Refugees will have the right to work, why not employ them?

We would like to reproduce the recent article from the Guardian (Refugees will have the right to work, why not employ them?)  that focus on recent positions of compagnies in the UK or Germany to promote the employment of asylum seekers and refugees. 

Europe may be deeply divided over how to host hundreds of thousands of refugees coming to the continent this year, but some companies are now considering the struggles new arrivals will face finding work. Business leaders in Germany have responded to the refugee crisis by calling for the thousands of people arriving each day to be given help to find employment.

“If we can integrate them quickly into the jobs market, we’ll be helping the refugees, but also helping ourselves as well,” the head of the BDI industry federation, Ulrich Grillo, told the AFP news agency earlier this week. Other business bodies in Germany have backed calls for an easing of restrictions so that skilled refugees can help the country fill gaps in its workforce.

Some socially responsible businesses in the UK are now wondering how they might help newcomers find jobs.

Providing Refugee Women the Right to Work

We reproduce below some extract from an article by Samuel Witten on the livelihood programmes targeting women refugees and asylum seekers in the countries receiving them. Samuel Witten has been serving for 22 years at the U.S. Department of State, including three years as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM). 

Source: The Huffington Post, 08/10/2011, Samuel Witten, Skills to Survive: Providing Refugee Women the Right to Work:

Refugees are victims of circumstances they did not create and cannot control. And women, often unaccompanied by men, caring for young children, and lacking in job skills and opportunities, generally have the most difficult time. I have seen firsthand the lack of hope and economic opportunity for women displaced from their homes by political turmoil and living in refugee camps or squalid urban areas.  Most refugees cannot work legally or get work permits that might be available to other foreigners. This often forces them into the informal economy, which can have a devastating impact on their safety and well-being. All of us who have been involved in humanitarian relief have heard countless stories of refugee women who work 15 to 16 hours a day for little or no pay, often abused as domestic workers or trapped in other oppressive labor situations. Many are routinely denied wages and suffer sexual abuse in the workplace. But they often do not report abuse for fear of being punished or deported, or treated even worse by their employers. We have also heard of numerous heartbreaking cases of women who could not find work and were forced into prostitution in order to provide for themselves and their families. What will it take to stop this exploitation and empower refugee women? A key step is systematically developing and expanding economic opportunities for refugee women that are safe and will allow them to ultimately become self-reliant.