Gender Conflict and Displacement: Contesting 'Infantilisation' of Forced Migrant Women

The experience of the refugee or the internally displaced person is one that is fundamentally disenfranchising. While women and children make up a majority of the forcibly displaced, international humanitarian discourses confer on them a presumed passivity that is naturalised in practice. Systems of care and protection even in UNHCR camps remain largely gender insensitive especially in south Asia where national laws reinforce gender discrimination. This paper uses a gender sensitive perspective, analysing the way a woman as a refugee subject is configured as a non-person so as to gain fresh insights on the ‘infantilisation’ and ‘de-maturation’ of the refugee experience. Moreover, it raises questions on the secondary status women occupy as citizens in south Asian polities.