On 24 and 25 October IOM organized two one-day trainings in Ljubljana on preventing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against refugees, migrants and asylum-seekers. IOM carried out the trainings in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Government Office for the Support and Integration of Migrants, Association Legebitra, the Slovenian Red Cross and Emma Institute.

Representatives from governmental institutions, humanitarian organizations and students attended the trainings with the aim of becoming familiar with SGBV in the context of migration. Participants included police officers, social workers, officials of the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities and Crises Centres for Youth as well as health practitioners, educators and cultural mediators. Participants discussed specific vulnerabilities and special risks faced by migrants at all stages of the migration process and how to better assist and protect them against various forms of violence, exploitation and abuse during the integration process in Slovenia. One session was devoted to the issue of SGBV experienced by forcibly displaced LGBTI persons and migrants.

The participants actively engaged in debates about the available services for survivors and how to make them more appropriate and accessible for migrants, including by designing suitable outreach and awareness raising activities. One participant said that “the training presented a new way of thinking about the problem of sexual and gender-based violence and the way migrants experience it in their countries and during their journey.”  Another participant pointed out: "Group exercises, which included case studies based on real life experiences of women and girls, man and boys around the world, inspired us to think about the issue of violence against migrants".

The trainings, which will continue in the upcoming months, are part of the regional project “PROTECT - Preventing Sexual and Gender-based Violence Against Migrants and Strengthening Support to Victims”, co-funded by European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020), implemented by 12 IOM offices and 8 NGO partners.

For more information about the project, please visit: https://slovenia.iom.int/protect and https://hungary.iom.int/sgbv.