Existing Limitations to Favor the Labor Inclusion Integration of Newly Arrived Migrant Women and Practical Recommendations for an Adequate Intervention of Professionals with a Gender Approach
In recent years, there has been progressive awareness in European institutions on the issue of professional integration of migrant women. In November 2008, the members of the European Union affirmed to promote women's rights, to fight against discrimination, and violence.
The gender approach in European policies
The European Lobby for Migrant Women (EWL) launched in June 2010 defines common positions and strategies as below:
- Promote equal treatment, rights and better integration of women in Europe;
- Contribute to the development of European policies that have a positive impact on women's lives;
- Encourage the dissemination of social policies and the implementation of actions aimed at women with specific needs;
- Represent the members of the network and lobby for the cause of migrant women;
- Support migrant women's organizations and movements through information and training activities.
The objective is to overcome the difficulties of access to employment for migrant women, particularly due to their diverse origins and to the lack of knowledge of the public employment service. On the other hand, newly arrived migrant women are more likely to suffer violence because of their precarious situation, it is important to implement actions of protection and promotion for their integration.
It is advisable to carry out awareness-raising actions for support professionals (social services, legal aid, etc.) in order to identify and recognize the skills of newly arrived migrant women.
Trainings could be provided with a gender perspective for the professionals or services operating in different fields (gender equality, work, training, rights, immigration and integration, fight against violence against women, etc.).
Mobilizing local actors (NGOs, associations, networks, etc.) to better inform migrant women as soon as possible after their arrival (e.g., access to rights, professional integration services, training opportunities, etc.) – early actions and long term investment. This can facilitate providing information directly to foreign women on the support measures available to help them find employment.
Policies should be implanted to facilitate the recognition of the skills and the access to employment of foreign women and to promote the participation of immigrant women in the knowledge-building, policy making work. A special policy could be very helpful in terms of financial guarantee and supports (e.g. universal income) for migrant women in the transition period: this guarantee allows migrant women to be independent and help them to escape from the exploitation and domination in various forms of formal or informal work, multiple dependencies on their family, controls and pressures from their group of belonging.
Networks and exchanges are necessary between support services, public policy makers, university researchers and migrant women. Thus we can have a better understand the situation of professional integration of women in general and foreign women in particular, for example by collecting European good practices and experiences.
The dissemination of research results on the professional integration of migrant women favors the deconstruction of the stereotypes that they are subjected to and could improve the orientation of women towards matching employment.
Online Resources
Jane Freedman, “Women, Migration and Activism in Europe”
https://journals.openedition.org/amnis/604?lang=en
This paper analyses how the gendered patterns on migration characterize the women’s situation in their integration into European societies. It shows how the women fight for their rights within these societies and struggled against the additional barriers they are encountering compared to men migrants: for example, those in the sphere of domestic and care work.
World bank, “The Long Shadow of Informality: Challenges and Policies”, 2021
https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/publication/informal-economy
This study analyzes the extent and correlates of informality and its implications for a durable economic recovery from the Covid crisis. It helps to understand the informal phenomenon in a global vision with both a quantitative and qualitative approche and recommandations of context-specific policies and actions.