Good Practice – Women on the Move – Turkey

The Women on the Move program included in the IncludeMe Good Practice Guide aims to help refugee women in several countries to be more aware of their legal rights, particularly in the face of violence. The objective is to develop a sustainable civil society dialogue between Turkey and EU Member states regarding the situation of refugee women. The project specifically aims to increase refugee women’s:

knowledge about their legal rights;
awareness of what violence against women (VAW) is;
awareness of what the legal mechanism available are, in case they are victim of such violence;
access to legal services.

In order to accomplish this, the program has designed a VAW training template and delivered it to 1000 refugee women. They have organized VAW information seminars and informed refugee women about their rights. Another iniative carried out within the frames of the project was a Mediation Model for building healthier cohabitation between locals and refugees. The program provided training for public servants who were working closely with refugees and who would serve as mediators. The training was on human rights, migration legislation, and international practices.

The program was developed jointly by the EU and Turkey within the standards of The Civil Society Dialogue program, coordinated by the Women and Democracy Association (KADEM), and conducted in Italy, Turkey and in the UK. This practice shows a model that could be replicated in other places, but cultural particularities should always be kept in mind when attempting to transfer such activities. Find out more at https://civilsocietydialogue.org/project/women-on-the-move.