“6. A New School and New Life Understanding the Experiences of Yazidi Families with Children” in “Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees”
Chapter 6 A New School and New Life Understanding the Experiences of Yazidi Families with Children
Pallabi Bhattacharyya, Labe Songose, and Lori Wilkinson
While the trauma associated with the frightening events that precede refugees’ resettlement is well researched, the trauma associated with the act of relocating to transition countries and the subsequent process of resettlement is still in need of further research. This chapter examines the experience of trauma in its entirety—from the pre-arrival, during the journey, and after the resettlement phases—addressing integration and resettlement using a trauma-informed lens. It addresses the question of how the health of the family influences the integration of Yazidi children and youth into Canadian schools. We were privileged to interview several Yazidi refugee families just shortly after their arrival in Canada. Some of these families continued to exhibit significant trauma related to their captivity, but the most pressing issue was the unknown status of family members who had “disappeared,” been kidnapped, or been killed. This chapter is organized as follows. First, we review existing research on trauma and refugees, paying particular attention to the gaps in knowledge of how trauma may affect integration. We then briefly describe the methodology before examining the post-arrival integration experiences of refugee women and their children. We end the chapter with recommendations that we hope are useful to settlement provider experts, educators, and academics who study trauma and refugees.
As a distinct ethnic group, the Yazidi have lived primarily in Iraq but also have sizable communities in Turkey, Syria, Armenia, and Georgia (Tesch 2023). While the attacks perpetrated by Daesh in Iraq in 2014 garnered the most significant global attention to this ethnic group, the Yazidi have long been targets of persecution and expulsion because of their religious beliefs. Their religion adopts elements from Islam, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism (Arakelova 2010), and because they prefer to live in isolation and do not adhere to the dominant religion of the countries in which they live, the Yazidi have been religiously persecuted for centuries. The most recent attacks by Daesh in 2014 were particularly brutish, involving mass murders of men and boys and the sexual enslavement of women and girls. Nearly all Yazidi women and nearly three-quarters of their children either experienced or witnessed violence, which makes them exceptional among refugees who do not “normally” experience or witness violence to this degree (Abbott 2016). Canada was one of several countries that agreed to provide immediate assistance, given the extreme conditions that the Yazidi faced. What made this group of refugees different from others coming to Canada was that most of the newly arrived Yazidi had been released from captivity just weeks prior to their arrival in the country. This is in direct contrast to the arrival conditions of other refugees who often spend seven to nine years and as much as forty years in refugee camps prior to their arrival in Canada (Devictor 2019). More information about the culture, language, religion, and history of the Yazidi is located in Wilkinson et al. (2019).
The most recent group of Yazidi refugees arrived in Canada. Refugees are forced to flee their countries of origin because of several factors, with most of them experiencing some level of pre-flight trauma. Refugees’ exposure to pre-flight and intergenerational trauma has been identified as a significant cause of psychological distress, especially among women and children (Sullivan and Simonson 2016). Women and children have experiences that are drastically different from men, and these experiences have been well documented (Callister 2016; Schweitzer et al. 2018). Whether en route or in camps, in their home countries or after arriving in their host countries, many have experienced rape, imprisonment, torture, separation from loved ones, and murder, leading to high rates of trauma (Bartolomei, Eckert, and Pittaway 2013). While much is known about pre-arrival trauma among refugees, much less is known about how it affects their post-arrival resettlement and integration or how traumas experienced after their resettlement may affect their longer-term outcomes. Following is just one tragic story of one woman’s journey and how serious trauma can happen after arrival.
On June 19, 2019, a Yazidi refugee woman living in Winnipeg was charged for operating her vehicle without her three children properly restrained by seat belts and booster seats (MacLean 2019). She was involved in a minor collision that resulted in the death of her five-year-old daughter. Her two other children were seriously injured, as they too were not adequately restrained. She was driving the family van with only a learner’s license without a supervising driver and was not aware of the traffic rules or the child safety rules in Canada. This event forever changed her family and has greatly affected her successful resettlement in Canada.
The family unit has been identified by researchers as a key protective factor that helps the well-being of all children in dealing with their emotional difficulties (Kalmanowitz and Lloyd 2005; Shafai-Palmer 1997; Akthar 2017). Unfortunately, since many refugee children and youth lose family members prior to arriving in their host countries, they also lose some of the psychological support and family bonding that can help mitigate prior traumas. Research conducted by Timshel, Montgomery, and Dalgaard (2017) identifies parental separation as a cause of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the physical ill health of isolated families. Family separation and uncertainty around the health and well-being of missing family members contribute to mental health illnesses and stress and can affect successful resettlement. Among the Yazidi, this issue is particularly acute given the brutality that this group experienced prior to their arrival in Canada (Cetorelli et al. 2017).
Trauma and Resettlement: What Is the Relationship?
