On April 12th 2021 our Project Officer Alyssa Ahrabare had the pleasure to brief the Council of Europe’s PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons, in order to contribute to the upcoming report on the gender mainstreaming of migration policies. This second briefing succeeds the October 2020 meeting in which ENoMW’s Project Officer briefed the Drafting Committee of the CoE’s Gender Equality Division, in charge of preparing a resolution on migrant women.

The PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons is preparing a report on gender mainstreaming of migration policies, with Rapporteure Ms Petra Stienen ( Netherlands, ALDE).The idea of the Rapporteure is to address in this report the role of women and men in migration policy making, aiming at highlighting the problems arising from the lack of equal gender representation. The report will seek to promote a more active participation of women and migrant women in decision-making processes.

The definition of gender mainstreaming, developed by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, implies addressing structural inequalities between women and men – from policy design to action and evaluation – with the aim of discovering and correcting the root causes of sex-based discrimination.

The European Network of Migrant Women uses this method to analyse sex-based discrimination, in all areas related to migration, asylum and integration.  This sex discrimination against women and girls lies at the intersections with other structural inequalities (such as economic and labour discrimination, legal status discrimination, racial or ethnic discrimination, age or sexual orientation). To correct such deep rooted mechanisms, gender mainstreaming on its own is never enough: specific and positive actions targeted towards women and girls should be implemented side by side with gender mainstreaming.