Factors Contributing to Successful Integration of Afghan Women Refugees in the UK

The purpose of this research was to gain an understanding of factors that have contributed to how well Afghan refugee women have integrated into UK society. In other words, the research attempted to contribute to an understanding of what it means to integrate as a refugee, as an Afghan woman refugee, in Britain today. The aim is to draw attention to the literature on refugee integration in the UK and more specifically address the gap that exists in studies on Afghan women in the UK context and how/if they achieve public outcomes in employment, housing, linguistics competencies, education and health, equivalent to those achieved by the wider host communities. The research built on the importance of finding mechanisms to integrate economic opportunities and refugees’ access to assets and skills in countries of asylum, and to shift from an assistance-oriented approach that entails long-term dependency of refugees to more of a development-oriented approach whereby refugees can achieve self-reliance. The literature reviewed was based on rights-based approaches; what refugees are able to do (in terms of skills, knowledge) once they settle in the country of asylum and how much freedom they should enjoy to live the kind of life which they desired to achieve after migrating (physical and mental progress). The study revealed pointed to two recurrent patterns in factors that had affected the integration process of Afghan women refugees who live in the UK. First, the majority have continued their traditional role in the family after becoming refugees and are stay-at-home moms, while the government seems to lack an effective adequate integration system. The findings show the process of integration should take place equally at level of the individual and the government. In other words, integration is a collective expression of the refugee’s ambitions and characteristics and, the effectiveness of state mechanisms. While motivations at the individual level and at the institutional levels might not be the same, they are undoubtedly interrelated