France
In France, gender perspective and inclusive approach become more and more important in the social services supporting migrant women. They can seek for aid from different kinds of services operated either by public services or by NGOs and associations, where their participation is considered as a key factor for the efficiency of the actions and for the empowerment of women.
For more than twenty years, social, medico-social and health policies have set themselves the objective of placing the person or his/her family in a position of decision-making on all the projects and devices that concern them, in order to make them the subjects rather than the objects of social and medical interventions. This major evolution of public policies has been based on the "social participation model" which claims to make every individual, including the disadvantaged, an actor of his own life as well as of the social body. The law of January 2, 2002 renovating social and medico-social action is a good illustration. It is based on the principle that social and medico-social services must be a means of developing the opportunities, autonomy and social participation of all members of society, so that they have the same chances of belonging to and participating in community life, regardless of their social particularities or disabilities.
More attention is being paid to the violence and abuse to which migrant women are highly exposed. Specific actions and services are provided for migrant women in legal assistance, emergency shelter, housing, health care, psychological support, training for integration into the labor market, etc. Policies tend to facilitate the integration of migrant women that are a victim of violence related to their gender, origin, religion, or migratory situation. In November 2021, the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin recommended strongly the regularization of migrant women who are victims of violence. However, these protections and promotions could produce a perverted effect where the victimization could be a strategy to obtain access in the areas where its admission is denied to certain migrant women for different reasons (ex. In overflowed social services where the priorities are given to victims of violence or single mothers with under-aged children).
Access to public social services by migrant women could be unequal and limited under conditions of their legal status, employment situation, family, and childcare needs. Most of the social services are still based on the family reunification model where the access of migrant women is often linked to their motherhood role or as a dependent to their partner, while an increasing number of migrant women arrive in France alone for their emancipation and personal and professional achievements.
It’s quite often to see migrants entering into certain areas of society but being denied admission into others. The complex administrative and bureaucratic procedures contribute to the regulation of migrants who should afford much more effort to stay than just arriving in the host country. These procedures can also be a tool to justify the differential access of migrants to limited social services, such as public social housing in the metropole (ex. Paris) or health care or other services saturated especially in the context of budgetary pressures (ex. Services of offering a post address for homeless people). Furthermore, the documented – undocumented continuum situation of certain migrant women makes more complex their access to social services and could engender the breach of access to their rights.
References
Conceptualising the Role of Deservingness in Migrants’ Access to Social Services. http://doi:10.1017/S1474746421000117
This article analyzes the role of deservingness in the migrants’ access to social services. It points out how the migration control is implemented in the post-entry by limiting and conditioning their access to social services.
Immigrants in France: A female majority
https://doi.org/10.3917/popsoc.502.0001
This study confirms the feminization of immigration in France, where female migrant is no longer those who migrate to join their partner. More and more migrant women migrate for their emancipation and achievements.