Together with the University of Bath’s Student Support team, the Centre for the Study of Violence held a mutual learning event for scholars with various perspectives on the phenomenon of forced migration and refugee experiences.
This event, which took place on the 22 February 2023, was the first event in the series aimed at the exchange of perspectives between people who have escaped to the UK from violence of other countries, practitioners that help such escapes, and scholars involved in the study of such violence.
Mr Habib Wardak, a PhD researcher in conflict studies, shared his story as a refugee from Afghanistan, explaining the conditions that he escaped from and the conditions he entered in the UK. Habibi was an anti-corruption activist and conflict resolution practitioner in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover of the country, and he had to escape the corrupt state apparatus of the West-supported President Ashraf Ghani.
Professor Timo Kivimäki presented his study with Leah Nicholson that showed that instead of refugees increasing the risk of violence in their host countries, the valuation of life that the host population demonstrates in offering refugees asylums, reduces the number of fatalities of violent crime.
According to the data of this study, published in the Journal of Refugee Studies, not a single European or North African country, that received more than average number of refugees per population during the refugee crisis of 2014-17, has experienced a serious problem of criminal violence (measured as more than two homicides per 100,000 people), something that almost half of European and North American countries with less than average number of refugees per population experienced.
The Centre for the Study of Violence will continue to organise events that facilitate mutual learning between people who study, escape violence or facilitate the sanctuary activities of the university. These events will be announced on the Centre's web pages.