Improving gender mainstreaming migration policies and sex-disaggregated data essential to promoting the rights of women migrants, say gender equality and migration experts

Experts and practitioners on gender equality and migration discussed the challenges facing women migrants and good practices to promote their rights at a side event organized by the OSCE Gender Section during the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw on 18 September 2018.

The moderator of the side event, OSCE Senior Gender Adviser Amarsanaa Darisuren introduced the topic highlighting that the OSCE and international commitments provide a framework for non-discrimination and combating trafficking in human beings.

Ambassador Luca Fratini, Deputy Head of the Mission of Italy to the OSCE, stated that migration is a priority area of the Italian Chair of the OSCE. He stressed the importance of data collection, including sex-disaggregated data, in order to develop evidence-based policies that take into account the needs of women migrants.

Anna Rostocka, the Head of the International Organization for Migration in Warsaw, explained that a person’s gender shapes all migration experiences: “Gender determines the reasons for migration, how people migrate, the networks they use and the resources they have available at the country of destination.”  Rostocka noted that focusing on women’s empowerment is just as important as combating discriminatory practices facing women migrants.

Anna Zobnina, representing the European Network of Women Migrants, called for the inclusion of women in the design of migration policies and programmes, from the highest political to the grassroots level.  As an organization representing women’s grassroot movements, Zobnina explained, the European Network of Women Migrants has found that the flow of refugees and migrants is in many ways driven by women and that gender inequality is an important root cause of migration.

Pablo Rojas Coppari of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) drew the participants’ attention to OSCE publications on gender-sensitive labour migration: “We often talk about the vulnerability of women, while it is the migration policies that put them in situations of vulnerability,” he stated.

The final speaker, Heidi Meinzolt, highlighted the specific challenges faced by women throughout the whole cycle of migration, stating that women are exposed to different threats when they are on the move and in the country of arrival. She pointed to the necessity of co-operation between decision-makers, institutions and civil society to promote and protect the rights of women migrants.

Participants in the event made several recommendations to the OSCE, including the suggestion to increase assistance to participating States in mainstreaming gender in migration policies; to ensure the protection of women is combined with their active and meaningful participation; to develop strategies which focus on women’s empowerment and capacity building; to establish comprehensive and effective partnerships between all stakeholders to combat trafficking in women and girls; to improve data collection in order to develop evidence-based policies that take into account needs of women; and to combat discriminatory migratory practices and increase understanding of how gender shapes migration patterns.