Much is known about how trauma affects refugees in the short term. Robertson and her colleagues (2006) report that women who have larger families and who do not understand English or French upon arrival are among the group that takes the longest to integrate into their new societies. Bjørneseth and her colleagues (2019) find that newly arrived refugee women exhibit more significant and plentiful signs of trauma than their male counterparts immediately after their arrival in Greece. Women who head families with children experience the most trauma. The trauma experienced by refugee parents can also affect their relationship with their children. Sangalang, Jager, and Harachi (2017) conducted a longitudinal study on the effects of maternal traumatic distress on family functioning and child mental health outcomes among Southeast Asian refugee women and their adolescent children in the United States. Their findings suggest that refugee parents’ trauma can adversely affect the mental health of children even if they were not direct subjects of traumatic events. Parents’ mental disorders can affect their communication with their children during resettlement. Research by Wood and her colleagues (2020) finds that families experiencing traumatic events are significantly more likely to experience intimate partner violence later during their resettlement in Canada.
Migrating into a new environment can also cause trauma, especially when the new environment has a very different culture. Because they are at different life stages, refugee parents and their children adapt to the new culture differently (Westermeyer 1991). Children can learn faster than their parents, and this makes the “speed” at which integration occurs very different between them. The accelerated pace of the integration of children and teens can bring tension between refugee parents and children, as parents feel they are losing their parental authority and control, especially when they must depend on their children for interactions or interpretations with settlement agencies (Ahearn and Athey 1991). This can lead to parents using violent actions to reinstate authority over their children. Wood and her colleagues (2020) find that about 45 percent of Cambodian refugees in psychiatric clinics reported becoming angry with their children, mostly because of language barriers, which also sometimes hinder the resolution of any conflict. Another study conducted on thirty-six Arabic-speaking refugee families from Iraq finds that the children of traumatized refugee parents are less psychologically well-adjusted than their Danish peers, which may show a general impact of parental trauma on non-trauma-exposed children’s psychosocial adjustment (Dalgaard et al. 2016).
Previous research in Canada on other groups of refugees who have experienced war, trauma, rape, and loss shows that these events have a lasting impact on the ability of many people to learn the language, mainly because these traumatic experiences affect their memories (Beiser and Hou 2000). Low levels of education before their arrival also make it more challenging to learn a new language. Watt and Lake (2004) find that adult learners with no formal schooling have the most difficulty gaining a second language. PTSD, C-PTSD, anxiety, and depression interfere with language learning and cause memory loss, which increases with age, making language learning more difficult. For instance, Emdad, Söndergaard, and Theorell (2005) find that those with PTSD scored significantly lower on memory tests than those without PTSD. Evidence from several countries, including Canada, shows that those who experience depression and PTSD and who are functionally illiterate at arrival have lower language-learning outcomes and take long periods of time to gain a new language proficiency compared to someone who has a few years of prior education (Wilkinson et al. 2019).
Among the Yazidi women in northeastern Iraq, murder, torture, and sexual slavery are common occurrences (Porter 2018; Vijanann 2017). As a result, refugee women and girls who survive enslavement and genocide arrive in Canada with significant mental illnesses. Over 80 percent of them are diagnosed with poor mental health upon their initial arrival, and 65 percent of the Yazidi children and adolescents suffer from various psychological problems (Ibrahim et al. 2018; Yüksel et al. 2018; Hosseini and Seidi 2018; Abbott 2016). Early reports from settlement agencies in Canada reveal that the high rates of trauma the Yazidi have experienced make their resettlement and integration very difficult (Wilkinson et al. 2019).
Psychologists and other specialists who work with traumatized refugee populations have all observed that the level of trauma experienced by recently arrived refugees in Canada is significantly higher and more prominent than what they have seen among previously resettled refugee populations (Hoffman et al. 2018; Hodes 2019). Its effects are lifelong and damaging, and if left untreated, they might be passed along to the next generation (Bourque, van der Ven, and Malla 2011). It is not surprising, then, that the effect of refugee children’s and youths’ exposure to war and conflict on their psychological well-being is also common among the Yazidi. For instance, trauma and perceived social rejection are common among Yazidi women and girls who survived enslavement and genocide. It becomes difficult for such a group to integrate well in any host country because of the state of their mental health.
A study in 2017 on refugees arriving in Canada reflects some of the mental health conditions of parents with young children (Wilkinson and Ponka 2017). It notes how during resettlement, the burden of caring for traumatized family members and their children falls on those who have fewer mental health problems. Similarly, another study shows that taking sole responsibility for traumatized family members creates depression and delays the overall integration process among other members of the family (Bjørneseth, Smidt, and Stachowski 2019). Although it is a common belief that refugees have more physical and mental health issues given the precarious situations they face before entering the host societies, the “majority of mental health problems among the newcomer population occur after their arrival and because of the uncertainties in the settlement process” (Wilkinson and Ponka 2017, 90).
Methodology
The research for the present study was conducted among the recently resettled Yazidi refugee populations living in Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, and London, the four cities where the largest populations of Yazidi resettled in Canada. A more detailed description of the methodology can be found in Wilkinson et al. (2019).
