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Objectives
About WINGS
It goes without saying that migrant women are among the most vulnerable social groups in a society due to their double identity marker as both migrants and women. According to the International Migrant Stock 2019, a dataset released by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Europe hosts the largest number of international migrants (82 million). What is important is the fact that 51% of the total number of international migrants in Europe are women. This indicates that feminization of migration is an existing reality in the EU and should be taken into serious consideration. Another valuable element is the fact that more women than men come to the EU as family members. According to Eurostat documents, 2017:
of the first residence permits for family-related reasons were issued to women and only 20.8% to men
of first residence permits were issued to women for employment, while for men the share of 49.3%.
These numbers reflect the gendered nature of specific migration patterns, but they also indicate that migrant women are oftentimes dependent on others, e.g. husbands, for accessing employment and interacting at the social level. For this reason, carefully designed programmes are elemental to help migrant women to socially and economically integrate and get empowered through quality learning opportunities; provide adult educators with innovative tools in order to facilitate migrant women’s empowerment and inclusion; develop migrant women’s transversal skills and competences in order to support their socio-educational and personal development; and influence policy solutions that are centered around immigrants, and particularly migrant women.
