PRESENTATION

The human mobility objective of Pastoral Social Caritas Ecuador is to address migration, refuge and forced displacement as a permanent social fact that often leads to violation of rights, discrimination, and rejection, focusing its efforts to work with groups in conditions of vulnerability.

Our work seeks to include men, women, and people with gender diversity, migrants, refugees, returnees, and applicants for international protection. Social Pastoral Caritas offers humanitarian attention and legal and psycho-social accompaniment, training, livelihood training, and local integration, as well as activities with the local community and inter-institutional networks, strengthening migrant and refugee associations and socio-political advocacy.

This intervention responds to the migratory reality that is framed in a national context, in recent years Ecuador has received a large number of displaced persons, refugees, and in a situation of human mobility. According to United Nations data, as of November 2021, it is estimated that 508,935 Venezuelans reside in Ecuador. Meanwhile, according to figures from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, between 1968 and 2020, 69,897 people have been recognized as refugees, of which 96.7% are from Colombia, 1.63% from other countries, and 0.73% from Venezuela. However, this proportion has been changing and, up to the end of November 2021, 47,311 asylum applications were counted, of which 13,377 correspond to Colombian citizens and 33,936 to Venezuelans, with a significant increase in the latter.

The increase in migratory flows has also meant new faces that join these transits, among them women, thus, the feminization of migration has taken relevance and interest in recent years. In addition to the conditions of vulnerability faced by the migrant population, which disproportionately affects women, there are high rates of gender-based violence experienced in both countries of origin and destination. Gender-based violence against women is a widespread problem in the region and in the world that violates the human rights of girls and women, with serious repercussions on their families, communities, social environment, and, above all, on their own life projects.

In this sense, it is important for Pastoral Social Caritas Ecuador to generate analysis documents that consider its experience working in the territory, the challenges, and good practices during these ten years of work with the population in human mobility. The generation of knowledge from Caritas seeks to contribute to the

OF THE GENDER ANALYSIS

different perspectives and approaches to determine the vulnerabilities and needs of women, men, and gender diversity.

This Caritas gender analysis is the first document generated by human mobility and has intertwined three levels of analysis (micro, meso, and macro), through these levels we intend to learn about the gender relations that develop in people in human mobility; how the institutions responsible for serving this population in mobility condition intervene; public policies as well as their implementation in four cities of Ecuador (Cuenca, Ibarra, Lago Agrio, and Quito).

For the collection of information at the macro level, a documentary analysis was conducted on the main existing regulations regarding human mobility and the integrated or absent gender approach, adapted to the contexts of the four cities participating in this research. The purpose of this documentary systematization is to understand the institutional framework and the opportunities or gaps that people may find in these spaces of power.

At the micro-level, 118 surveys were conducted with women, men, and people of gender diversity in a situation of human mobility who are in transit and stay in the four cities and who have been accompanied by Caritas. This information gathering will address socio-demographic data, migration status, economic activity, employment conditions, gender-based violence in the labor and social, family and couple environments, the female/male role, and, finally, access to justice, health, and education.

Finally, the meso level has been considered as a more internal level of Caritas where interviews were conducted with the institution’s staff working in the field of human mobility, as well as with key people from the national office of Caritas in order to know the internal and external institutional dynamics regarding the intervention in this area and the application of the gender approach in its attention.

Through the elaboration of these analysis documents, Caritas Ecuador reaffirms its commitment to maintain integral attention with a focus on Integral Human Development that, in addition to providing a first response to people in vulnerable conditions, also seeks to generate knowledge and reflection on the realities that they live.

6PASTORAL

PROVIDED BY ACCOMPANIMENT SOCIAL CÁRITAS ECUADOR IN HUMAN MOBILITY