Migrant women rarely manage to secure a job with a decent pay that matches their skills, so a new research has been launched to unearth the main stumbling blocks.
“Since we set up Migrant Women Association Malta last year, we realised that most migrant women don’t have proper access to employment, which is one of the main keys to integration,” Umayma Elamin, the association president told this newspaper.
“The issues could be the language barrier, qualifications, or a mismatch of skills. But because of lack of research, we don’t really know why they find these obstacles, and that is why we have to conduct our own study,” she said.
The association yesterday launched a project called Stepping Up, which will see MWAM kick off the research among local female migrants to better understand their challenges.
The initial idea was to include all migrants, but it was then decided to focus on the most vulnerable groups, namely refugees, those with subsidiary or temporary humanitarian protection and those who have been rejected asylum.
The issues could be the language barrier, qualifications, or a mismatch of skills
The countries of origin have also been filtered down to Syria, Libya, Eritrea, Nigeria, Ukraine, Egypt, Morocco, Somalia and Ethiopia.
MWAM is meanwhile looking for women from these communities to act as gatekeepers and carry out the interviews.
The research was launched during a seminar held in collaboration with Fopsim, as part of the latter’s Working Roma project. Fopsim, which stands for Foundation for the Promotion of Social Inclusion, is working on a two-year project aimed to help prevent intolerance in the labour market for the migrant population.
Since there is no identified Roma community in Malta, the local representatives are focusing on minority migrant communities and have met with stakeholders including the Employment Training Corporation, the government and businesses.
Fjoralba Kodrasi, from Fopsim, said one of the main issues that migrants faced when looking for a job was xenophobia.
Most of those who actually found a job landed a low-skilled one and were often paid less than they should.
This was probably the result of lack of access to information about the labour market, despite a good local employment structure that included training, she said.
Those who would like to get in touch with the Migrant Women Association Malta, whether to see if they qualify as interviewers or interviewees, can send an e-mail to migrantwomenmalta@gmail.com.
* More information about Fopsim’s work in Malta and their upcoming events on www.fopsim.eu/main.html or send an e-mail to fjoralba.kodrasi@fopsim.eu.