The Yazidi have been largely excluded from formal education in the countries in which they live. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR 2019), only 65 percent of Yazidi refugees are currently attending school. A majority of the Yazidi have not had the opportunity to attend or complete school in Iraq (IRCC 2017; Oliphant 2018). Given that school in Iraq is conducted in Arabic, a language most Yazidi do not commonly speak, it is not surprising that language and education levels are low among this population (Wilkinson et al. 2019). It is for these reasons that the researchers, in consultation with an advisory team of experts, decided against a survey and in favour of a more in-depth semi-structured interview.
The research team devised a draft interview guide that included the following themes: employment, childcare, wayfinding, housing, language, and the use of settlement services. Overlapping all these themes are the overarching issues of mental health and trauma. No aspect of the resettlement journey can be understood unless viewed through a trauma lens. Trauma is interwoven into all aspects of the integration process, so our discussion of challenges in finding a job, caring for children, wayfinding, and language/interpretation must be understood with this central concept in mind.
The advisory committee contributed to the development of the list of themes, the interview guide, and the analysis. The study was financially sponsored by Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada–Prairie and Northern Territories Region (IRCC-PNT). IRCC-PNT was represented on the advisory committee and was joined by settlement organizations from across Canada and by members of the Yazidi community already living in Canada.1
Although we used an interview guide, the last part of the interviews consisted of discussion and topics as suggested by the participants. A question at the end allowed the Yazidi to add more information if they liked. We expected that some of the Yazidi might have wanted to share their experiences at this time. We were surprised when all the participants shared their stories of pre-arrival trauma unprompted. This gave the research team valuable information about how trauma affected their integration experiences and how this affected their families. The resulting final report (Wilkinson et al. 2019) has been used by the government and settlement organizations to reorganize existing practices and introduce new ones.
The information we collected was from parents or guardians. The Psychology/Sociology Research Ethics Board at the University of Manitoba reviewed the study recruitment and methodological protocols and granted permission for the team to conduct the study. All identified data was kept separate from the interview materials and kept on a password-protected, encrypted computer. We endeavoured to keep the identities of the Yazidi participants confidential, so there were places where we purposely did not provide certain demographic or geographic characteristics. We gave each participant a Yazidi name as a pseudonym.
All interviews were conducted in Kurmanji, the primary language spoken by the Yazidi. Given that most of the people we interviewed had been in Canada for six months or less and none knew English or French, our selection of Kurmanji as the language for the interviews was our only option. We were aware of the cultural and political sensitivities of the Yazidi community, so we were careful to hire an interpreter who was not involved with political organizations or did not have leadership aspirations in any of the four study centers. The research team was very fortunate to identify a settlement service worker who was Yazidi herself, was fluent in Kurmanji, and did not live in one of the four selected cities. This proved to be a wise decision, as our participants commented to us that they felt at ease speaking to her and would often refer to her as “teacher,” a term of respect.
In March 2018, our Kurmanji-speaking interpreter visited all four cities and conducted thirty-six interviews, representing thirty-six distinct family units. The families and participants were identified by the Refugee Assistance Program funded by settlement service providers in each city. We ensured that a settlement service organization worker was on site to provide additional assistance should the participant experience trauma. We are pleased to report that no participant had to end the interview, but we did offer additional settlement assistance, as most of the participants had questions about the settlement process.
The process of translating the interview questions was conducted by a different Kurmanji speaker than the interviewer. The first version of the interview guide was then back translated by a third Kurmanji-speaking individual not connected with the project. This allowed us to check the consistency of the first translation. The transcripts were created first in Kurmanji, then translated to English. We took a sample of recorded interviews and had a second Kurmanji speaker listen to them and conduct a back translation—to ensure that the transcriptions were correct. We were extremely lucky to locate three Kurmanji-speaking individuals who were able to do this valuable translating work. Given the small population of more established Kurmanji speakers and the very high need for their services in the settlement organizations at that time, it was difficult for us to locate good translators.
Before detailing the findings, it is important to note the marital status of some of our participants. When we asked the women if they were married, all indicated that they were. However, it was clear throughout the interviews that most of their partners were not in Canada. When we asked about this, most of the women who indicated they were “married” actually did not know the whereabouts of their partners. We did not want to “pry,” but it became clear through the information they graciously shared with the team that their partners had “disappeared,” having been presumably kidnapped by Daesh. Since the women had heard nothing about the health and well-being of their partners and could not presume that they were dead, they described themselves as “married,” a condition that the research team could not question. As a result, most of the women indicating they were married were actually in Canada alone and were hoping they would hear positive news about their partners someday.
