GEMMA against Violence: Gender based Empowerment of Migrants through a Multiagency Approach

The International Organization for Migration (2010) recognises migrants and ethnic minorities as more vulnerabile to violence and identifies migrants women as doubly vulnerable (because of this status and their gender). Although International Organizations (WHO, 2005 & Unicef, 2000) highlight violence against women as a significant global problem and studies in Europe confirm that specific groups, such as women belonging to minority groups, indigenous and migrants are more vulnerable, making up a significant percentage of women who report intimate partner violence (PACE, 2009), many policy and programmatic interventions exist in isolation and often they are not specifically targeted to violence survivors belonging to migrant/ethnic minorities or they focus on addressing the symptoms only (IOM, 2013). GEMMA Project intends to promote the implementation and ratification of the existing human rights instruments (UNDAW, 2008 and Compendium of International Migration Law UN, 2006) in the UE by developing a coordinated multisectoral approach in order to effectively address and tackle the root causes of violence and properly assist migrant/ethnic minority women survivors of violence.