Willkommen bei Integration e.V.

 

Immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Many women are exposed to violence and precarious work situations, to the sex trade, forced marriages and crimes of honour. It is important to emphasise the violence of employers, who sometimes confiscate women’s passports on arrival. They hence become completely dependent on their executioners. They are forced into marriages or to pay for marriages of convenience to have a hope of getting a legal stay permit. The sex trade and the exploitation of immigrants currently represent a source of illegal income in European cities. The problem particularly concerns our partner cities which have a considerable number of African and Eastern European women. One of the main difficulties in the fight for improving the situation of immigrant women is their invisibility, since they have no voice in decision making, no union representation, no associations or political party. The kind of violence connected to forced marriages, crimes of honour, human trafficking and blackmail by men for renewing or having access to stay permits, is therefore not well known by the European population or institutions.

 

The project RAPVITE aims to project a local integrated action plan model, allowing prevention and improvement to the situations of human trafficking, crimes of honour and forced marriages of African and Eastern European immigrant women currently living in the European Union.

 

This general objective can be broken down to four more specific objectives:

1. Support scientific knowledge on the realities of human trafficking, crimes of honour and forced marriages of African and Eastern European immigrant women currently living in the European Union.

2. Provide staff working as health and social workers, legal aid workers, school staff and youth workers with necessary skills to deal with and prevent situations of the above-mentioned violence.

3. Develop, try out and approve a local system for prevention and treatment of the problems of women who are victims of human trafficking, crimes of honour and forced marriages.

4. Develop, try out and approve non formal education tools for raising awareness on the subject with the local European population.

 

• ENQUIRY AND RESEARCH MONOGRAPHS : Initiating activity among 2500 African and Eastern European male and female immigrants in about twenty cities in a dozen European countries

• PROJECTING AND CREATING AN ACTION PLAN TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING, CRIMES OF HONOUR AND FORCED MARRIAGES:

- counselling service, host families, a guide to procedures, women mediators for door-to-door campaigning for immigrant women

- Training activity for health and social workers, local police officers, intercultural mediators, school principals and teachers

- Awareness raising campaign among classes in the partner cities, on the subject of human trafficking, forced marriages and crimes of honour. The activities will be carried out linking teachers and intercultural mediators with testimonies of women who have experienced similar situations.

- Setting up the plan: Door-to-door awareness raising campaign of immigrant women resident in the partner cities on these three types of violence, on ways of combating them, and knowledge of existing possibilities available in the area to help women victims.

 

This general objective can be broken down to four more specific objectives :

1. A mapping of images and opinions of 2500 immigrant African and Eastern Europeans on human trafficking, crimes of honour and forced marriages and a summary report for circulation will be drawn up.

2. A blended e-learning plus lectures training programme will be initiated, improving skills of professionals

3. Awareness campaign material will be available in high schools, in junior school and high school classes, on human trafficking, crimes of honour and forced marriages.

4. A multiparty integrated action plan to combat against human trafficking, crimes of honour and forced marriages will be activated and tested

5. Conference on the subject «Migration dynamics when facing forced marriage, crimes of honour and human trafficking. What can Europe do?”