Findings
The consequence of refugee trauma on children after they have been resettled is a varied and intricate matter that involves several aspects of their lives. Refugee children can experience substantial psychological, emotional, and social impacts as a result of forced migration, exposure to violence, displacement from their homes, and the difficulties of adjusting to a new environment. The following section discusses some of the major findings from our study reflecting how trauma among refugee parents impacts the overall integration of their children within Canadian society. The integration process of Yazidi women was particularly challenging compared to other refugee groups as a result of a mix of factors, including inadequate education or lack thereof in Iraq, the severe trauma inflicted upon them by Daesh, and the uncertainty surrounding their partners and children left behind in Iraq.
Finding Employment: Mental Health and Trauma Challenges
The challenge of coping with one’s own trauma, in addition to integrating into a new society, can be overwhelming for caregivers. As mentioned above, those without mental health problems are often charged with assisting multiple family members overcome their trauma and loss at the same time as guiding their family through the integration process. This has damaging effects on the integration experience of the family members who must undertake this additional burden.
Battal is a father of five living in Toronto. He told us about the effect the trauma inflicted upon his family members has had on his ability to participate in essential language classes and to seek employment:
I am not able to take any classes, my wife is sick, I must take care of the children, and I am also responsible for her mother and her three kids. It’s very hard for me to go to school; my wife has a mental illness and has episodes of blacking out, even the cooking I am doing alone. At this point, my focus is to get help for my family and make sure my wife’s sickness is dealt with.
Interviewer: Are you willing to work anytime soon?
Yes, I would love to work, but like I said, I am responsible for the kids, my wife, and her mother and her three children. I am unable to leave them for a moment. Otherwise sitting in the house for anyone is bad. It makes you depressed and sad, and basically, you don’t even feel like a human being after a while. —Battal
Sadly, Battal’s situation is far from unique. Single parents, especially single female-headed families, face more challenges during resettlement, as Dema told us in the next paragraph. They need assistance on many measures, largely coming from male members from within their localities, to help them navigate through different resettlement resources in Canada.
How Trauma Influences Care for Children
As a result of a lack of need-based support during the resettlement process, families undergo more stress because of their past and current situation. Dema, a married mother of four, shared with us how her mental state prevents her from caring for her children:
I have mental problems. I am not even able to take my daughter to school. And no, I haven’t gone to school. I don’t even know how to write my name. I haven’t taken any classes, and I am not able to go to school because of my depression. I pass out and am unable to use the public transportations. When I found my house, I never had an interpreter. How is it that I am not able to get someone? The schools are far from me. I am not even able to walk my child to school; it’s far. There is nothing we can do about buying a vehicle. I have a sister who’s eleven years old; they [Canada Child Benefit] haven’t even released her funds yet. I have asked the agency to get me an interpreter for the doctor’s appointment, as I am unable to talk over the phone, and I am unable to eat properly. I’ve been forced to buy my own medication. I am tired of life, my head hurts, and Daesh has stricken me in the head several times. I’ve been asking for X-rays; nobody seems to be listening to me. —Dema
Parents with high levels of trauma find it difficult to take care of the needs of their own children and depend on others for help. Parental trauma therefore affects the health of children post-resettlement. In speaking about the problems she experiences accessing health care for herself and her children, Amira, a widowed mother of three, told us the following:
Interviewer: What happens if you have a problem with your health? Has anyone provided you with any information?
Participant: I have a child with Down’s syndrome, and my child needs help. I don’t know how to obtain help for my child. And no one has provided me with any information. I am always buying diapers for my daughter with Down’s syndrome. I buy diapers for her that cost me CAD 30–40. She is unable to let me know she needs to use the washroom, so she just wets herself. —Amira
Because they are engrossed with caring for all their family members, the efforts of the main caregivers to integrate are often left aside. They cannot attend English-language classes because of mental health issues, and they are often entirely dependent on other Yazidi members from their communities to help them navigate the system, at least until they speak English. This dependency is not only because of their trauma but also because of the unavailability of settlement workers who speak Kurmanji. At the beginning of the project, the few Kurmanji-speaking settlement workers who were available to work faced enormous pressure and workloads. As a result, it was practically impossible to expect them to provide one-on-one attention to these families even though there was a significant need for this service. This scarcity of settlement workers not only makes the parents suffer but also affects the well-being of the children within these families.
Lack of Translation/Interpretation Services: Impacts on Integration
The process of recovering from trauma thus has effects on both survivors and their families or caregivers. Trauma makes it difficult for survivors and their family members to perform simple day-to-day activities, such as travelling to medical appointments, attending parent-teacher meetings, translating, reading, and interpreting official letters, among many other day-to-day tasks. Adults without family in Canada often approach their neighbours, mostly belonging to the Yazidi community, for help. Sadly, many of the Yazidi in Canada are already struggling. Some lack a good grasp of the English language and have difficulty understanding important letters or verbal sources of resettlement information. In one incident reported by a participant, a mother received a medical letter in English and asked a neighbour to translate. The translation given to her was that her youngest child had cancer. This participant was so distraught that she showed the original letter to our Kurmanji-speaking interviewer during the interview that took place approximately eight weeks later. The letter had been misinterpreted. The child did not have cancer, and there was no medical follow-up necessary. The community member who translated the letter misinterpreted the information, which caused additional distress to the mother. When we inquired why she did not approach the settlement center for an official translation of the letter, she mentioned that the only Kurmanji-speaking settlement worker was busy with other clients, and she had to depend on her community members for all these day-to-day needs. At the end of the interview, we ensured that this incident was reported to the settlement service organization, and they are now providing this family with additional translation assistance.
