CREVAW webinar | Gender-Based Violence in a Migration and Refugee Context: Forms, Impacts, Barriers and Responses

Join CREVAW for an upcoming webinar, “Gender-Based Violence in a Migration and Refugee Context: Forms, Impacts, Barriers and Responses” on Wednesday, October 6th from 1 – 2:30pm EST. Register today!

This presentation is based on research conducted by a Canadian research team as part of the multi-country, interdisciplinary project, “Violence against Women Migrants and Refugees: Analysing Causes and Effective Policy Response”. The Canadian team was led by academic co-investigators from Saint Mary’s University, University of Guelph, University of Manitoba and University of New Brunswick who supervised postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students. The research benefited from consultations with an Expert Advisory Group.

To better understand Canadian migrant and refugee women’s (MRW) experiences of gender-based violence (GBV), interviews were conducted with policy makers, advocates and service providers (N=43) as well as with MRW survivors of GBV (N=48). We will present our analyses of the two datasets with a focus on GBV forms, impacts and barriers and MRW responses and resilience, amplified by the structural vulnerabilities of the immigration/settlement and anti-violence sectors when it comes to supporting MRW GBV survivors. We draw upon theoretical approaches such as the continuum of violence, intersectionality, social determinants of health, vulnerability, and the social ecology of resilience. We conclude with recommendations for changes to policy and practice.

This webinar will be presented in English, with simultaneous French interpretation and American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation. Register today!

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By attending this Webinar, participants will be better able to:

Recognize what GBV means in the context of migration, including forced migration. Specifically define: Who are the MRW? What are the forms / impacts of GBV? Why do we look at MRW in the context of Canada?
Expand the range of violence and the tactics of victimization experienced by immigrant and refugee women and how they differ from the Canadian-born population
Distinguish the unique vulnerabilities of migrant and refugee survivors of GBV as well as opportunities for building resilience
Appreciate the agency and resilience of migrant and refugee women

SPEAKERS

Dr. Mia Sisic graduated from the Applied Social Psychology program at the University of Windsor. Her work focuses on men’s violence against women. She is currently the Senior Research Associate for Girls – Flip the Script with EAAA® Across Canada, a project funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada to examine the scaling of an evidence-based sexual violence resistance intervention.
Evangelia (Evie) Tastsoglou is Professor in the Department of Sociology, cross-appointed in Political Science and Global Development Studies, at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada. Educated in the USA (PhD in Sociology, Boston University, Boston), Canada (LLM, Dalhousie University, Halifax), and Greece (Law Degree, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). She has published extensively on gender and various aspects of international migration; Canadian immigration and integration; violence, citizenship, transnationalism and diasporas.
Catherine Holtmann is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick. Her expertise is in the areas of gender and religion, family violence and immigrants. She is the academic lead of the Religion and Violence Research Team at the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research and currently partners on the Muslim Family Safety Project with the Arabic Cultural Community of Fredericton, New Brunswick and the Muslim Resource Centre for Social Support and Integration in London, Ontario. She is a co-author of the open access article “Vulnerabilities and Inequities: Challenges Experienced by Professionals Engaged with Migrant and Refugee Survivors of Gender-Based Violence in Canada” in Social Sciences (2026) and a co-author of the book Sacred Snaps: Photovoice for Interfaith Engagement (Routledge, 2025).