Sudanese Refugees

Sudanese Refugees in Australia

One of the fastest growing humanitarian migrant groups arriving in Australia are people from South Sudan (Ibolya 2016). Knowledge is still needed by natives in understanding intergenerational conflict within immigrant families as well as the role that child protective services may be able to take on in order to intervene effectively with those families (Ibolya 2016).

Upon arrival, the refugee community is taught about Australian law, social norms, and society through government-administered programs. While this population is making great strides in their contribution to Australia, the forced migration caused great strains on this community in regards to assimilating to their new country and find the government-sponsored interventions to be a threat to their parental authority and power within the household (Ibolya 2016). The South Sudanese parents have a shared understanding of familial structure and household rules, which affect their perception when interacting with child protection authorities (Ibolya 2016).

When external factors, such as government authorities, interfere within familial matters dictated by the patriarch it is considered to be an attack on his family, identity, and authority. Corporal punishment is often seen as an acceptable and widely used practice for disciplining one’s child in the South Sudanese culture. This form of punishment is used as a way to raise responsible and capable adults. This is not seen by them to be the same as violence against a child because that is defined to them as severely beating a child without reason whereas corporal punishment is a parenting tool (Ibolya 2016).

However, Australian Law prohibits physical punishment or corporate punishment in cases that leave markings, bruises, or other injuries. These cases are seen as physical abuse and may lead to the child being taken from the custody of their parents (Ibolya 2016). It has been found that when clients are able to identify shared goals with workers, there is higher rates of compliance. However, those who oppose the authority’s objectives and/or do not trust them, the clients are generally non-compliant (Ibolya 2016).

In South Sudanese culture, child rearing is the responsibility of female family members. Due to migration, many parents often lose important support networks. Generally, fathers have low engagement in the day-to-day activities involved in child rearing, thus leaving child care to mothers (Ibolya 2016). Commonly, South Sudanese single mothers are found in Australia. This is due in part because of family separation as well as humanitarian visas issued by the Australian government under the Women at Risk visa which is aimed to support widowed and separated mothers (Ibolya 2016). Single parenting has many difficulties, including limited for resources and an increase in demands, but for South Sudanese families there is the additional challenge of having large family sizes and an absence of assistance from extended family members. In cases of divorce, South Sudanese fathers are less familiar with the idea of joint custody. Often, these fathers do not know their rights to seeing their children after separation (Ibolya 2016). This results in an increase of stress on the parent and creates environments of conflict (Ibolya 2016).

Many South Sudanese parents feel that the cultural values of Australia, in particular the increase of freedom, undermine existing structures of balance in their family. They believe that youth have too much freedom in Australia. This may be due to the shift of dynamics within the families causing a threat to parental power as well as the challenge of finding legally approved, but also culturally significant, parenting tools to maintain parental authority (Ibolya 2016). Some of this frustration may stem from the fact that children and youth have adopted the Australian culture more rapidly than their parents (Ibolya 2016). This this creates a cultural divide between the parents and the children. Many parents have a strong desire for their children to continually practice the values and traditions of their cultural heritage (Ibolya 2016). In their perspective, many parents feel that their children are abandoning their culture.

The fear of losing parental power over their children was expressed by all participating parents in a study conducted by Ibolya. Most parents attempted to increase hierarchical elements of traditional parenting techniques, including corporal punishment. However, this was met with this approval and intervention from Australian government (Ibolya 2016). Many parents feel that without physical discipline they will not be able to socialize their children into becoming responsible adults and for these reasons are unwilling to change their parenting styles. Most participants in this study feel that it is necessary for the South Sudanese parents to have access to understanding other alternate forms of parental discipline (Ibolya 2016).

While the sense of diminishing parental authority in their new community originated from a variety of factors, most parents in this study blamed government intervention as the main source of loss of familial authority (Ibolya 2016). Many parents also fear that their children will engage in high-risk behaviors ones out of their home because of lack of parental discipline (Ibolya 2016). One difficulty experienced by refugee families where they engaged with Australian child protection services and other government services and felt an overall lack of cultural knowledge on the part of workers (Ibolya 2016). There is a lack of cultural understanding that has affected not only the ability of child protective services to engage effectively with families, but also their ability to provide appropriate services (Ibolya 2016).

In order to foster new parenting practices among refugee parents as they arrive in refugee communities, it is important to create a culture of trust, respect, and communication as well as finding shared understandings through open dialogues (Ibolya 2016). South Sudanese parents often do not understand the goal of Austrian care and protection services in wanting to build safe environments for children, including the refugee children of their communities. However, Australian protective services do not understand that keeping children and family safe is the main reason that South Sudanese families adhere to their long-standing traditions (Ibolya 2016). Parents should be given the opportunity to explain the reasons behind their practices as well as their unwillingness to conform to Australian requests. The current Australian child protection system lacks focus on preventing abuse and neglect and instead looks only at investigation of rapidly increasing reports and actions needed for substantiated cases (Ibolya 2016).

