08.07.2021

5 Years of Asylum Counseling for Refugee Women

Maria Teresa Amarante talking to refugee women at the Amnesty International open office hours at the UEM premises in Wuppertal. (Photo: R. Hedtmann/UEM)

Since the summer of 2016, the UEM has been cooperating with Amnesty International to provide counseling rooms for refugee women in Wuppertal-Barmen. After five years of the joint project, which has helped around 80 women in an open consultation hour, both organizations are taking positive stock.

"In our asylum counseling, we have supported women with their often very women-specific reasons for fleeing over the past five years. The women who come to us bring enormous strength with them, despite their mostly traumatic experiences. We counsel them in a protected space and inform them about the general process of the asylum procedure," says Maria-Teresa Amarante, political refugee officer at Amnesty's Bergisches Land district. In certain cases, Amnesty International's Women's Counseling Service can provide further assistance to asylum-seeking women as an individual case and may also cover legal fees.

The number of refugees is rising

According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 82 million people were on the run at the end of 2020 - more than ever before. They are fleeing civil wars, persecution, oppression, severe poverty and acute food insecurity. Reasons for escaping, which almost exclusively affect women, include genital mutilation, rape, widow burning, stoning, forced prostitution, forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced virginity, forced marriage, forced heterosexuality, forced veiling and unveiling.

"As UEM, we stand up for human rights worldwide. We are glad to be able to help women in Germany who have been victims of sexual discrimination and violence to get their rights in cooperation with Amnesty International at the headquarters of the office in Wuppertal," says Dr. Jochen Motte, member of the Management Team and responsible for the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation program at UEM. This year's human rights campaign of UEM, which is directed against exclusion and discrimination of people, also fits in with this.

The Corona pandemic aggravates the life conditions of refugees

Together with Amnesty International, the UEM is working to ensure that the rights of refugees are not further eroded and curtailed. Especially in times of the Corona pandemic, refugees and internally displaced persons are exposed to particular risks, as they often live in conditions where hygiene and distance rules are more difficult to enforce.

The UEM and Amnesty International have been working closely together for many years in networks such as the Human Rights Forum and the Action Network Human Rights Philippines. UEM supports projects for the protection of refugees in Asia, Africa and Germany. Amnesty International has been active in human rights work for more than 60 years and campaigns, among other things, for the equality of women and the application of fair and individual asylum procedures.

The asylum counseling for women takes place in the rooms of the UEM, Rudolfstr. 131, 42285 Wuppertal by appointment (0152-59 92 85 99). For further inquiries, please contact Maria.teresa.amarante@amnesty-bergisches-land.de

Martina Pauly (UEM spokesperson)