EU Roadmap for Referral Pathways on Early/Forced Marriage for frontline professionals

Key project results achieved
The EU Forced and Early Marriage (FEM) project has successfully completed all project deliverables in the 2 year time frame and in doing so has made a significant contribution to assisting in the protection and support of (potential) victims of FEM. Frontline professionals such as service providers working in migration centers, women's/crisis shelters, health and social services, magistrate offices and educational organizations can use this Roadmap to strengthen the multisectoral response to the issue. The EU FEM Roadmap is now available on the project website in 8 languages: http://femroadmap.eu/outputs.html
In doing so the project has:
- Improved victim assistance for victims and potential victims of early or forced marriage or forced sexual relationships and their families/peers in the 5 project partner countries due to implemenation of the Referral Roadmap; in the Eastern Europe/Central Asian Region through UNFPA network; with youth through Y-PEER network for awareness raising through online campaign #MyChoice in 2017.

- Improved knowledge of harmonised, best practice standards for referral pathways by frontline professionals working in victim support services, child protection system actors, law enforcement, education and childcare, and justice who are confronted with victims or potential victims of early or forced marriage across the EU and seek an integrated, multi-professional guidance for responding and preventing this problem.

- Increased awareness of the applicability of the EU Roadmap of Referral Pathway on early/forced marriage throughout the gender focal points in the European Region via dissemination by UNFPA and through a wide range of non-governmental organisations and voluntary organisations.

Impact on target groups
- Improved support for victims and potential victims of forced and early marriages in all five partner countries through availability of Roadmap for frontline professionals as well as organisations that have access to the free Roadmap in multiple languages online.

- Increased awareness of forced and early marriages with frontline professionals through dissemination activities and training.

- Increased awareness of current issues with forced and early marriages with policy makers in the partner countries through information exchange meetings with policy makers.

The EU FEM project has provided an effective and coordinated way to protect (potential) victims of FEM by harmonising the multisectoral response by frontline professionals. In this way the Roadmap supports the inter-institutional and multi-disciplinary intervention and referrals to specialised victim support by establishing a common methodological framework for the relevant actors, especially for professionals who work directly with GBV victims/survivors. The Roadmap was designed with all Member States in mind in order to harmonise the response to FEM throughout the EU. Thus, the FEM Roadmap is meant to complement national standards, procedures and guidelines that may already be in place in certain Member States to address FEM.
The Roadmap is a collaborative effort to create a guide for service providers, stakeholders as well as policy makers in developing or strengthening the existing national or regional programmes that address FEM.

This website has been produced with the financial support of the Daphne Programme of the European Union. The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of the EU FEM Roadmap project team led by the University of Vechta (Germany) and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Commission.