South Sudanese Refugees in Uganda

While armed conflict continues to be a major concern for various people around the globe. In 2014, there were 40 armed conflicts, thus creating the highest conflict yearly fatality rate since the Cold War (Adaku et al. 2016). In 2011, the Republic of South Sudan achieved independence as a nation after decades of civil war. Continued conflicts within Sudan have influenced the country since their independence (Adaku et al. 2016). In 2013, a struggle of power between President Kiir and his ex deputy Riek Machar and subsequent fighting occurred, resulting in thousands of people being killed and 2.1 million people being displaced (Adaku et al. 2016). As of January 2016, over six hundred and forty four thousand refugees have fled to neighboring countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda. On August 26th 2015, a peace agreement was signed by conflicting parties, but conflict continued (Adaku et al. 2016).

The Peter C. Alderman Foundation (PCAF), an organization that works with public partners in efforts to establish mental health and psychological support with in post-conflict countries, established a multidisciplinary team to be located at the Arua Regional Referral Hospital in Northern Uganda since 2010 (Adaku et al. 2016). This team is comprised of a supervising psychiatrist, psychiatric clinical officer, social worker, counselor, nurse, and a community social worker that works with community health workers (Adaku et al. 2016). The team makes visits to the Rhino Camp settlement and conducts health education sessions and psychoeducation regarding various topics during outreach (Adaku et al. 2016).

Ugandan government includes a policy of, "self reliance," in which refugees are provided a plot of land and allowed to settle in government-appointed areas (Adaku et al. 2016). Within those areas, refugees are allowed to receive government-funded regional health & education resources (Adaku et al. 2016). South Sudanese refugees have been found to be more likely to seek health care if a physical problem is suspected to be the underlying cause of mental health issues (Adaku et al. 2016).

There have also been a limited number of child protection advocates that have focus on implementing child-friendly spaces, referring children to health services, providing educational services, providing legal support, and tracing family lineage as well as reunification (Adaku et al. 2016). More in-depth psychosocial support has been provided by organizations such as the Uganda Red Cross Society, Medical Teams International, and PCAF (Adaku et al. 2016).

When interviewed, refugees indicated that their most common psychosocial problems included; overthinking, ethical conflicts, and child abuse (Adaku et al. 2016). Common stated concerns included; family separation, drug abuse, unaccompanied to minors, and poverty. they also indicated that their coping strategies include being connected to a tribe, social support, seeking advice from church leaders or elders, and resolving issues as a community (Adaku et al. 2016). Some social concerns that were emphasized include ethnic engines regarding child abuse, sexual abuse, and gender-based violence (Adaku et al. 2016).

Sudanese Refugees in the United States

Due to the United States government agreeing to resettle refugee children whose parents were determined as deceased or untraceable, there were 3,500 refugees resettled in the United States (Bates et al. 2005). It has been found that the Sudanese refugee youth are quite resilient. After twelve to eighteen months of being in the United States, it was found that 98% of Sudanese child refugees were attending school and 91% expected to earn a minimum of a four year college degree. In regards to social support; 93% were members of a church (of which 62% attended weekly), 68% discussed their feelings with others regularly, and 95% indicated having someone to help resolve their problems (Bates et al. 2005). Despite the support these children were receiving, many reported symptoms of PTSD and their scores indicated double children who had experienced a single event (Bates et al. 2005).

Unfortunately, many schools are ill equipped to handle the needs of this population and the support provided is inconsistent throughout various school districts (Bates et al. 2005). Areas in which there are large groups of refugee populations are more likely to have ESL (English as a Second Language) courses, but rural areas are often unable to provide this support (Bates et al. 2005). The educational background of the refugee students varies greatly, some never having experienced formal education, but none of them had been taught U.S. history or other similar courses (Bates et al. 2005).

Because refugee students are often placed into classrooms based on their age, many junior and senior high school students experience frustration in having to complete six or seven classes before being able to graduate (Bates et al. 2005). While this requirement was less daunting for some, it prevented many students from graduating on time (Bates et al. 2005). Both male and female students indicate having experienced harassment from other students surrounding topics of language, race, and cultural differences (Bates et al. 2005).

In regards to the fostering system of refugee children, often there is a disconnect between the youth and family’s perceptions of a foster relationship should look like. Many families expect that children will become easily integrated into their existing families and that they will effortlessly create long-lasting relationships (Bates et al. 2005). In many cases, children do not emotionally bond with their host family at all or the bond takes much longer than expected by the host family (Bates et al. 2005).

Regardless of the varied expectations, many children expressed feelings of gratitude to their foster families and explained many ways that their new families were helping them to succeed. Many of the children were used to more freedom than they experienced with their host families, thus having difficulty accepting new rules such as chores (Bates et al. 2005). Other children felt that these limitations would allow them to succeed in school (Bates et al. 2005).

One major issue for refugee children is food in their new setting. Parents' comments surrounding the topic of eating may be interpreted as an insult to refugee families. In Sudanese culture, eating well may be associated with greed (Bates et al. 2005). Caseworkers also report that the lack of familiar food as well as prepared meals at each eating time are two common complaints among refugees. Due to cultural differences, there may also be a lack of education/various perspectives surrounding the topic of food, such as understanding refrigeration or viewing cooking as a woman’s duty (Bates et al. 2005).

A common misconception is that Sudanese people are being rude by not looking at the other person while engaged in a conversation. However, in their culture, eye contact with an elder is considered to be disrespectful (Bates et al. 2005). For this reason, in Sudanese culture, children do not look their parents in the eye (Bates et al. 2005). Sudanese families have defined structures. It is expected that the oldest boy and girl have specific duties in comparison to younger siblings (Bates et al. 2005).