Overview of the Synthesis Thematic Report of the WP 8

“Intercultural Violence”

Participating teams: 1. “Euro-Balkan” Institute: Department of Gender

Studies/Research Center for Gender Studies (EU-BAL) – Coordinating partner

2. “Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi (UDJG) 3. University of Cyprus, Department of Education

(UCY) 4. Panteion University of Social and Political

Sciences (UPSPS)

Our goal has been to explore and interpret the gendered interactions of violence between dominant cultures and those of the marginalized communities (the cultural context they originate from and the renditions it displays in the context of a migrant community) conditioned or prompted by the processes of migration.

Trafficking is an overarching concept that aims to integrate the variety of forms of gendered, migration-related and intercultural violence. Since it is in the shape of the so-called “trafficking,” which equals to a contemporary form of gendered slavery, that the variety of gender-based, cultural and political exclusion researched here takes place.

Oral history method was chosen as a main methodological tool exactly because of its potential to grasp personal experiences and memories, rendering the cultural and historical context legible through the individual and particular, which is utilized here in the study of various instances of human vulnerability.

Besides oral history, one has conducted in depth interviews and participant observation – all of which enables the researcher to gain insight into the perspective of the personal experience of the one who undergoes the social/cultural phenomena at issue.

The personal narratives, whether acquired via oral history, in-depth interviews - but also participant observation which renders visible the personal angle albeit not producing a narrative in the strict sense of the word – serve as yet another form of case studies.

Within this Work Package, we have managed to collect and examine dozens of interviews/oral history based personal accounts – a total of 46. In addition to this, mini-focus groups have been conducted as well as participant observation.

Out of all of the personal narratives, the following have been selected as “individual case studies,” subject to the closer analysis carried out in the Synthesis Report:

5 personal narratives of women subject to sex-labor related trafficking

9 interviews with domestic labor (in most of the cases – illegal) related trafficking; 4 of them deal more closely with the precariousness of motherhood

8 interviews/in-depth personal accounts provided within focus groups with NGO activists, governmental officials and professionals of the shelters for trafficked women; plus, discourse analyses of more than one account of NGO activists - the assemble of interviews (14) were treated as a discursive whole

Based on the conclusions inferred from the analysis conducted in this Synthesis Report, we have proposed the following policy recommendations:

Policy Recommendations PC1: Different definition of the notion of trafficking which

will focus on the fact of violence of the trafficking and exclude the assumption of individual responsibility as critically important since it is a form of organized crime and systemic violence and it should be addressed as such (beginning from its definition) (Drawing from C1);

PC2: Clear-cut distinction between trafficking and prostitution will produce an improved definition of victim. Decriminalization (or legalization) of sex work/prostitution might be helpful in refining the debate on trafficking and the definition of the victim (Drawing from C1);

PC3: Anti-trafficking policies should move from criminal to a human rights model (Drawing from C1);

PC4: The process of dealing with the trauma should be opened outside the enclosed space of the “shelter” (may include street work, information, and counselling centres in areas where there is a large concentration of migrants; to pursue programs of migrant women's empowerment that would include basic skills learning) (Drawing from C1);

PC5: While acknowledging commonalities, illegal labour related migration and trafficking should be treated as two inherently separate phenomena (Drawing from C2);

PC6: With reference to migrant single mothers, their exemption from the law (employment equality law, children protection law, maternity protection law, etc) entails forms of precariousness that render their lives susceptible to forms of violence (Drawing from C2);

PC7: Granting workers the freedom of seeking employment in any work domain in the countries of their destination could be a very good starting point for a social action programme meant to encourage fair treatment of all EU workers “on an equal footing with the rules on competition and economic freedom,” as stated in a declaration recently issued on the European Economic and Social Committee site to mark the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights (Drawing from C3);

PC8: Institutions of the State, the EU, and the international organizations should invest more in raising the awareness of gender equality and in particular women’s emancipation in the Romani and the other cultural minority groups as the most effective means of prevention. Prearranged marriages and girls’ dropping out of school should be targeted most directly. A wider range of social and educational policies should be implemented especially in the rural area with an aim at improving life conditions and educational standards as well as to raise awareness of the unacceptable nature of gender discrimination and its negative consequences for the identity and integrity of women (Drawing from C4);

PC9: What should be acted against are the instances of structural/systemic violence rather than individuals in their roles of either perpetrators or “victims:” prearranged marriages, slavery (being owned and object of trade), selling into marriage, teen marriages, physical violence, forced dropping out of school, both preventively and as an actual offence. In order to achieve all this, the phenomenon of trafficking must be redefined as a problem of socio-cultural and gendered exclusion rather than as crime and a purely criminological issue (Drawing from C4);

PC10: Training in the basics of feminism would help the social workers overcome the issue of moral judgment/inability to identify, by way of being able to understand the underlying pattern of patriarchy behind what seems to be an individual choice (Drawing from C4);

PC11: Public exposure of trauma should be disassociated with protection of victims of violence, particularly explicitly in the case of trafficking in order to prevent the treatment of migrant women as “tools” in crime control and prevention (Drawing from C4);

PC 12: Disengaging the process of recognition of migrant women as victims of violence from the police. This process should include efforts disassociate the public exposure of trauma of violence from the protection of victims. In particular, in the case of trafficking, this needs to be done explicitly in order to prevent the treatment of migrant women as “tools” in crime control and prevention (Drawing from C5);

PC 13: Providing support and funding of self-help networks of migrant women who already engage into the protection and emancipation of migrant women and men (Drawing from C5);

PC 14: To take into consideration the all encompassing aspect of the notion of gender and pay attention to men victims of trafficking and other forms of violence related to their migrant status. Particularly important is to finance and run projects that would address gender violence in relation to migrant masculinities and transgender identities (Drawing from C5).