by Camilla Azzini
Association ALC – FR
Association ALC, is an officially recognised organisation created in Nice (France) in 1913.
ALC provides support to vulnerable people, especially women, children, adolescents, migrants, asylum seekers and trafficked persons.
Since 2002, ALC is the coordinator of the French National Network for assistance and protection of victims of trafficking (Ac.Sé). The National Network Ac.Sé is composed by 50 shelters and 20 specialized NGOs. It provides global assistance and safe sheltering in a different city far away the place of exploitation of the trafficked persons, and proposes also assistance for the voluntary return to the countries of origin.
Since 2002, the National Network Ac.Sé provides assistance to more than 400 persons, especially women, and 20% of them have children left-behind.
We have observed that the social inclusion of these women is affected by the presence of their children in their countries of origin. For instance, they generally prefer an unskilled job and can refuse a professional training because they have to send money home… or they want their children to come in France even if their arrival and staying is not prepared.
From 2002 to 2003 migrants who were referred to Ac.Sé went from Russia, Ukraine and Moldova, and then from 2004 and 2007 Romanian and Bulgarian women have been in a greater numbers. The three last year the most important community of trafficked persons referred to our shelters are Nigerian.
In order to better support these women, in 2009 we have started the “Support to parents and children in migration” project in partnership with Child Rights Information Centre (Chisinau – Moldova). The project is funded by the European Union through the EC-UN Joint Migration and Development Initiative.
In France, through this project, we have realised a leaflet “Mon enfant est resté au pays”. The leaflet has being published in 5 different languages: Romanian, Bulgarian and French as well as Russian and English for Nigerian people.
The aim of the leaflet is to avoid silence concerning the negative migration impacts on families. It provides counselling to migrant parents already living and/or working in France and helps them to better keep in contact with their children and make separation less difficult.
The leaflet is distributed all around France by social workers of shelters and NGOs who daily work with migrants, especially with vulnerable migrant women. The social workers use this tool with the aims at discussing with parents on this specific issue.
We start our actions targeting the specific population of the trafficked persons and we could disseminate the results of our project to other migrants living and working in France especially vulnerable ones.