Wayfinding may be difficult for many refugees, as most lack proficiency in English or French. Many single female-headed families require constant company for wayfinding as well as communicating with others. Manal, a married mother of six, talked about how living with trauma and her inability to navigate her new environment using English make it difficult to care for her traumatized daughter who needs urgent health care:
I don’t know anywhere. I am always sick. My daughter is always sick and passes out from the trauma she experienced while in captivity by Daesh [ISIS]. My experience in getting health care is not the problem. My problem is I don’t know how to get to my appointments without help. My daughter is impacted the most by what happened in the camps and hasn’t received any emotional or physiological help. I need someone to be able to direct me and tell me what to do. We need the right interpreter present. —Manal
When asked further about who would be “the right interpreter,” Manal had a strong preference for a female. This opinion was shared widely by the participants. Many of the families only felt comfortable sharing their experiences with a female, especially given the sexually based torture they endured and the need for mental health assistance that required that some details be divulged.
The availability of interpreters was also a problem. There were very few qualified Kurmanji-English-speaking interpreters available at the time the Yazidi arrived in Canada. Furthermore, for those who have experienced trauma, learning a new language is much more difficult and overwhelming. And for the Yazidi who were largely deprived of formal education, learning a new language when they are functionally illiterate in their mother tongue is even more challenging. Despite being in Canada for eight months, Gesa, a married mother of five, mentioned how she schedules her appointments according to the availability of one of the community members who have assisted her and her family since their time of arrival. Gesa shared with us the difficulties that refugee parents encounter because they are unable to communicate with their children’s schoolteachers and how she depends on Uncle Zohan (a local Yazidi leader who speaks English; his name has been changed to protect his and Gesa’s anonymity) to help her:
Yes, we do need Uncle Zohan’s [name changed] help because my sister and her children are sick. We don’t know many people here. Daesh beat my sister’s older children; we had a complaint from the teacher because both would pee themselves because they are easily frightened by loud noises, like if someone becomes loud with them. When Uncle Zohan accompanied us to talk to the teachers, they said, “Sorry, we didn’t know,” but they suggested to put diapers on them, and that’s sorted now, thank God. —Gesa
Not only is it difficult for women with high levels of trauma to take care of themselves, but they are also unable to fulfil their children’s basic needs.
Families with both parents and children who have trauma may find it very difficult to navigate through the new system—mostly because of language barriers—and cannot negotiate their living situations. In this scenario, everyone in the Yazidi family requires constant help and attention. Single female-headed families with mothers and children all facing mental health issues are unable to take advantage of the different settlement resources provided during the resettlement process. Their judgment is clouded by their physical and mental health conditions, which makes their resettlement experiences negative. Saadia, a widow with four children, described her unhappiness after moving to Canada. For her family, their basement unit is a terrifying reminder of the conditions in which they were held captive under Daesh:
We currently live in a two-bedroom basement apartment. No, I am not happy there. It’s expensive; we pay CAD 1,500 a month for rent, then we pay for electric and heat and water separately. If we are able to find a better place for that price, we will definitely move. My oldest son’s school is very far for him. Like I said, he’s not feeling well; he takes six medications a day to maintain himself. He was in captivity for two years. I would only see him once a month for a few hours, and they would take him away from me again. —Saadia
She could not remember the names of any refugee assistance centers, nor did she know about the 911 emergency number, despite living in Canada for eight months. She told us that she was mentally, emotionally, and physically abused and was still waiting to see a mental health professional. She also explained that she could not get doctor’s appointments for her son for follow-up visits, as she had no transportation and not enough English for her to navigate the bus. Our interviewer reported that Saadia needed to see a counsellor, as she mentioned how she could not sleep at night and got continuous flashbacks of her traumatic experiences back home. At the conclusion of the interview, we directed the onsite service provider to make arrangements for Saadia to receive additional care.
