‘Why do they call us refugees?’ A label that erases girls’ stories in Ugandan classrooms

In this blog based on her fieldwork in Uganda, Winnie Nakatudde shares the voices of young urban refugee girls who question the labels placed on them. She shows how the term ‘refugee’ can erase stories, stigmatise in classrooms, and disrupt learning, while the girls themselves reveal resilience, agency, and hope.

Between May and July 2025, I embarked on my exploratory fieldwork in Kakoba town, Mbarara city, Uganda. I focused on the journeys and experiences of urban refugee girls in primary school, whose schooling is often more disrupted than that of boys (as becomes clear in this report from the Uganda Ministry of Education and Sports, page 18).

When I arrived, all pupils in Uganda were still on holiday, it was only one week before they returned. I made most of that week conducting a community mapping exercise. The community defence officer for directions, safety, and coordination guided me to several households and schools, which I narrowed down to one primary school. I visited the school and my informants’ (the refugee girls’) households following classroom and out-of-classroom hours, which gave me time to build relationships with both the girls and their guardians. The school has mostly refugees from Congo and Somalia, whom I put my focus on as well. Given the sensitivity of the girls’ stories, I made sure that I obtained the necessary ethical approval from UNCST and sought consent from the guardians of my participants. Additionally, participation was voluntary and built a lot more on trust, ensuring that the girls felt comfortable sharing only what they wanted.

A label that is useful nor desirable
‘Why do they call us refugees?’ — A question from informants in a primary school in Kakoba, eager to know, guided my narrative in an interesting direction.

While interacting with the girls and trying to familiarise myself with the school environment, I had small casual conversations with them under the trees, in the playgrounds, in classrooms, at the canteen, and in the kitchen. The question that kept coming up – of doubting identity among these young girls – reshaped how I viewed my fieldwork. In camps, ‘refugeeness’ (see this article by Kallio, Häkli & Pascucci, 2019) could be both a protective legal status and a moral condition. In contrast, town refugeeness is seen as a stigmatising label that made the girls ‘feel bad’ and ‘ashamed or embarrassed’.

Refugeeness in the humanitarian language is used to refer to people who have fled their countries to escape from the danger caused by conflicts, and need security. This is a protective status for refugees in camps who are under the protection of international organisations like UNHCR. These organisations, through the Office of the Prime Minister, are a source of legal protection and material assistance. While interacting with respondents, it seems like the international organisations play little to no role in the lives of town refugees. This is why they do not like to be called or referred to as ‘refugees’. The status in this context is not useful and not desirable, because once the respondents are out of the settlement, their benefits are cut off.

When the girls asked me what the definition of a refugee is, I did not want to give a fixed answer, so I asked them what the word meant to them. One response from a Somali girl depicted the emotional trauma that the label brought to her mind. She said, ‘people think I am different, that I am rude and like to fight all the time’. This made her feel unwanted by her fellow classmates in the school. The teary eyes and sad face during the conversation told it all, which indicated the undesirability of the label in the school environment. A Burundian girl responded to the question differently, reflecting her feelings about what others thought of her. She said, ‘they call me an empungyi, which means: a person who has no origin, encroaching the Ugandan land….’ ‘All I want to be is a normal child like others, without being called empungyi’. These narratives shed light on the deeper emotional and social implications of labelling to human beings.

Stigmatisation in classrooms
Young refugee girls having to carry the weight of being seen as the ‘other’ in urban Ugandan classrooms is a hard reality that occupies a complex component of their identity. The fragility that comes with the term makes it difficult for them to exercise agency for their survival. While Ugandan refugee policies are progressive, and refugees are generally well received by locals, young refugees experience high levels of discrimination because of their ethnicity and religion. They are stereotyped as violent and face continual xenophobic discrimination and abuse. These experiences are felt especially strongly by refugee girls from Islamic countries, like Somalia. These girls prefer to join Muslim-founded schools where they attend extra classes or what they call madrasas (Islamic teachings), in addition to regular schooling. This helps to strengthen community ties among themselves, but at the same time contributes to their isolation from other communities. This social isolation is also caused by the fact that they are called names like ‘Mucongo’(Congolese), ‘Musomaali’ (Somali), ‘Munyarwanda’ (Rwandese), among others, based on their origin and skin colour. Sometimes they are even called names of countries where they do not come from, just because their skin tone is like people from that specific country. To them (refugee girls), it generally means: someone who is very poor, has failed, and is traumatised.

