CALLS to reform policies that disadvantage migrant women and their families were made at a breakfast event celebrating International Women’s Day yesterday.
The event, organised by Freeda (formerly Jersey Women’s Refuge), was held at The Royal Yacht hotel on Friday morning and attended by almost 250 Islanders.
Business leader and Friends of Africa member Lesley Katsande spoke about the systemic barriers migrant women faced in employment, housing and access to support services – which she said left them vulnerable to exploitation.
“We need to start looking at our human-rights laws, especially for minority groups,” she said. “And when I say minority groups, I don’t just mean black people. I mean people with disabilities and others who face discrimination.
“The number of visa holders on this island has increased by thousands – these are people who were invited here. Is this how we treat our guests?”
Ms Katsande also criticised policies that prevented migrant workers from changing employers during their first six months – arguing that these restrictions created a power imbalance and left workers open to mistreatment.
“The system disempowers the newcomers with the five-year residency policy, with the housing laws. It disempowers the women before they even start,” she said. “Protection is not a privilege. Protection is a right.”
Freeda chief executive Kate Wright also raised concerns about the vulnerability of migrant workers in Jersey.
“At Freeda, we see this reality every day,” she said. “Increasingly, the women and children we support in our safe house in the community come from minority ethnic backgrounds, those with less than five years’ residency, often with no safety net, no rights.”
The event’s keynote speaker, Harriet Wistrich, founder and director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, discussed her work representing women in high-profile legal cases in the UK.
She spoke about issues of bias in the legal system and the need for greater accountability in the way institutions handled gender-based violence.
Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham and Home Affairs Minister Mary Le Hegarat also spoke at the event and provided updates on the implementation of recommendations made by a gender-based-violence taskforce that were accepted by the government last year.
