Hmong and Lao Refugee Women - Hmong Studies Internet ...

Hmong and Lao Refugee Women: Reflections of a Hmong-American Woman Anthropologist by Dia Cha, Ph.D. Hmong Studies Journal,
2005, 6: 1-35.
since resettled in Western countries such as the United States, Canada, and France. 3 As of 1992,
however, about 50,000 such refugees – Hmong and Lao – remained in designated camps in the Thai
hinterlands. Some of these people refused to resettle in Western countries, while others were not eligible
for Western resettlement and were due to return to Laos, despite an expressed reluctance so to repatriate.
Indeed, many in the refugee communities of America and abroad harbored grave concerns about the
safety of such repatriation.
At all events, no one had voiced any concern specifically with respect to the safety and the
welfare of refugee women, despite the fact that, in many ways, they constituted the most vulnerable
component of the refugee population. Some of these women were widows, some were divorcees, and
some were simply alone after suffering separation from older offspring and other close family members.
Many were old and weak, or even handicapped; some had no relatives remaining in Laos. In a region,
and as members of a society, that is largely male dominated, all women without male assistance and
support are at risk to some degree. It is in this context that the project detailed herein was undertaken.
The purposes of this project were to assess the needs and concerns of refugee women; to address
possibilities for their protection as they planned to repatriate to Laos; and, finally, to make
recommendations to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as the
various concerned Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), for a course of action which might be
expected to alleviate the uncertainties of repatriation.
Throughout the duration of the project, the author was able to maintain both an insider's and an
outsider's perspective. On the one hand, the author's own childhood experience as a camp resident
yielded much insight into the character of refugee life, especially the life of refugee women and girls. On
the other hand, professional training as an anthropologist – training which is geared to the cultivation of
sensitivity, open-mindedness, empathy, and a nature which declines to enter into judgment – coupled with
3 In this paper, the terms "resettle" and "resettlement" refer to the process whereby refugees move out of refugee
camps to resettle in third nations. The terms "repatriate" and "repatriation" may be construed to refer to a process
whereby refugees move out of camps to return to Laos.
2