14 & 15 February 2008: Hidden Violence is a Silent Rape | ICRH

EU Seminar: "Hidden Violence is a Silent Rape"

Prevention of gender-based violence against refugees & asylum seekers in Europe

Venue: Het Pand, Onderbergen 1, 9000 Ghent

From the arrival on European territory onwards, young female and male refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are extremely vulnerable to several types of gender-based violence. This is one of the conclusions that can be drawn from a Community-based Participatory Research Project that has been conducted in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. The aim of the project is twofold: to develop a prevention tool which can be used by refugees and asylum seekers themselves to raise awareness on this topic through participatory research.

During this seminar we wish to present the innovative participatory approach of this project, the research results as well as the prevention tool. In 8 workshops with good practices from all over Europe, we want to formulate policy and practice recommendations. We discuss these recommendations with a panel of policy makers on European, national and regional level. With all participants we wish to make a commitment: as from February 15th 2008 onwards we will take the health of refugees, asylum seekers and undocumented migrants in Europe seriously and we will plan actions to prevent any further gender-based violence agains these vulnerable persons.