STICHTING AFRICA ADVOCACY FOUNDATION
AAF
Stichting Africa Advocacy Foundation is (AAF) is a registered charity that promotes better health, education and other life opportunities for disadvantaged people through practical support, advocacy, campaigns, policy work, information, advice, guidance and training. Through our Mi-Health Europe programme, we work to support and advocate for marginalized communities and in particular migrants at risk and those diagnosed with HIV, hepatitis, mental health concerns, TB and other conditions across the EU/EEA. Mi-Health Europe is a policy and advocacy collaborative that strengthens the capacity of European migrant communities to engage with services and to influence healthcare policy and practice. Promoting an inclusive, empowered European community of frontline organisations and services working with migrants by building capacity, influencing policy, collaborating and sharing best practice and expertise. Our goal is to advance European migrant healthcare advocacy through these efforts.
ID: 225423098727-94
Lobbying Activity
Response to Gender Equality Strategy 2026-2030
8 Jul 2025
As a migrant-led initiative across 10 EU countries, we at Stichting Africa Advocacy Foundation welcome the opportunity to contribute to the European Commissions call on the 2026-2030 gender equality strategy. As a network focused on empowering migrant communities, including women and LGBTQ+ migrants, specifically with regards to healthcare access and health outcomes, we urge the Commission to adopt a genuinely intersectional and cross-sectoral strategy that addresses all forms of equality and equal access including in health: Consider gender-based violence from an intersectional lens that includes cisgender women, transgender women, nonbinary women and anyone else identifying as women, with special attention being paid to women from racialised minority and/or migrant backgrounds who face disproportionate rates of violence and oftentimes lack redress for rights violations Ensure that honour-related violence and abuse, such as forced and child marriages and female genital mutilation, are included in definitions of gender-based violence As gender-based violence negatively impact womens physical and mental health, prioritise womens health needs, with special attention to given to the health of women from racialised minority and migrant backgrounds: adequately fund research focused on womens health across the lifespan, prioritise funding for research that is designed by and undertaken by women, when appropriate require that women are included in clinical trials, support the uptake of gender-sensitive training for frontline health staff and healthcare providers so that womens diverse and unique health needs are taken seriously, require that research disaggregate data by sex and gender, support the recognition of gender-specific presentations of health conditions and encourage the adoption of clear care pathways for survivors of gender-based violence who oftentimes experience stigma, discrimination and a lack of resources as barriers to accessing mental and physical healthcare Support improved disaggregated data collection, looking at indicators such as gender, socioeconomic status, educational attainment, unpaid caring responsibilities, health outcomes, housing situation, race and migration status, amongst other indicators that track gender equality. Ensure that data collection is underpinned by robust data protection mechanisms. Embed protections for women who are victimised and criminalised based on their identities, professions or behaviours including sex workers, who disproportionately have a migrant background compared to EU nationals and face extremely high levels of violence and abuse Encourage targeted support for migrant women to participate in the formal labour market at higher rates, to support economic self-sufficiency to counteract discrimination, abuse and underemployment: by supporting the recognition of their overseas qualifications, offering language learning classes and by supporting access to services like affordable childcare so that migrant women can balance paid work and unpaid caring responsibilities Urge access to free and safe abortion across the EU through Council conclusions, recommendations and the exchange of best practices and/or by including the right to safe and legal abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, to reaffirm commitment to womens bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive rights.
Read full responseResponse to Anti-racism Strategy
7 Jul 2025
Africa Advocacy Foundation, a migrant-led organisation that runs a migrant-led initiative across 10 EU countries seeking to improve migrant health outcomes, welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the call for evidence on the EU Anti-Racism Strategy 2026-2030. As a network focused on empowering migrant communities, including sub-Saharan African migrants, Asian migrants and other racialised migrant groups, specifically with regards to healthcare access and health outcomes, we urge the Commission to emphasize the intersections between racism, stigma, discrimination and healthcare access, utilisation and health outcomes. Through our activities and research, we have seen that discrimination, racism and stigma function as primary barriers to migrants accessing healthcare, especially for prevention and care of communicable diseases despite their legal entitlements to care in their host countries as well as the differential quality of care that migrants receive from frontline healthcare staff and providers, due to system-generated discrimination and stigma. As the proposed strategy rightfully identifies that structural racism is embedded in institutions and policies, we recommend that the forthcoming strategy include the following specifically with regards to healthcare systems and settings: (1) Adopt a genuinely intersectional and cross-sectoral Anti-Racism Strategy that addresses all forms of discrimination including health (2) Support the designation of migrants as a key vulnerable group requiring targeted attention and resources in healthcare settings and when looking at health outcomes (3) Invest in culturally- and migrant-sensitive training amongst frontline healthcare staff and providers and resource the scale-up of culturally-sensitive healthcare for migrants and other racialised groups, including the adequate resourcing of community-based healthcare settings, peer support approaches, interpretation services and the use of intercultural mediators. This could be achieved by aligning funding priorities and supporting a Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) that ensures adequate and sustained funding for programmes focused on anti-racism and inclusion, including for migrants. (4) Standardise and harmonise data collection disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, country of birth, health outcomes and other equality indicators, while ensuring robust data security and firewalls between immigration and health authorities, in order to meaningfully illustrate health disparities underpinned by racism and discrimination and use the data to develop evidence-based policies to remedy such inequities (5) Enhance the capacity of and meaningfully involve racialised migrants, those with lived experiences of racism and discrimination and civil society groups in the co-design, implementation, reporting and monitoring of all anti-racism initiatives and policies via the formal inclusion of civil society representatives in consultation and decision-making processes. (6) Reframe migration as a solution, not a problem for our communities, address anti-migrant hate speech and misinformation and counter the narrative the migrants are hard to reach in healthcare settings by investing in community-led initiatives that operate under a need to find ethos rather than hard to reach excuse (7) Prioritise funding for grassroots and small-scale civil society groups led by racialised groups to reaffirm the commitment to universal healthcare as a human right, by recognising that historically marginalised groups that have faced racism and discrimination trust their peers and intercultural mediators to link them to and help them navigate mainstream health services (8) Encourage the dismantling of administrative barriers at the national-level that effectively prohibit migrant-led associations from formalising their organisations, as this will enhance community empowerment and foster a more robust civic space.
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