BASE: Migrant and refugee child-friendly support services in cases of sexual and gender-based violence

Project info:

BASE addresses the need to counteract GBV against refugee/migrant girls through the development and sustainability of strategies to nurture inclusive communication and a culture of trust between support service professionals (social workers; health professionals; NGO support officers; psychologists; school staff; law enforcement) victims, families and communities, thus preventing victim re-traumatisation and encouraging reporting of GBV. Violence against women and young girls knows no cultural, geographical or ethnic barriers, several studies have identified that some groups are particularly vulnerable - migrant and ethnic minority women, female asylum seekers, refugees are among those.

BASE will ultimately benefit migrant/refugee girls victims of GBV by improving their experience of support services and procedures, through an inclusive and inter-sector approach targeting migrant/refugee women, support service professionals, and stakeholders. The expected results can be summarised in key achievements:

Inclusion: a) Promote Migrant/refugee girls' voice in the centre of procedures through the transfer of knowledge on the victim’s cultural background; b) Inclusion of migrant communities in needs assessment so as to enrich existing practices with intercultural approaches; c) Enhancing communication between migrant communities, authorities, and service providers, increasing resilience

Expertise: a) Migrant/refugee women capacitated as cultural advisors, better informed about GBV, judicial procedures, and better equipped to support communication between support service professionals and girls victims of GBV b) Support service professionals and stakeholders better equipped to communicate with girls victim of GBV, the training events will directly contribute to the enrichment of professional’s knowledge and expertise in the field of addressing cultural diversity and understand the impact of cultural specificities in the prevention and the handling of cases of sexual and gender based violence.

Cooperation: Improved common inter-sector and multidisciplinary approaches and practices in relation to GBV against migrant/refugee girls through the focus groups, which will gather agencies, authorities and support services handling cases of sexual and GBV.

Empowerment: a) Improvement of migrant/refugee girls experience during support, disclosure, reporting, investigation procedures in cases of GBV facilitated by the role of the cultural advisors b) Engagement of migrant/refugee women, and communities, in the counteraction of GBV through an improved understanding of the phenomenon, and of mechanisms to raise-awareness and counteract it.

Funding reference

BASE is a project co-financed by the Rights, Equality & Citizenship Programme of the European Commission (ref. REC-AG-2017/REC-RDAP-GBV-AG-2017/809952)

For more information please visit the BASE website on http://base.uncrcpc.org/