Marking International Migrants Day, we speak with International Women* Space (IWS), a feminist, migrant- and refugee-led organisation in Berlin, about the realities faced by migrant women, the violence embedded in asylum systems, and why LGBTI solidarity must be rooted in anti-racism and collective resistance.
International Women* Space (IWS), are a feminist, migrant- and refugee-led political organisation based in Berlin. They organise and work collectively, using she/they pronouns to reflect the women* and gender-diverse people at the centre of their work.
IWS advocates for the rights, dignity, and self-determination of migrant, asylum-seeking, and refugee women* in Germany and across Europe. Their work combines grassroots organising, political advocacy, and community-based support. Today, on International Migrant’s Day 2025, we asked IWS to talk to us about the importance work shaped by anger and resistance, but rooted in collective, radical hope.
How do you support migrants, asylum seekers and refugees at your organisation?
We support migrant and asylum-seeking women* through grassroots organising, political education, public campaigns, and community care. Our work includes bi-monthly peer-to-peer support sessions for asylum seekers and migrants, political actions and interventions in public discourse, and collaborations with other movements and organisations.
We also organise and campaign against the Bezahlkarte, a restricted payment card introduced in several German regions for people seeking asylum. It replaces cash benefits and severely limits how money can be used, where it can be spent, and sometimes even where people can move. In practice, it functions as a tool of control and surveillance, rather than support, reinforcing poverty, stigma, and exclusion.
We create cultural-political spaces such as poetry slams, the Ubuntu Soup Kitchen, and storytelling formats. Alongside this, we engage in EU-level and regional policy discussions, while remaining firmly rooted in the everyday realities of women* navigating asylum systems.
What are the most prevailing problems of the migrants you work with?
Women* in the asylum system face intersecting forms of violence and exclusion. These include threats of deportation, multilayered isolation, pushbacks at borders, racist and sexist asylum systems, queerphobia, poverty, and state control and surveillance, including through tools such as the Bezahlkarte.
Access to housing, healthcare, and work is severely restricted. These harms are further intensified by dog-whistle political rhetoric, the criminalisation of solidarity, shrinking civic space, and the rise of right-wing extremism. Together, these realities directly impact safety, mental health, and the possibility of long-term dignity and belonging.
How do you feel about your job supporting migrants?
Our work is deeply political, emotional, and collective. It is shaped by anger at injustice and grief over ongoing harm, while also being sustained by solidarity, resistance, and radical hope.
We are driven by the strength, creativity, and leadership of migrant and refugee women*, even as we navigate burnout, chronic underfunding, and increasingly hostile political environments.
What would you like to happen immediately?
We call for an immediate end to the Bezahlkarte, deportations, and pushbacks. Solidarity work must be protected, and asylum seekers must have access to safe, gender-sensitive housing and legal security.
Politically, this requires a clear rejection of racist and right-wing narratives, alongside concrete commitments to human rights-based migration policies.
How can LGBTI people in Europe support migrants, asylum seekers and refugees?
LGBTI people and communities can support migrants by showing up in solidarity, amplifying migrant- and refugee-led voices, and challenging racist and anti-migrant narratives within their own spaces.
This also means supporting grassroots initiatives financially and politically, and resisting the co-opting of LGBTI rights by right-wing agendas. Solidarity requires recognising that struggles against racism, border violence, patriarchy, and queerphobia are deeply interconnected.
