Papers by beatrice akua-sakyiwah
My research explores Somali refugee women's reported experiences of access to public services in ... more My research explores Somali refugee women's reported experiences of access to public services in the UK. Since the majority of women in the Somali community are illiterate, I conducted qualitative research involving 50 interviews, (some repeat), between May and July 2010, with 26 Somali refugee women who came to Britain between 1990 and. In this thesis, my analysis roughly follows the chronology of refugee women's entry into the UK. Therefore I start with access to immigration services. My key finding here is that people who have little experience of the public sphere due to their gender, find themselves in difficult situations when dealing with officials when they arrive in their new environment. The women's access to services was strongly impaired, partly due to discrepancies between regulations around immigration and the lived experiences the women had. This was also evident in the context of education services, the topic of my second chapter. Here two key issues emerged. One was the importance of language skills.
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Papers by beatrice akua-sakyiwah