People Involved: Adjunct Associate Professor Eileen Pittaway, Dr Linda Bartolomei, and Geraldine Doney
Research Areas: Refugee women and girls, International Law and Policy
Partners/Collaborators: The Australian National Committee on Refugee Women (ANCORW), Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN), Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), Townsville Multicultural Support Group (TMSG), AMES and UNHCR Geneva
The project is using a collaborative action research approach to support the implementation and monitoring of commitments to refugee women and girls in the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), in the Asia region. It will take place over 3.5 years from 2018 – 2021. The project was developed by Dr Linda Bartolomei and Associate Professor Eileen Pittaway from the Forced Migration Research Network, University of New South Wales (UNSW), and is funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The project aims to improve international protection for refugee women and girls by increasing the capacity of services to work more effectively with them, including through the application of an age, gender and diversity approach to promote gender equality and support efforts to end sexual and gender-based violence. It will work in close partnership with refugee women, refugee organisations, service providers, academics, UNHCR and other stakeholders. It will strengthen the ability of women’s civil society organisations and other stakeholders to include and empower refugee women to be actively involved in program design, implementation, management and monitoring of the GCR.
The project will take place in Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh, to address gender commitments in these different refugee situations. A separate but parallel and independently funded project in Australia will address GCR commitments to women and girls in a resettlement context.