I am a refugee, so anything that happens involving refugees – any way they are represented – affects me.
The media always focuses on refugees as being vulnerable, which negatively affects me because when anybody asks what I’m doing here, and I tell them I’m a refugee, they say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry’. Many people are vulnerable – you don’t need to be a refugee to be vulnerable.
We have many examples of refugees who have great experiences, do great jobs and achieve, so why focus on refugees being poor, weak and crying all the time?
Focus on us as normal human beings. Special circumstances have put us outside of our home countries, but we are managing.
The media represents my home country as one that doesn’t support women, which is not true. They show us as very poor, not working, and unable to control our actions. One neighbour in the UK knocked on my door and said, ‘I heard something happened in your place. Is your husband beating you?’ I said ‘No!’. It’s a stereotype. After all, this is how the media represents us. There’s this idea of male that’s like a superhero of the family, controlling everything.
Refugees are also presented as being violent and uncivilised. Or they make comparisons between different groups of refugees. So, when people see me, sometimes they say, ‘Oh, you speak English, you’re educated… you’re not like other refugees.’ They’re trying to be nice to me, but this is very rude. Many refugees speak English and other languages better than me.
When reporting, a story matter because of the person – not whether or not they are a refugee. But headlines are always: ‘a refugee has done that’. Sometimes reports don’t even mention a name. They might just say ‘a Syrian refugee’, which is not nice. It’s good to use the word ‘refugee’ to tell people about the community, but I’d love to be called by my name.
