When staying home is a safety risk: Intersectional vulnerability of pandemic, gender-based violence and migration

Throughout the last year, 'saving lives' became the slogan of many nations during the global pandemic. However, it has become even more clear that some lives are considered expendable, and some are profitable. The discourse of the ‘new normal’ newly normalised the old power relations and excluded the marginalised from the pandemic measures. The pandemic slogans, i.e., 'work from home' or 'stay home, stay safe,' exclude the expendable lives by assuming having a safe home as standard. Many important works have shown us that this is not the case for numerous women, while gender-based violence is exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic (Mittal and Singh 2020; Roesch et al. 2020; Johnson et al. 2020; John et al. 2020). This paper is from my ongoing research titled ‘Gender-Based Violence and Migration Ireland’ (GBV-MIG), a part of the seven-country project which aims to understand vulnerability to gender-based violence and the resources available to women and other migrants affected by GBV. While Ireland is applauded for its Covid-19 welfare scheme, it seemingly remains gender-blind. Vulnerable women in the worsened situation of working from home are not compensated. In Sept 2020, after six months of varying levels of lockdown due to the pandemic, the Department of Justice initiated a campaign named 'Still Here' to address the worsened situation of victims of gender-based violence within the pandemic. While the campaign is undeniably an important initiative, it does not address migration issues and the severe cases of violence and vulnerability for the asylum seekers who are stuck in the direct provision centres. The campaign is in English, and the Department does not plan to translate it into other languages as they are doing with the Covid-19 health information, anytime soon. In this paper, I argue that, while the state took many necessary steps to address the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland, the migrant victims of gender-based violence remain in the margins of these measures, as usual.