Like Saadia, there were a few other refugee women who mentioned the problem of delayed appointments with various medical professionals because of the lack of interpreter availability. This delay with medical treatments lengthens the overall integration process, as women having mental health issues are unable to learn the language and look for jobs within the host society while dealing with health considerations. Language learning, additional schooling, and jobs come later, as Amal, a widow with six children, told us:
I need to take care of my health problems first. Yes, I would join English-language classes once my health issues are taken care of and I am not so emotional. Like I said, we have seen too much with our bare eyes; we have seen people die in front of us. It’s all taking a toll on the mind. The health care is too slow. It takes forever for us to be seen. Yes, my sisters have. They speak Arabic. Our interpreter is Arabic, so they talk to my sisters, and they interpret for me. And nothing is done; they’re too slow. —Amal
Trauma and Learning a New Language
Trauma makes it more difficult to learn new skills as well as keep that knowledge for long. As Gesa, whose husband has “disappeared,” indicated, it is more difficult to learn a new language for those who have had traumatic experiences in the past:
When I first arrived, things were very hard for me. I am sick still. Daesh caused injuries to my head, and honestly, I am unable to process the language as fast as I had hoped or wanted to, but I am going to specialists. Maybe they will do further tests to help me. —Gesa
Sometimes, the presence of small children prevents women from attending language classes, as Zheyan, a married mother of four children, told us:
The agency notified us about EAL [English as an additional language], and they gave us a literacy test and put my name on a waiting list. They’ve notified my husband, but he hasn’t been able to go to school either because of his poor health.
I also asked Imran [name changed] why isn’t my name coming up to go to school. He replied, saying, “Your children are very young. That’s why.” I do have problems with processing English because of all the hardships we went through back home. My memory isn’t so good. I have depression and anxiety. I saw my brother die buried under the house they were building. I am not attending school now, as my children are very young. Since I have been in Canada, I only attended school for one month. I have not been going to school, as I have young children and I have to breastfeed. —Zheyan
Some Yazidi were able to attend language classes despite dealing with trauma. They reported to us that learning is very difficult when they are in distress, and this affects their ability to retain information taught in class. Manal, a mother of six whose husband was still under Daesh captivity, told us the following:
Yes, I am going to English-language classes, but it’s hard for me to concentrate. You are aware of all that has happened to us. I am still thinking about those who are still in captivity; my two daughters, my husband, and my brother are still in captivity. No matter how much we’re told, nothing is able to be processed. My thoughts are always with them. I am at level 0 at school right now. —Manal
Separation from family or not knowing what has happened to family members who have “disappeared” makes it extremely difficult to learn a new language. Like Manal, Sajda struggled with learning English and adapting to a new homeland, knowing that her five children remained unsafe in Iraq:
Yes, it’s hard for me to communicate with my neighbours. They don’t come visit, and I don’t go visit because we can’t understand each other. I am attending [language classes] four days a week. And no, I can’t be going full time. I must meet my son at his school bus drop-off; otherwise, he won’t be able to get off the bus, and with all my stress and health issues, it wouldn’t be good for me right now. I am still in English classes; my progress isn’t so good. Like I told you before, I lost my son and my husband, and I have also left five more children in the Iraq Kurdistan region with my father and mother. I am not able to process things well because I am always thinking about them. —Sajeda
Khalida, who was widowed with five children, also had difficulty adjusting to her new life in Canada. She constantly relived the trauma of losing her family and had just learned that one of her children had been released by Daesh but was still stuck in Iraq, while another child was still a captive. She explained that she was sick and that when having to deal with the uncertainty of her two remaining children in Iraq, it was difficult for her to integrate into her new home in Canada:
No, I am not getting better, it seems. I was struck by a car while fleeing for safety. I was in captivity locked away for almost two and a half years. I am not well mentally. I was barely given a chance to see the light of the sun. My entire family was killed by Daesh. I am grateful to the Canadian government. They [Daesh] returned one of my sons recently, but my older son is still in captivity. I haven’t heard back from him at all. It’s hard to process information while you’re under so much pressure and stress, worrying about my family and relatives and friends, knowing that most of them were killed by Daesh—some in front of you and others behind you. Yes, I would like to take care of my kids, but I need to learn the language, and when I went to welfare, they told me I am not able to work because of my children and my illness, so I am not sure what else I can do, but I will continue going to school. I want to be able to deal with my illness, then continue to learn the language and take care of my children. I am all they have, and they are all I have. —Khalida
In summary, the combination of poor or no schooling in Iraq, the brutality of the trauma inflicted upon them by Daesh, and the uncertainty about their partners and children left behind in Iraq made the initial integration process of the Yazidi women more difficult than for other refugee groups.
Discussion
In this study, all refugee adults, children, and youth have experienced prolonged and continuous separation from their immediate families. They have experienced and witnessed torture and other forms of violence, including murder, malnutrition, physical assault, and rape prior to their arrival in Canada. These events make it more challenging for young refugees and their families to successfully integrate into their host countries. Our findings support research studies by Kaplan and colleagues (2016) and Akthar (2017) indicating that pre-flight conflict and war have a significant influence on the traumatic experiences of refugee children and youth. According to Akthar (2017), the effect of trauma can undermine an individual’s belief of how life unfolds, especially for children, as they are in the early stages of life.
