During this year’s World Refugee Day week, Women in Exile and Friends networked and collaborated in solidarity with other organisation.

https://refugeworldwide.com/radio/refugee-week-sarj-and-realmo-16-jun-2025

On Instagram in collaboration with Opferperspektive, the following text for “Justice for Rita! Investigation now!”

More than six years ago, Rita Awour Ojunge disappeared from the asylum seekers’ center. The 32-year-old Kenyan lived there with her two children. One child reported that she had been beaten by another resident on the day of her disappearance. Prior to her disappearance, she had repeatedly complained of harassment by this resident. Nevertheless, after her disappearance, the investigating authorities argued that she had run away from the center and abandoned her children. Only due to pressure from civil society and migrant organizations did the police begin a serious search for her two months after her disappearance and found her remains a few hundred meters from the center. Since then, the investigation has been handled by the Cottbus public prosecutor’s office, which, however, has not taken any active steps to initiate legal proceedings against the suspect. Given the time that has passed and the investigative errors that have been made, it is now doubtful whether this femicide will ever be legally resolved. Brandenburg’s new state government intends to pay special attention to the issue of internal security. However, a state is not safe if it is not also safe for women and migrants. We call on the Brandenburg state government, especially the Ministers of Justice and the Interior, to do everything possible to clarify the errors made in the investigation following Rita’s disappearance and to ensure that this femicide does not remain unsolved!

Joint memorial campaign with the Protestant Church at the Krezberger Passionskirche Call their names!

Since 1993, more than 48,000 people have died trying to flee to Europe. Most of them drowned in the Mediterranean. Others have been shot at border crossings.

Men, women, young people, children and babies. Europe is a fortress for refugees. To scandalize this, we took part at the 32 hours long remembrance “Call their names” in the Protestant Church am Kreuzberger Passionskirche. The names were read, candles were lit in their honour, stones as a symbol of the burden they had to carry and some details of each deceased person were written on a piece of cloth and attached to an installation. In this way, we build public memorials together in memory of the deceased.

In this contest we introduced our work and demanded solidarity from the communities. Especially, from the church which should be in the forefront of fighting for inclusion and justice. Below is our full text.

We thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. We came together to grief for the dead, killed on their way to look for safety and future. May god bless their remembrance and be their peace.

Some of us also had to pass the deadliest border of the world: the Mediterranean. But death not only waits at the EU Borders. It is borders of isolation, exclusion, neglect and discrimination that are waiting for the people in the refugee Camps inside of Europe and germany.

But we want to live and this is why we took up the struggle: for a better future for all of us.

We are from Women in Exile & friends, an initiative of refugee women founded in Brandenburg in 2002 by refugee women to fight for our rights. We decided to organize as a refugee women’s group because we have made the experience that refugee women are doubly discriminated against not only by the racist refugee laws but also as women. The struggles of Women in Exile are based on the advocacy of refugee women’s rights and empowerment.

We campaign against discriminatory and racist refugee laws. We raise awareness through activism and documentation of our work of the living conditions in the isolated collective accommodations. These are normally situated in remote areas or at the outskirt of cities. Women* experience gender-based violence and barriers to their emancipation in these accommodations.

The concrete situation of refugees living here is becoming more and more precarious. The much fought and out-dated racist voucher system is reintroduced and is now euphemistically called a payment card. The EU decision on the new GEAS guidelines locks refugees in detention camps at Europe’s external borders.

We are being forced to stay longer in receiving centres – up to 18 months. In there we work as translators, gardeners, painters and in the childcare for 80 cents an hour. We hate this will to oppress and exploit us.

A deportation centre has recently been opened in Eisenhüttenstadt where men, women and children are awaiting deportations to Poland. A country that does not want them and are put into prisons on arrival. Those seeking protection are targeted as scapegoats for all the problems in society, and deportations, racism and discrimination are popular policies.

Our campaign fights for “No lager for women*! Abolish all lagers!”. Important is the empowerment of women* to overcome barriers to language, housing, employment, legal and health issues.

We need a solidarity that challenges injustice, making our fight, your fight, to end oppressive and discriminatory structures and create a society that is just and inclusive of all.

We need solidarity and support through donations for our work to make a positive impact on refugee women* living in this society. A solidarity that encourages self-reliance and creates opportunities for social inclusion.

Our demands are and still remain:

Stop deportations!

No lagers for women and children, abolish all lagers!

No to GEAS!!

Abolish Bezahlkarte!!

Right to come, right to go, and right to stay!!!