My name is Grace Fortson, I am a rising senior majoring in Political Science and Global Affairs and minoring in Gender and Women’s studies at the University of Portland. This summer, I am interning remotely from Gig Harbor, Washington. I have the honor of continuing my work with the Center for Migration, Gender, and Justice (CMGJ) through the Interns for Justice Program. CMGJ is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization focusing on human rights at the intersection of migration and gender through research, education, and advocacy.
Currently, I am working with a team of two other UP students as well as Dr. Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi, the founder and executive director of CMGJ, to create a policy scorecard. A scorecard is an evaluation and monitoring tool that streamlines policy analysis and helps create accountability for policymakers. Our scorecard will analyze the level of gender-responsiveness in various policies, particularly those around migration. Ultimately, we want this scorecard to be accessible, and by extension to make policy accessible.
As a political science student and researcher, I am all too familiar with the complex policy language common from the international to local levels. This complexity often makes it feel like policy is something distant or lofty, something that might not be particularly applicable to me personally. But it is. Policies affect our lives intimately from regulating our access to healthcare to our ability to be employed. These policy impacts can be positive or negative. Because women and nonbinary folx on the move are among the most marginalized communities, policy must take into account the unique experiences, challenges, and needs they have in order to have the greatest positive impact.
We hope this scorecard can be a means to closing the gap between migrant women and policymakers to achieving this goal.
Feel free to look more into CMGJ’s work at The Center for Migration, Gender, and Justice (migrationgenderjustice.com).