Through working together on this project, Shpresa Programme and Solace Women’s Aid learnt that:
- Asylum seeking, refugee and migrant women are particularly vulnerable to gender based violence because of:
- ✱Limited English language skills,
✱Social isolation,
✱Shame and stigma,
✱Poverty,
✱Insecure immigration status,
✱A lack of awareness of the law and available services,
✱A shortage of suitable services which have the relevant cultural and linguistic expertise to assist Albanian speaking women seeking help.
- Trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation is highly prevalent in the Albanian community.
- Albanian speaking women rarely seek support from statutory or voluntary agencies.
- Those women who sought support from Shpresa and Solace Women’s Aid learnt where to go for help and how to stay safe as they benefited from advice, information, practical and emotional support and advocacy. Many credited the Empower Women project with saving their sanity, if not their life.
Empower Women Toolkit 