Description
The project´s goal is to achieve the equal treatment of migrant women to address their cumulative discrimination in the Czech Republic. Activities: 1) Analysis of policy and practice – chapter work, family life, health, legal aid, entrepreneurship. Transfer of know-how from Norway is included. 2) Legal aid and litigation (outcome no. of clients and landmark decisions), 3) Campaigns (outcome 3 campaigns, media coverage), 4) Empowerment of migrant women (outcome no. of involved women and volunteers, web for crisis situations), 5) Lobbying – policy papers, recommendations and a lobbying plan
Summary of project results
The position of migrant women in Czech society is still unequal. They are exploited and discriminated against in the family, at the workplace, in health care, and in access to free legal aid. The impact of the project, which focused on these women, was very effective: we provided specific assistance to 1,130 women. In the area of system-oriented changes, we managed to stop proposals that would worsen the status of migrant women (commercial health insurance, the issue of family reunification of certain categories of foreigners etc.), we contributed extensive material to the Sixth Periodic Report on the Implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. A new section of the website for migrant women in the Czech and Russian languages has been created, we elaborated on the Analysis of the Position of Migrant Men and Women in the Czech Republic, we have distributed three of our sub-analyses and three policy papers and organised three public debates followed by three campaigns to improve the position of migrant men and women in our country. The exchange stays with Norwegian experts, particularly with the Andersen, Bache-Wiig AS law firm, which specialises in legal aid to migrants and refugees, were very useful. We have also managed to involve the target group of migrant women as new volunteers. The main benefit of the project is the improvement of the position of individual migrants and, in general, repeatedly bringing forward the topic on the level of both politics and the media.
Summary of bilateral results
The cooperation with the Norwegian partner – the law firm Andersen, Bache-Wiig AS - was useful and successful. Joint activities were carried out mainly in the beginning of the project – the study visit of Czech experts in Oslo took place from 5 to 8 July 2015 and it was organised by the Norwegian lawyers in an excellent way. An article summarising the findings from Norway was published on the website
www.migraceonline.cz. The expert visit of the Norwegian partners in the Czech Republic took place from 25 to 28 August 2015. Good practices presented to the beneficiary in Norway and the expert inputs of the Norwegian partners provided later during the implementation of the project were reflected in the three intermediate analyses as well as in the final analysis distributed to Czech politicians and decision-makers. The beneficiary continued keeping the working relationship and contacts with the Norwegian lawyers beyond the project duration. Thanks to the project the Norwegian partner also established a cooperation with a Czech private law firm. The good practices of the different Norwegian NGOs and institutions working in the same area as the beneficiary are included in the main output of the project; the analysis are available for future users as a sustainable result of the cooperation.