According to our findings, trauma deeply affected the individuals’ ability to learn a new language and integrate into their new societies, as was mentioned by many mothers in our study. Learning a new language is difficult for those who have no or little formal schooling in their mother tongue (Cummins 2001; Merisuo-Storm 2007). Some of the Yazidi we interviewed had never attended school, while most others had education that ended prior to high school (IRCC 2017), which is typical of some refugees (Provencher et al. 2017). Learning a new language, especially when it involves an entirely new alphabet and language structure, can pose challenges, as languages can differ in components such as the sounds of letters and rules by which sentences are constructed (Farran, Bingham, and Matthews 2012). This was also evident from our study. We characterized the participants in our study as functionally illiterate. According to UNESCO (1978, 183), “A person is functionally illiterate who cannot engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning of his group and community and also for enabling him to continue to use reading, writing, and calculation for his own and the community’s development.” Because the Iraqi government, followed by Daesh, made it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Yazidi to attend school, their education as a community greatly suffered before they came to Canada. The fact that they were denied an education has made learning a new language even more difficult.
The fact that mothers, but occasionally other adults and young people, were often ill upon and after their arrival also makes it difficult for families to recover and integrate into their new societies. Often, the caregiver must put aside their own health issues, language learning, and job training to prioritize the health of children and teens. Yet by putting aside their own health and language training, the suffering of the entire family is prolonged. Without English-language skills, the family may find it difficult to navigate the public transportation system, meaning missed appointments with medical professionals. It also means increased dependency upon the few fully trained Kurmanji/English translators who work for settlement service providers or who volunteer with the community. Some of these volunteers are overwhelmed by requests for help, and their own health suffers as well.
It is not easy to adjust to a new life post-resettlement (Kirova 2019). As with the participants in this study, for refugee families with children of school age, the difficulties of resettlement might be magnified, since many of them have suffered trauma prior to migrating, such as “mass violence, living in extreme poverty, spending extended periods of time in refugee camps, etc.” (1). No matter what direction a family chooses to take in their resettlement, the educational and psychological results of the children are profoundly affected by the parents’ and caregivers’ own pre-migration experiences (Kirova 2019; Chettleburgh 2008; Loewen 2003) and post-migration conditions. In addition to the effects of parental trauma on the children, the cognitive effects of complex trauma experienced by the refugee children themselves may have a significant impact on their academic performance (Tweedie et al. 2017). Adolescents who have spent their whole lives in continual danger and had their attention, energy, and resources focused only on survival may have trouble focusing their thoughts. Adolescents who have complex trauma may be hypersensitive to noises, touch, and light as a consequence of their over-responses to sensory stimuli as they developed when they were young. Children who have fled persecution may show the physiological consequences of tremendous stress when confronted with what is considered normal stress in a Canadian school, even sometimes “shutting down” completely (Tweedie et al. 2017; Downey 2008). In some Canadian classrooms, there are teachers who recognize their lack of trauma-informed teaching practices and refuse to accept a “deficit” perspective, either of refugee children as students or of themselves as educators. Unfortunately, trauma-informed educational practices are difficult to access, as they are not normally part of many educators’ training (Stewart et al. 2019). Compulsory trauma-informed training should be part of pre-service teacher education programs.
Robertson and her colleagues (2006) find that families with more children take longer to fully integrate into Canadian society. Our study cannot confirm or deny this. Intuitively, however, it is easier to manage the integration, schooling, and language learning of a smaller rather than a larger number of family members. Extreme trauma experiences and the absence of missing family members further exacerbate the integration conditions of children and youth. While our research was not able to quantify the effects of trauma on any aspect of integration, we observed, based on our years of experience working with other refugee groups, that the extreme conditions experienced by Yazidi refugees appear to make it more difficult for them to integrate in a healthy, timely fashion. The fact that extreme trauma is experienced by mothers supports the findings of Bjørneseth and her colleagues (2019), who show that the burden of caring in the aftermath generally falls upon mothers. In the case of Yazidi refugees in Canada, however, not all these caregivers are female, so we would temper this observation with one that indicates that the burden of care tends to fall upon the caregiver who is most resilient to previous trauma. But the burden of care often means that the caregiver is the last person in the family to receive valuable integration and language training. In short, efforts to help newly arrived refugee families integrate should pay some attention to providing support to caregivers.
Often, the translation needs of trauma survivors are immediate, as in the incident where the mother was wrongly informed about the cancer diagnosis of her child. When they have to rely on other Yazidi members of the community for translation assistance, who themselves may have poor English-language skills, the results of inaccurate translations can be disastrous and induce additional stress. In addition to the availability of the interpreter, the person doing the translation must have the appropriate credentials for the job. This means having more than just a background in translation. Experience working in the refugee resettlement sector is key to understanding the context in which the families live and how they ask for assistance. In the case of the family with a child with Down’s syndrome, having a settlement worker who understood that this family needed additional health and homecare support as well as additional financial considerations was important. Involving a team of educators, psychologists, and physicians in developing an individual learning plan for a child with special needs is key to that child’s success in school. Trauma-informed practices require an understanding of how previous trauma can affect this family’s integration experience. In summary, translation and interpretation must be paired with a specialized knowledge of human development as well as the role of resettlement services; otherwise, misunderstandings are more likely to occur.
