Learning from work that is taking place in Scandinavia

As practitioners working with women who may have experienced exploitation and abuse, it is very important that we share and learn from one another, and from organisations that publish resources. The information below has a focus on gender-based violence which overlaps in so many aspects with human trafficking issues and trauma informed counselling and care. The toolkit is a wonderful resource in several languages.

The European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations (HEUNI) is the European regional institute in the United Nations Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention programme network. HEUNI functions under the auspices of the Finnish Ministry of Justice as an independent research and policy-making institute.

HEUNI aims at a fair and just world by advancing humane and rational criminal justice policies and systems in the European region, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. HEUNI is a bold front-runner in creating and sharing uncompromised knowledge on the prevention of crime within the framework of criminal justice. We engage policymakers, practitioners and researchers in frank discussions to tackle current problems. We develop innovative and action-oriented solutions to advance the rights of those affected by crime.

The SARAH (Safe, Aware, Resilient, Able and Heard – protecting and supporting migrant women victims of gender-based violence) project raises awareness on gender-based violence and on victims’ rights among migrant populations, and awareness of the challenges migrant populations face in accessing victim support services among policy-makers in 4 EU Member States, and develop tools to improve access to victim support services for migrant women victims of gender-based violence.

In the SARAH-podcast series migrant women discuss gender-based violence, and encourage others to speak up. In each of the podcasts (one in Arabic, Farsi, Somali and English) different marvellous women share their thoughts.

SARAH Impact Toolkit:

Toolkit for Enhancing Counselling for Victims of Gender-Based Violence –

Empowering Counsellors and Beneficiaries to Assess the Needs and the Impact of Counselling with Women in Migration. The concept of this toolkit emerged from the desire of the partner organisations’ counsellors to incorporate to the counselling different ways to ensure that women in migration who have experienced gender-based violence are heard. The toolkit can be used to improve the quality and impact of counselling by assisting:

the beneficiaries to understand their own strengths, resources and priorities

the counsellor to make informed decisions about the possible steps in supporting the beneficiaries

organisations and professionals in collecting data for impact evaluation as well as for advocacy.

The toolkit is available to download in English, German, Italian , Greek and Finnish