THINK-TANK: Sexual, reproductive and maternal health of refugees and undocumented migrants in the Netherlands
On the 28th of August, approximately 20 practitioners and scholars met to develop a research agenda regarding Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights of refugees and undocumented migrants in the Netherlands. Co-organized by Share-Net Netherlands and the Centre for Social Sciences & Global Health at the University of Amsterdam, the meeting aimed to identify research needs, research partners and potential funding avenues and to decide on concrete steps to get actual research projects off the ground.
The meeting started with a brainstorm around topics requiring investigation, taking as a starting point the December 2018 Share-Net Symposium – Joining forces to ensure accessible and high-quality maternal health care for asylum seekers, undocumented migrants and residence permit holders. Prior to the meeting, selected public health and social science literature on Sexual and Reproductive Maternal Health of refugees had been made available to participants through a shared Dropbox. After the brainstorm, groups were formed to begin proposal development. In a final plenary, we shared research ideas, gave feedback and discussed action points for the future.
Below, we report briefly on the different meeting activities.
Background on Research Themes
On the 6th of December 2018, Share-Net Netherlands organised a Symposium – Joining forces to ensure accessible and high-quality maternal health care for asylum seekers, undocumented migrants and residence permit holders. The presentations of that meeting were used to identify initial research needs, supplemented by issues identified by Pharos (Expert centre in the Netherlands focused on health disparities). Participants were then asked to brainstorm about what they considered research priorities; either drawing from the list above or adding new themes. These were written down on post-its, clustered into 12 themes, and prioritized through voting. Participants were asked to prioritize three themes for which they would like to begin to develop a research proposal whilst it was noted that various themes overlap.
Read the report here: Report – SRMH of refugees and undocumented migrants
