On June 06-08, 2017 a group of religious congregations, officially accredited as NGOs at the United Nations, that has been organizing a series of conferences to bring together women and men religious to address how they might respond to this pressing issue of migration, refugees and trafficking in person organized one of such conferences in Nairobi, Kenya with focus on Women and Migration in the African Context.

The conference brought together organizations and persons addressing the issue on various levels: global, continental and local to stimulate experience sharing, discussion and action-plans.  Contributing will be representatives of: International Organization for Migration (IOM), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Kenyan Conference of Catholic Bishops, Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS), a Kenyan-based organization working on awareness against human trafficking (HAART), Caritas Kenya and Nairobi, Amnesty International, Pan African Network in Defense of Migrants’ Rights (PANiDMR), refugees and migrants themselves, local practitioners, and New York-based representatives of religious congregations accredited to the UN.

The conference achieved its set aims namely:

• to raise the awareness of women and men religious across Africa about the issues, especially of women migrants;
• to offer them an opportunity to hear first-hand the voices of some migrants and refugees, and learn of their own initiatives and hopes;
• with the stimulation of input, to help religious to start developing effective action-plans of advocacy and service to respond to this pressing challenge of the continent from both a global and local perspective.
• It also birthed a network of religious and partners on migration and its related issues in Africa.