Research as a Starting Point for the Improvement of State Services, Policies, and Programmes in the Area

of Social Integration

Adilia Eva Solis

REGIONAL CONFERENCE ON MIGRATIONRegional Seminar on Integration Policies for Immigrants, Refugees, and

Returned Migrants

February 22-23, San José, Costa Rica

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CENDEROSMISSION

We are a social non-profit organization working toward empowering and giving prominence to Nicaraguan migrant and border populations, particularly women and adolescents, to build a fair society with gender equality.

Objectives

Objective 1: To empower Nicaraguan migrants and border populations to enable them to exercise their rights.

Objective 2: • To promote positive actions to ensure the

right of Nicaraguan female migrants and border populations to have access to opportunities and live free of violence in order to achieve their human development.

Objective 3: • To create favourable conditions in terms of

public policy for the enjoyment of the human rights of migrants and border populations, with gender and age equality.

Objective 4• To promote inclusive and fair communities

through capacity-building for local development actors in entrepreneurship, management, and advocacy.

PROGRAMMES• Public Policy

Programme• Programme for

Prevention of Gender-based Violence

• Programme for Local and Trans-border Development

• Capacity-building Programme

ResearchA study on Nicaraguan homes: becoming rooted and getting settled (2005)

Obstacles limiting access to education for Nicaraguan migrant boys, girls, and adolescents (2006)

Status of documentation and registration of boys and girls in the trans-border regions of La Cruz, Upala, Los Chiles, Sarapiquí, and Departamento Río San Juan (Save The Children)

Male psychological violence against Nicaraguan migrant women in Costa Rica, 2007 (published, EIRENE SUIZA)

Current practices and links between migration and sexual and reproductive health, with a special focus on women and adolescents from the trans-border region between Costa Rica and Nicaragua (UNFPA- AECID) (published), 2008

Factors intervening in the adoption of psycho-social strategies to address the migration experience

2007.

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An exploratory bi-national study (Nicaragua – Costa Rica) on migration in women (2008), IOM, UNFA

• Critical obstacles limiting access to labour justice for trans-border workers in the agro-industrial sector in the northern region, USAID-PACT- TROCAIRE, 2010

• Return migration, Nicaragua-Costa Rica-Nicaragua (2010)

Systematizing Bi-national Health Fairs (Costa Rica – Nicaragua), 2010

• Participative Action Research: Nicaraguan migrant boys, girls, and adolescents in Costa Rica (UNICEF-CENDEROS), 2010

Critical obstacles limiting access to justice and protection for migrant women victims of violence, 2011 (TROCAIRE – UNFPA)

• A critical route of access to technical education for young migrant and border populations (JEM IOM)

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On-going…

• Participative Action Research: Migrant Women as Household Workers

• Participative Action Research: Security Services and Migration

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DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS: First Step – Strategic Clarity

• Reality and strong links are the starting point.

• Information is collected, analysed, and systematized.

• Trends are observed and a research agenda is developed.

• Data and information are generated and given back to the population.

• Transformed into lines of action:– Political agendas– Political advocacy actions

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Results:Trans-border Communities –

Health and Migration• In 2005 Cenderos began working

in the trans-border region of Costa Rica (UPALA), bordering with the communities of Micro-region V, Department of Río San Juan, Nicaragua.

• Trans-border communities, that

is, persons with strong links among themselves, irrespective of the border line. Family bonds, cultural bonds – an important relationship of inter-dependence.

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• Since then Bi-national Health and Culture Fairs

have been held, with participation of physicians from both countries to provide health care, and with support from many volunteers – volunteer participation is a principle in these fairs.

• Another objective of the fairs was to highlight the need to include the situation of these communities in the public agenda – to prove that it is possible to work in a peaceful and harmonious manner, stimulating changes in perceptions and collective ideas.

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• An active joint research process is implemented together with community leaders, leading to a first product: An agenda for trans-border workers.

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• Research on critical obstacles facing agro-industry (export) and trans-border workers. Results are submitted, together with the agenda, to the Ministry of Labour and the Directorate of Migration – the second product of research efforts.

• All the above-mentioned efforts are coordinated with other similar initiatives relating to the development of local public policy for migration management in the northern region, implemented by the mayor’s offices of Upala, Guatuso, and Los Chiles with support from DEMUCA AECID. These processes lead to the inclusion of the migration status of trans-border workers into the Migration Act.

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• New research results are incorporated:

• Current practices and links between migration and sexual and reproductive health, with a special focus on women and adolescents from the border regions between Costa Rica and Nicaragua (UNFPA- AECID, CEPS, and CENDEROS) (published), 2008

• Systematizing Bi-national Health and Culture Fairs and working toward sustainability. With support from the Bi-national Project on Health and Migration (UNFPA AECID)

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• Results and findings are submitted to the National Council for Migration of Costa Rica. The Council adopts and approves the Model for a Comprehensive Approach to Mobility and Human Security in the Trans-border Context based on inter-institutional and inter-sectoral coordination and systematization of the experience of the Bi-national Health Fairs held in the region of Upala.

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• “In analysing the experience of the Health Fairs with an approach of health determinants, it was observed that the concept and the results, achieved through the approach and guiding principles of the National Health Policy 2011-2021, coincide completely. The core strategy of this policy is “to position health as a social value and to orient and guide the interventions of social actors in order to have an impact on the health determinants and thus, create favourable conditions to ensure – with equality – the protection and improvement of the health of the population”.

• Actions based on social health determinants are required to ensure “substantial advances toward equality in health”. Exclusion, inequality, poverty, and marginalization are social health determinants, and migration and labour conditions are health determinants and as such, need to be addressed in a comprehensive manner in the trans-border region.”

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Results: Migrant Women and Gender-based Violence

Critical obstacles in terms of access to justice facing migrant women who are victims of violence.

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The Problem

• Increasing participation of migrant women, in general, and Nicaraguan women, in particular, in femicide rates (death of women as a result of gender-based violence) at a national level.

• 28% of the cases of femicide in 2004 involved migrant women.

• In 2009, out of 983 denouncements in Upala 70% were Nicaraguan nationals (Office for Women).

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Graph – Teen-age Pregnancies

Route of Action1. Submitting demands by migrant women and

implementing actions to eradicate [violence]: community protection networks, coordination with public security forces.

2. Results are submitted to the Secretariat for Gender of the Judiciary.

3. Results are submitted to the Sub-Committee for Access to Justice of Migrants and Refugees (Brasilia regulations).

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At a Local Level

• Local policies and plans of action are developed in order to achieve a region free of violence in Upala.

• Actions are implemented to develop a mechanism to facilitate and expedite access to justice for female migrants and other women who are victims of violence in border regions.

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Challenges

• High costs• Valuing participative

research actions as a model to help identify specific, apparently invisible topics in a comprehensive manner

• Ethics and respect

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