’….my classmates also call me a Somali yet I come from Congo. Just because I am brown as the Somalis, they think I am from there. I do not like it when they do not call me by my name. And it's mostly boys who provoke me by calling me names….’ 

A primary three young girl told me how her classmates label her. This was indeed illustrated when one day I escorted her back home. As we walked and chatted, a group of ladies near her home loudly said to her: ‘Kazungu, welcome back from school’. Kazungu in Uganda is a local word that means: a brown or white person.

In school environments, these kinds of labels are potential barriers to participation in school activities, leadership, and friendships. For example, Somalis and Congolese sit under trees and play alone and not with others. In the conversations I had with them, they lamented that their classmates avoid playing with them because they think they are violent and use abusive language. Being both female and young, this stigma increases these girls’ vulnerability when navigating new societal challenges.

Disrupted learning trajectories
Despite being praised by international organisations as a generous host country with progressive policies, Uganda has also been criticised by scholars for applying practices that neglect refugees while attracting international donations and attention. Especially urban schools, unlike those in refugee settlements, often lack targeted support for refugee pupils, making it hard for them to even finish school. This has exposed these young girls to danger, uncovering a gap between policy and practice. School administrators have expressed their concerns to non-governmental organisations in a plea for assistance for the students who struggle to pay school dues and feeding; however, there has not been any response, retorting that they should join their fellows in the congested settlements.

Some girls cited language barriers, trauma, or delayed enrolment after arriving in Uganda. Others mentioned economic struggles: the inability to afford school materials, uniforms, or lunch. These challenges result in frequent absenteeism, poor performance, or early dropouts - what I call ‘disrupted learning trajectories’. These educational interruptions are not just technical challenges, but are psychological. The feeling of ‘not belonging’ within the school system gnaws at their academic confidence and dreams.

Rethinking the label
While much attention is given to the vulnerabilities of refugee girls, less is said about their agency, creativity, and resistance. These girls are not passive recipients of support; they are navigators of social landscapes, co-creators of their futures, and often caretakers for siblings at home. Most of my informants lived with aunties, grandparents, or mothers - who did not have a formal job or a source of income - and yet they stayed in the town, with no benefits. These girls sometimes even live by themselves. Some informants help with their siblings’ welfare, and on top of that, attend school daily. This was aptly articulated by a Congolese girl who recounted how she goes to school on an empty stomach while ensuring that the siblings are fine:

‘I wake up early to prepare my brothers. I also make sure that we have leftovers from last night’s dinner for them to take to school…. For me, I fast and only eat in the evening when I go back home…because I am used to prayer fasting.’

In literature, there is a caution that top-down interventions tend to presuppose a condition of vulnerability that justifies misaligned policies. This narrow framing obscures the resilience and resourcefulness of forced migrants. In fact, many of the urban refugee girls I met were fluent in three or more languages, had ambitions to become doctors, and volunteered in church or community groups. By centering their voices and treating them as agents, not labels, we gain a more accurate and empowering picture of who refugee girls are.

Centre refugee girls’ voices!
In Uganda, the policy frameworks are in place, but the institutions responsible for refugee education do not listen to or empathise with refugee voices. We must move beyond labels and practice intentional inclusion. To do this, we need to foster conversations that centre refugee girls’ voices. My ethnographic research reveals not only what girls say, but also what the education system assumes about them. When interventions are done, a number of questions should cross our minds: What are the dangers of labelling? What are we doing to address the factors leading to the imposition of labels that shut down dreams, futures, and lived experiences of refugee children? As the Swahili proverb ‘kupiga dawa upepo’ (spraying in the wind) and the Luganda proverb ‘okusiwa ensaano ku mazzi’ (pouring flour into water) remind us, controlling a problem without a proper understanding of it - wasting valuable resources - leads to superficial results.

So, why are they called refugees? Because it's easier to work with categories than with people. But we must do better and listen to the girls’ voices first!

Photo credits: All photos: Winnie Nakatudde

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