ENoMW Submission
Migrant and refugee girls in the EU face multiple, overlapping disadvantages that limit their access to essential services and opportunities, leaving them disproportionately excluded from education, childcare, nutrition, housing and safe participation. This submission from the European Network of Migrant Women highlights the urgent need to strengthen the European Child Guarantee for this group, ensuring interventions are rights-based and recognize how sex intersects with migration and refugee status to create unique barriers.
Access to Education, Childcare and Healthcare
To ensure access to education, member states must address language gaps and interrupted schooling by monitoring curricula to prevent the exclusion of girls and by supporting feminist NGOs that encourage participation in sports and STEM. Affordable, safe childcare must be delivered with flexible schedules regardless of legal status, incorporating communal transport solutions and strict safeguarding measures against violence. Healthcare and mental health support should be trauma-informed, providing same-sex interpreters and female providers while establishing crisis-response protocols for harmful practices like FGM and forced marriage.
Housing, Nutrition and Safety
Regarding nutrition and housing, the EU must guarantee adequate housing by removing administrative and discriminatory barriers and implementing school meal programs that meet dietary needs. In refugee accommodations, girls should be placed in single-sex units and never in the custody of single men. Safety measures must recognize and act against all forms of violence, including the sexualization and control of girls through veiling and image-based abuse used as a tool of coercion.
By centering the needs of migrant and refugee girls, the European Child Guarantee can break cycles of disadvantage, promote equal opportunity, and deliver a strategic investment in Europe’s social cohesion.
Read the full submission below