The WIDE+ project: “Strengthening Innovative Solutions to Protect Female Migrant and Refugee Rights” is an opportunity to share realities and strategies organized migrant women in Europe are dealing with, build stronger networks and create new knowledges.
The project’s latest publication – with input from one of International Women* Space’s co-founders, Jennifer Kamau, – provides innovative solutions and lessons learned from a transnational collaboration among national migrant feminist associations and groups across Europe. It provides inspirational and relevant examples of practices we have encountered and good practice we have developed in our joint project of migrant feminists and other feminists. The reports shows how it is possible to promote and protect the rights of migrant women, which includes refugee, undocumented and other women that have been on the move between countries.
This project lead to three main lessons that are elaborated in the report:
- There are many good examples of migrant feminist work that we can learn from. Learning transnationally gives us a completely new dimension.
- Building a transnational, migrant feminist movement in Europe is both needed and possible, and we can tell you how it can be done.
- We need many more opportunities to exchange our work at European level and migrant feminists need to be more often included in dialogue with politicians and media.
This collaboration came about through the joint project: “Strengthening Innovative Solutions to Protect Female Migrant and Refugee Rights”, that started at the beginning of 2018 and ended in November 2019. We worked together, coordinated by the European network WIDE+, with partners that included networks of local migrant groups, associations that provide services to migrant, refugee and trafficked women and girls, and associations with a mixed membership of migrant feminist and other internationally focused feminist groups. The national coordinators were: in Spain, Calala Fund, Mujeres con voz and Red de Mujeres Latinoamericanas y del Caribe en Espana (RED); in Serbia, Atina; in Denmark, K.U.L.U. –Women and Development; and in Sweden, GADIP.
“Migrant women are one of the most targeted groups by the ultra-right, in addition to institutional racism: what will states do about this?” –
Jennifer Kamau
Editors: Gea Meijers (chief editor), WIDE+; Gihan Hassanein; and Alison Whyte (proofreader),
with the contributions and support from:
- Cristina Reyna (the Netherlands), WIDE+;
- Silvina Monteros Obelar and Tatiana Retamozo (Spain), Red de Mujeres Latinoamericanas y del Caraibe en Espana (RED);
- Luciana Davies (Spain), Mujeres con Voz;
- María Palomares Arenas Cabral (Spain),
- Calala Fund; Ulla Björnberg and Nancy Contreras (Sweden), GADIP;
- Lejla Smajlovic (Sweden), Lex Femme;
- Jelena Hrnjak and Marijana Savic (Serbia), Atina; Janice G Førde,
- Lisbeth Vogensen and Ruth Ejdrup Olsen (Denmark), K.U.L.U. –Women and Development;
- Alyna C. Smith (Belgium), PICUM;
- Jennifer Kamau (Germany), International Women’s Space.
The editors want to thank all the participants, speakers and experts that shaped this project, which forms the basis of this publication.