“God Helped Us”: Resilience, Religion and Experiences of Gender-Based Violence and Trafficking among African Forced Migrant Women

Abstract

In this article, I explore how faith and religion shaped the resilience of forced migrant women subjected to intersecting gender-based violence (GBV) and trafficking. Adopting a social constructivist perspective, I draw upon interviews with 11 Christian and 4 Muslim displaced survivors of 10 African nationalities temporarily residing in Tunisia. I first outline the experiences of intersecting violence to understand what displaced survivors were resilient to, and then describe faith pathways to resilience, sometimes with spiritual struggles and unmet religious needs. I delineate ways in which personal prayers and cooperating with God enabled all but one survivor to cope with exploitation and perilous journeys toward imagined refuge. I offer insights for practitioners working with forced migrants on the move and highlight the importance of spiritual support for displaced survivors who are religious. I discuss the findings and offer implications for future research and practice.

Keywords

• resilience
• coping
• faith
• religion
• sexual
• gender