European Network of Migrant Women

Our values

We are a female-only, migrant women led, multi-ethnic, secular organisation with core values rooted in the principles of JUSTICE, EQUALITY and FEMINISM.

Our principles

We acknowledge the gendered dimension of immigration and believe that migration and asylum policies and legislation should be sensitive towards women and girls and reflect the fact that migration affects women and men differently.

We acknowledge that migrant women are affected by Violence against Women in a way that exacerbates their negative experiences, due to racism, women-insensitive migration policies as well as lack of family support, cultural exclusion, legal, economic and communication barriers.

We adhere to human rights standards and international commitments and believe that the protection of the dignity, integrity and privacy of migrant women throughout the process of immigration, asylum and integration are paramount in fulfilling full human rights of migrant women.

We recognise that migrant women organisations in Europe play a crucial role in facilitating integration of migrant women by providing information, education and counselling.

Our feminist values

We recognise that females are a universally and uniquely oppressed group. Discrimination against women is an outcome of globally manifested patriarchal norms and traditions that crosscut ethnic, cultural, economic and age differences.

As a secular platform, we affirm the importance of separation of religion and state. Practicing a religion is an individual freedom that should not interfere with other individual and collective freedoms. Being secular does not exclude having a religious conviction and/or practicing a religion.

We believe that no cultural, ethnic or religious practices can or should justify infringement on or violation of universal human rights of women and girls. Any ideas of "cultural relativism" that naturalise inequalities between the sexes are incompatible with our core values and international human rights framework.

We recognise that discrimination against women is historically entrenched in other patriarchal projects such as colonialism, imperialism, war-fare and exploitation of natural resources. The sex-based discrimination of women is intrinsically linked with and compounded by other forms of oppression based on race, ethnicity, class, age, legal status, disability and sexual orientation.

We recognise that gender is a social construct imposed on individuals based on their sex through artificially designed patriarchal roles & stereotypes. Those are damaging to all and are particularly harmful for women. Eliminating gender stereotypes is paramount to fulfilling women's human rights.

We acknowledge females’ unique sexual-reproductive capacity. We recognise the control and violence the women have been subjected to historically on basis of this capacity (FGM, denial of abortion/contraception, forced marriage, sterilisation, rape, among others). We are committed to exposing, preventing and combating ALL forms of violence and discrimination aimed at limiting, controlling and exploiting female sexuality and female reproductive biology.

We believe that sexual desire and consent can never be obtained through commercial transactions. We recognise that every woman, regardless of her economic or social status, has the right to sexual relationship based on equality, mutuality and respect, free from psychological, physical or material coercion, pressure or manipulation.

We recognise that the sex trade, prostitution, pornography and other forms of exploitation of female sexuality are outcomes of unequal power relations between women and men, male economic privilege & sexual entitlement and sexual objectification & commodification of women. They constitute one of the most pervasive forms of violence and discrimination against women.

We acknowledge that male violence is a pandemic problem affecting women across cultures, classes and ethnicities and manifest at inter-personal, familial, communal and institutional levels. We are committed to political goals of eliminating systemic root causes of this violence.

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