Living in isolation, sharing rooms and facilities such as kitchens/dining halls, bathrooms and toilets have made refugees among one of the most vulnerable groups to the corona virus. For the refugee women* the pandemic has been catastrophic. Lack of technical knowledge or internet accessibility, closure of safe and empowering spaces have isolated us, left us with less information and made organization nearly impossible. Mass deportations were still carried out with a lot of police reinforcement and brutality. All this lead to more reported (attempted) suicidal cases. This we bring into public through our campaign#SocialDistancingIsAPrivilege.

We ask for your support and solidarity for our tour. So that we can work for the empowerment of refugee women*, bring the systematic violation of our rights to the public and work together with other communities for an open and solidarity society.