Interpreters were needed in various environments but were not the only support necessary. Some caregivers could not attend school meetings because they were ill, they could not speak English or find a translator, or their family required additional social support. In short, the availability of interpreters was not the only problem. There needed to be a whole family support system available that could assist these families in multiple ways. Schools and other educational institutions must play a role in supporting refugee families so that the children in severely traumatized refugee families can thrive in various school contexts.
Conclusion
The Yazidi arriving in Canada represent a new type of refugee: sadly, one that will become more common as world conflicts arise more abruptly and war tactics become more brutalizing. They were resettled in Canada very quickly—some in a matter of weeks after their release from Daesh captivity. The “speed” at which they were brought to Canada and the brutal kidnapping and torture they faced have meant that mental health professionals, settlement service providers, and others who care for this population have witnessed acute trauma in ways that have not been experienced by many previously arriving refugees. Given the tactics of war and terrorism predominant in the twenty-first century, we are likely to witness more and more extremely traumatized refugee families.
So how can service providers such as settlement workers, school personnel, refugee support groups, and Canadian society at large better prepare for future emergency arrivals? In addition to providing more support to the families’ primary caregivers, we can provide more one-on-one assistance in order to meet their settlement needs, including the educational needs of highly traumatized refugees and of children among refugee families, hence the need for education cultural brokers available in schools where there are traumatized refugees. This means substantial planning and investment prior to their arrival. Right now, there is a shortage of settlement service workers and qualified translators and interpreters. One of the reasons is that they are underpaid and work for community organizations that must rely on year-to-year funding, so there is little job security. While IRCC has increased its funding of agencies from three to five years, settlement organizations remain financially precarious and unstable. These are unattractive features for those future workers with the skills needed to become successful settlement workers and education brokers, especially introducing the latter in areas that do not have this type of assistance for children and youth. Counselling and support services, including guidance counsellors, should be culturally sensitive and knowledgeable about the experiences of refugee children, adolescents, and their families to better provide individualized support. The Settlement Worker in Schools (SWIS) program offers assistance to refugee and immigrant newcomer kids, as well as their parents and families, with the purpose of facilitating their integration into society, but not all schools have SWIS, hence the need to fund more such support services in schools. The current availability of professional training, which has recently emerged, should be supported by increased and continuous funding in this crucial area.
Obviously, there are gaps in addressing mental health issues within the larger Canadian health care system. These gaps are primarily discussed regarding mental health and all Canadians, but the problems with servicing refugees, particularly young refugees, are more difficult to address. Certainly, there is a need for mental health practitioners to speak the language of refugees or train interpreters from a cultural perspective to assist practitioners in working with refugees. Having training on refugee trauma may also assist some of the mental health workers in the work they do. Like settlement service providers, there are not enough experts for assistance, so refugee families wait a long time after their arrival before they become eligible to receive services. In addition, there is also a need for staff in schools trained on the best trauma-informed practices and how to handle issues relating to traumatized refugee children in schools.
The time between becoming eligible for services and actually receiving services is also a problem. It is often an “expectation” that the refugee families immediately enroll in a language class or meet with a teacher upon their arrival in Canada. For many traumatized families, that is not possible. Yet there is a clock ticking: refugees are only eligible for most services for three years after arrival. For many Yazidi, three years is not long enough considering that they must deal with their health problems before they can embark on language learning or finding a job. For extremely traumatized refugees, it may take many months before they are healthy enough to learn a new language.
The number of refugees worldwide is growing. In 2015, 19.5 million refugees were looking for a safe place to live. By 2020, that number was 26.4 million (UNHCR 2019). The refugee population is also young; 60 percent of refugees arrive in their new host countries on or before their twenty-ninth birthdays. This means that educational institutions will become a major site for the integration and resettlement of a large number of newcomer families. Given the extreme tactics used by militias and terrorists, we can only expect that the levels of trauma experienced by young refugees and their families arriving in the future will be severe and widespread. This means that the Yazidi are the first of many who will be arriving in Canada under more challenging circumstances, and these investments are worthwhile from a future planning and human rights perspective. In mid-2021, the Liberal government announced that it would be accepting the resettlement of at least twenty thousand Afghan nationals to Canada as part of their emergency evacuation after the Taliban takeover of the country (IRCC 2021). Like the Yazidi, they too will have very little time between their initial displacement and their resettlement in Canada. There is reason to expect that these emergency-type evacuations will continue into the twenty-first century, which means that large numbers of future refugees to Canada will be arriving with acute trauma needs that the settlement community and Canadian society must acknowledge and treat.
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1 Funding for this project was received from Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada–Prairies and Northern Territories Region. Support from an advisory committee composed of settlement service providers in the four study cities is also gratefully acknowledged. Aryan Ghasemiyani and Khosrow Hakimzadeh provided translation support.
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