Events

A Regional Workshop on Migration in West Africa: Gender, Youth, Migration and Human Rights will be organized in Dakar, Senegal, from 19 to 20 June 2018. Its overall objective will be to gather key stakeholders from West Africa to exchange experiences and knowledge on gender and migration in the region and agree on a roadmap for enhanced gender-sensitive migration frameworks.

The overall theme of the workshop will concern protection gaps in current legal and policy frameworks on migration in West Africa with the following focus:

1. Overview of the International and regional human rights frameworks which include gender and migration specific mechanisms and recommendations, and the gender-sensitive human rights protection of migrants in vulnerable situations

2. Integrating a gender perspective into migration legal and policy frameworks, as well as their effective and gender-sensitive implementation

3. Potential practical solutions and action points to overcome the challenges through a gender-sensitive and human rights based approach

The workshop will pursue the following specific objectives:

1. Increase participants’ understanding of the existing international human rights framework relating to gender and migration and the importance of human rights based and gender sensitive approach to migration in West Africa;

2. Draw on participants’ expertise and experience on the gender-specific dimension and human rights concerns of migration in the region;

3. Increase participants’ ability to clearly identify the human rights violations suffered by migrants from a gender perspective;

4. Propose concrete areas where gender could be further reflected in migration legal and policy frameworks in West Africa;

5. Enable OHCHR to produce a report that will identify gaps in current legal and policy frameworks on migration and recommend human rights-based practical solutions, entry points, catalysts and pathways to overcome these identified challenges.

The workshop will bring together members of regional gender thematic groups, the regional mixed migration working group, national human rights institutions, government representatives, intergovernmental organizations, civil society actors involved in gender-specific issues (including women, children and LGBTI), academic institutions, and the media. Participants will be selected from six West African Countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Mali, Niger, and Senegal.

It will comprise four sessions co-facilitated by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UNESCO and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with support from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and other members from the Regional working group on mixed migration and the West Africa Gender Thematic Group coordinated by UN-Women.

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This workshop is part of the series of MOST Schools.

MOST Schools are capacity-building activities focused on strengthening the competencies for evidence-informed decision-making in Member States. They help develop the capacity of researchers and decision-makers to translate knowledge into action. Their primary goal is to support long-term sustainable development in contexts where capacity gaps may be a major constraint to translating research into action.

Links:

UNESCO Office in Dakar

Migration and inclusive societies

More on MOST Schools

Theme page:

Learning to Live Together

Democracy and Global Citizenship

Intercultural Dialogue

Culture of Peace and Non-violence

Social Transformations

Partnerships

URL:

https://en.unesco.org/events/regional-workshop-migration-west-africa-gender-youth-migration-and-human-rights?language=en