Browsing by Author "Mutambara, Victoria M."

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Assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on women refugees in South Africa.
(Oxford University Press., 2021) Mutambara, Victoria M.; Crankshaw, Tamaryn L.; Freedman, Jane.
The global COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns and restrictions have had uneven impacts on populations and have deepened many pre-existing inequalities along lines of race, ethnicity, class, gender. Refugees have been shown to be particularly negatively impacted in many countries, with existing structures of violence and insecurity worsened by the immediate consequences of the pandemic through policy responses which largely ignore their needs whether by excluding them from targeted COVID-19 mitigation measures, or by imposing restrictions which directly impact on their well-being. Our research with refugee women in Durban, South Africa, illustrates the ways in whichCOVID-19 has exacerbated their insecurities and intensified structural violence which renders them vulnerable. More importantly, it seems that the impacts of COVID-19 are not just short term but will deepen the violence and insecurities experienced by these women in the longer term if these are not addressed by government and relevant NGOs and civil society organizations.
Probing the context of vulnerability: Zimbabwean migrant women’s experiences of accessing public health care in South Africa.
(African Human Mobility Review., 2021) Mutambara, Victoria M.; Naidu, Maheshvari.
South Africa has a professed inclusive health policy that articulates that everyone is entitled to have access to health-care services, regardless of nationality and citizenship. However, several challenges exist for migrant women in South Africa, in accessing this health care. This paper, based on the experiences of Zimbabwean migrant women residing in Durban, focuses on their experiences of seeking and accessing health-care services in South Africa. Using a qualitative study design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 purposively sampled female participants aged 25–49 years. This paper employs a structural-violence analysis to probe the underlying factors that make it challenging for Zimbabwean migrant women to access public health-care services in South Africa. The findings of this paper highlight that the lack of valid immigration documentation, often makes it challenging for participants to access services from public hospitals and clinics. The findings also reveal that the state of the South African public health-care system predisposes migrant women to health risks.