An international conference in Ankara has brought the rights, protection needs, and empowerment of the women and girls making up nearly half of the world’s displaced population, to the forefront of discussions on migration policy.

The conference “Protecting the Human Rights of Women and Girls in Migration: Standards and Promising Practices” gathered over 70 participants, including representatives of state institutions, legal and social professionals, international organisations and civil society.

A key session focused on the legal obligations of states to protect women and girls in migration, drawing on the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendation on protecting the rights of migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women and girls.

UNHCR Türkiye provided insights into international human rights mechanisms for refugee and stateless women and girls, outlining global trends and ongoing challenges. This was followed by field-based insights, which illustrated how the legal standards discussed are crucial in practice. Women and girls in migration face serious risks—discrimination, violence, trafficking—at every stage of their journey.

Two sessions highlighted effective practices for protecting and empowering migrant women and girls, featuring approaches from Türkiye, Moldova, Germany, and Spain. Germany, for example, provides trained interviewers, interpreters, and specialised representatives for cases involving gender-based persecution, human trafficking, trauma, torture, and unaccompanied minors, ensuring procedural safeguards and tailored support. In Spain, efforts, inter alia, focus on addressing young men's perceptions of masculinity to combat inequality, violence, and sexual exploitation of migrant women and girls, including human trafficking.

The conference offered a platform for cross-border learning and collaboration, emphasising both the need for protection and the resilience and contributions of women and girls on the move.

The conference was organised as part of the action on “Strengthening the human rights protection in the context of migration in Türkiye”, within the joint European Union and Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye”, and in co-operation with the Council of Europe project on “Strengthening the human rights protection of refugees and migrants in the Republic of Moldova: Phase II”, funded under the Council of Europe Action Plan for the Republic of Moldova 2025-2028.