Hidden at work

This two year (2021-2022) project focuses on the prevention of gender based violence, specifically at the informal workplace, by addressing labour and sexual exploitation and harassment of women at work.

Target group of the project

The target group of the project are female migrants working in the informal private sphere, such as domestic workers, babysitters, live-in care working or women working in any other kind of family business. They are particularly vulnerable to face labour and sexual exploitation and/or violence and harassment. They work in isolated places in other people’s homes, often do not have valid (working) papers and work on informal ‘contracts’. They depend on their employer not only for their income, but also for their housing and sometimes their residence permit. Often, but not exclusively, they are from countries from outside of the EU.

Project Aim

The project aims to reach out to these women through (online) awareness-raising and empowerment strategies and (referral to) direct support services, to ensure they know and (can) claim their labour and human rights. The project consortium will also train professionals who are likely to detect exploited or harassed women at work. Relevant in depth insights in the problems of the target group and the obstacles they experience in practice will be used to advocate for improvements in relevant legislation and/or in their implementation.

The project activities take place in 3 EU Member states: the Netherlands, Austria and Czech Republic and at European level. The project is coordinated by FairWork and jointly implemented with LEFÖ IBF in Austria, La Strada Czech Republic and La Strada International. The project partners actively share expertise, experiences and best practices in this field with each other and with other relevant European organisations.

Activities:

• Reach out to 25.000 women from the target group by online awareness-raising and empowerment strategies in three countries.
• Organise 25 workshops on rights (for 500 women), resulting in more women facing labour or sexual exploitation or harassment in the private work sphere to know and claim their rights.
• Give direct support or referral to necessary specialized support services to a total of 600 women from the target group, in 3 countries in 2 years.
• Organise 2 international expert meetings (one on experiences and bottlenecks in direct support and alternative solutions; one on legal framework and advocacy), resulting in two publications.
• Create 3 video’s, 3 visuals/infographics and 3 leaflets to raise awareness and empowerment, to be disseminated online through social media.
• Train and supervise cultural mediators who will be active in reaching out to potential victims, making first contact, first intake and possibly referral.
• Organise an international train-the-trainer event on how to train professionals to identify exploitation and harassment at work.
• Train and coach a total of 120 professionals at the national level (in the three countries) who are likely to detect exploited or harassed women at work in the private sphere.
• Monitor the implementation of existing relevant international, EU and national legal instruments existing to prevent and combat labour and sexual exploitation and harassment, and advocate for improvements in legislation or in their implementation. Thereby reaching 100 EU policy makers and 100 representatives of CSO’s/NGO’s working in the field.

Approach:

The project is based on a ‘Behavioural insights approach’, aiming to encourage people to make the right choices for themselves, once they have the necessary information and feel empowered to act accordingly. This applies in the first place to the migrant women at risk, but also to professionals and volunteers.

News & documents

More information

For more information, please contact: info@fairwork.nu

This project is funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (REC 2014-2020), co-funding for FairWork is provided by Stichting Dioraphte.

The content of the materials produced represent only the views of FairWork and is her sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.