This time last year we celebrated 100 years of International Women’s Day with the launch of our Comic Relief funded women’s project, Raising Refugee Women’s Voices. As we get ready for a busy 101st International Women’s Day this week, I’m amazed by what our project has achieved so far.
Celebrating our achievements
One of the indications of the impact our women’s project has had is how we’ll be celebrating International Women’s Day this year. Today, Fiona (our Women’s Community Development Worker), the Refugee Women’s Strategy Group (RWSG) and I are heading to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh to take part in the Engender National Conference. We are holding a workshop on women and asylum and talking to people about our work.
March is going to be an action-packed and exciting! This month we’re also:
- ‘raising the rooftops’ with refugee women in Sheffield;
- attending a reception at the Scottish Parliament with the Scottish Women’s Convention and;
- Networking with professionals working to improve the lives of asylum seeking women at the Red Cross conference in Manchester.
Refugee women raised their voices in 2011!
2011 has been an important and eventful year for the women’s project and the RWSG. Combining community development support for refugee women with our own policy and advocacy work, has been a successful approach.
Refugee women, represented by the RWSG made their voices heard in many different ways:
- from newspaper articles in the Herald and Scotsman;
- radio features on Real Radio and Radio Kilimanjar;
- on multi-agency forums such as the Glasgow Violence Against Women Partnership; and
- as keynote speakers at events such as our Annual Conference, attended by over 150 people.
Gaining local, national and international support
All this, coupled with the influencing work behind the scenes, has helped to secure the commitment of agencies in Scotland and beyond to improving a woman’s journey through the asylum process. Media coverage, opportunities to train service providers and the strengthening of links with partner organisations have all contributed to this.
Gender is now firmly on the agenda at a strategic level both in Scotland and the UK as a result of the combined impact of groups like RWSG in Scotland and our many partners across the UK. At an international level too, the strong message from our annual conference helped secure a public pledge from the UK Government to making our asylum system more sensitive to the needs of women at an important international meeting hosted by UNHCR in December.
2012 – Tackling issues and improving policy impacting asylum-seeking women
This year, we are focussing our sights on achieving real policy impact, with the RWSG lobbying hard on a number of important issues, including the barriers faced by refugee women on their journey to employment in Scotland. Their report, The Struggle to Contribute, was published in November and has been sent out to many agencies and organisations, including the Scottish Parliament Equal Opportunities Committee.
In 2012 we are also:
- tackling issues around interpreting provision
- improving access to mental health care for asylum seeking women
- responding to the UK Government about what it’s doing to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women under the UN CEDAW Convention
- working with the Scottish Government to review Scotland’s integration strategy
Another busy year ahead! But I’m looking forward to celebrating refugee and asylum seeking women’s contribution to Scotland.
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