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Report on Women’s Immigration: the Role and Place of Immigrant Women in the European Union

Document number
1533
Date
2006
Title
Report on Women’s Immigration: the Role and Place of Immigrant Women in the European Union
Author/publisher
Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, European Parliament, European Union
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
Rapporteur, Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, 2006/2010(INI), A6-0307/2006, Migrant rights; Migration management; Comprehensive approach to migration; Migration policy; Irregular Migration, Feminization of migration, Economic migration, Labour migration, Free movement, Undocumented migrants; Undocumented labour;
Summary
On the 24th of October, 2006, during a parliamentary session in Strasbourg European Parliament adopted a resolution on women’s immigration: the role and place of immigrant women in the Europeans Union.The resolution states that the number of women immigrants is steadily increasing in the EU. As a rule, women immigrants encounter significant problems in integrating. There are several reasons for that:• Difficulty in accessing the labour market;• Low employment rates and high rates of unemployment;• Employment in temporary or low-paid jobs, often without economic or social protection or in sectors of the “grey” economy and undeclared employment;• Limited linguistic skills;• Low rate of participation in basic and, above all, tertiary education;• Limited participation in social, political, trade union and cultural life of the host country;• Poverty and social exclusion.In addition to the above mentioned women immigrants are more exposed to psychological and physical abuse.The resolution states that the new Financial Framework for 2007-2013 provides not only for the strengthening of existing programmes and Funds for the integration of immigrants but also for new initiatives such as the Framework Programme on solidarity and the management of migration flows (which includes the Integration Fund for third-country nationals, the External Borders Fund and the Refugee Fund), which must incorporate the gender dimension and the best possible integration of women immigrants.The European Parliament recognizes the difficulties faced by newly-arrived immigrants, particularly women, and calls on the Member States to support information campaigns aimed at migrant women; to ensure access to education not only to migrant women but also to their children; to take effective action to combat all forms of violence against women migrants; to promote immigrant women’s access to employment and to ensure adequate vocational training. The European Parliament especially stressed the importance of unconditional and even priority access of migrant women to education and language training.With the resolution the European Parliament also calls on the Commission for active involvement in protecting the rights of immigrant women and immigrant girls and to fight the discrimination they face not only in EU but also in their community of origin. It was also stated in the resolution that not only the Member States and the Commission but also national and local authorities, immigrant organisations and other non-governmental organisations need to take active part in preventing discrimination and promoting integration of immigrant women in EU.
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