Unpacking the agency of refugee women: The case of Afghan refugee women in Turkey

Since the late 1970s, the continuous large-scale movement of Afghans within and from Afghanistan has been shaped by a combination of security, political and economic factors associated with protracted conflict in their home country. Turkey has been a long-standing host country and transit hub for Afghan refugees, who constitute the second-largest group of refugees after Syrians with an estimated population of half a million. Building upon the extended conceptual relationship between the refugees’ agency and the structural constraints, this paper aims to improve understanding of the migration experiences of Afghans arriving in Turkey. More specifically, it focuses on the narratives of Afghan refugee women in an attempt to unpack the concept of ‘gendered agency’ and to examine the ways in which refugee women exert their agency and decision-making throughout different stages of migration. The paper also examines the socio-economic, cultural and protection challenges they encounter within Turkey’s multi-layered refugee governance structure. Looking beyond the traditional ‘vulnerability/victim-based’ portrayal of refugee women, it identifies the diverse set of narratives that underpin the resilience strategies Afghan refugee women develop in their migration experiences. The paper presents qualitative data from fieldwork undertaken in three Turkish cities (Istanbul, Adana and Van), based on empirical findings from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions conducted with 50 Afghan refugee women in 2019 and 2020.