Women and Migration

Posted on by School for Policy Studies

These blogs and policy briefs were co-authored by multi-disciplinary teams of students on the MSc in Public Policy (MPP), Migration, asylum and human rights: UK, EU and global policy perspectives unit. The blogs and briefs were prepared in discussion during class and finalised by the students outside the formal teaching programme. The exercise proved to be very popular. It provided experience of team-work, collaborative research and practice in writing clear and concise text for public and policy audiences – Ann Singleton, Reader in Migration Policy.

This blog was written by Aishmita Biswas, Eleonora Cadoni, Layla Palis Pinheiro, Megan Isaac, Stephanie Gauvin, Xinyi Wei, Lucy Tucker.

I. Introduction

Gender plays a crucial role in shaping individuals’ experiences of migration, from the reasons why women migrate to the challenges they face during and after migration. Despite this, gender is often overlooked in migration discourses, with violence against women and girls often dismissed as an issue of the ‘private’ sphere. While acknowledging the reasons which push women to migrate, it is also important to recognize the agency of migrant women and challenge narratives of ‘forced’ and ‘voluntary’ migration. While gender represents a significant constraint in itself, an intersectional lens that recognizes the role of other characteristics in shaping migration-related decision-making is necessary to holistically capture women’s experiences.

Image of a woman with caption - the place of a woman is wherever she wants to be
Linoca Souza for Fine Acts ©

II. Migration as a Gender Issue

Gender is a key organising principle of society1 and migration is a gendered issue2 which affects men and women differently. Women migrate for varied reasons, but often choose to leave a country due to gender-based violence or persecution. For instance, 27% of migrant women who left Afghanistan cited domestic violence as their main reason for migrating3.

But violence against women and girls perpetrated by a partner or family members is often relegated to the ‘private’ sphere and thus overlooked in forced migration discourse.4 This public-private dichotomy has significant implications for women experiencing gender-based violence since the 1951 Refugee Convention does not consider gender as a grounds for granting refugee status5. Under the 1951 Convention, a refugee is defined as:

“a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality or being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable, or owing to such fear is unwilling to return to it”6

Whilst there has been some debate about including gender, most cases of gender-based violence are considered on the basis of the woman being part of a “particular social group”. However, this imposes a significant barrier to women seeking asylum on the basis of gender-based violence. The public-private distinction in international law thus implies that violence which takes place within the home is somehow less serious or the victim/survivor is less worthy than if the violence had been perpetrated by an official7. Migration research must therefore incorporate a gendered approach to understand these dynamics.

Whilst gender is an important lens through which to view migration, gender does not operate in isolation. Rather, studying migration requires an intersectional lens that recognises race, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation and class co-exist to shape social identity, behaviour, opportunities and access to rights8. These interrelated factors influence migration-related decision-making and it is therefore important not to view migrant women as a homogenous group, but as a diverse set of individuals who migrate for varied reasons and experience migration in varied ways. For instance, LGBTQI+ migrants face a heightened risk of sexual exploitation and human rights abuses9.

Gender not only acts as a ‘push’ factor in migration, it also plays a key role in women’s experiences of migration and post-migration. For instance, women are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation and trafficking during migration, with an estimated 90% of women and girls migrating along the Mediterranean route raped en route to Italy10. Gender is also key in understanding migrant labour. An estimated 74% of migrant domestic workers are women, which means for many women, their place of work is their place of residence which can create unequal power dynamics and leave women vulnerable to labour exploitation, particularly since 40% of national labour laws do not include protections for domestic workers11.

It is also important to recognise the agency of migrant women12. Narratives of ‘forced’ versus ‘voluntary’ migration and ‘pull’ and ‘push’ factors evokes a strong contrast between cases of individuals exercising agency and choice and cases in which individuals migrate for circumstances entirely beyond their control. This delineation between ‘forced’ and ‘voluntary’ or ‘economic’ migrants also fuels problematic notions of more or less ‘deserving’ migrants13. These narratives must be challenged, in favour of a more nuanced and contextual perspective which recognises that motivations spurring migration and the degree to which people are able to exercise agency exist along a continuum14.

Therefore, whilst gender therefore shapes every stage of the migration experience15 and a gender perspective in migration, asylum and integration policies is paramount16, it is equally important to recognise the role of intersectionality and the diversity and variation of women’s migration experiences.

III. Reasons Women Migrate

Women choose to migrate for different reasons and their experiences are not singular. Women migration can be characterised as either internal, where women remain within their country of origin, or external, where women move to another country. In the EU, women accounted for approximately 31% of asylum seekers between 2014 and 2020 and women and children accounted for approximately 30% of irregular migrant arrivals in 2021.17 Reasons to migrate are context-specific and women can exercise agency while migrating to a new country or region.18

For some women, having children or being pregnant influences their decision to migrate and sometimes this means undertaking travel while pregnant.19 Some women choose to migrate for economic reasons by seeking employment opportunities to support their families back home by sending money through remittances, whereas others migrate in search of better educational opportunities.20 However, women’s decisions to migrate are often taken due to the lack of perceived alternative options since women seek to escape from war, prosecution, and violence.21

In Ethiopia, some young women become internal migrants by migrating to urban cities.22 This provides them an opportunity to live an independent and free life away from the limited opportunities, discrimination and abuse they face in their rural towns.23 In other instances, women migrate from China and Southeast Asian countries to Taiwan to escape poverty in their home countries.24 They migrate in search of a better life and become ‘marriage migrants’ constituting 1.7% of the Taiwanese population.25 Women can also be displaced from their home countries or regions. UN Environment estimates that 80% of individuals displaced due to climate change are women.26

IV. Challenges Faced by Women Migrants

As individuals who face double discrimination due to their status as both women and migrants, migrant women face complex challenges with some of the most prominent being sexual exploitation and barriers to safe, secure employment .27 Women are increasingly vulnerable to sexual exploitation often perpetrated by smugglers, traffickers, border officials and other migrants. The UN has estimated that 60-80% of migrant women and girls travelling from Mexico to the USA and 90% of women and girls travelling to Italy are raped.28 Along the migration route, women are often seen as a form of currency which makes them highly vulnerable to exploitation.

‘As a man you always pay with your physical things, phone, money, whatever, but as a woman, the kind of corruption is different: you always pay with sex.’ 29

Women are also used to pay for the journeys of other migrants:

‘when there are women in a connection, there are more chances to cross. In Tamanrasset in Algeria, the police [came] and [took] the women and [left] with them, it’s often policemen.’30

The abhorrent exploitation many women face when migrating both internally and externally may have adverse effects on their ability to integrate. It is crucial that support is available to migrants who have been victims of sexual exploitation.

When seeking employment migrant women face gendered barriers meaning that they are less likely to be employed than male migrants and when they are employed these jobs are often confined to insecure domestic and care work.31 Major barriers include non-recognition of skills and qualifications from their home country, lack of access of work in their home country leading to a lack of experience, and childcare responsibilities, which can limit the hours of work and the kinds of jobs migrant mothers can accept.32 For these reasons migrant women may have to look for jobs in invisible sectors, which exposes them to the risk of poor working conditions and hours, exploitation, and abuse.33 Economic challenges were further exacerbated by COVID-19 as much of the domestic work undertaken by women was unavailable and care work became increasingly dangerous.34 Furthermore, the pandemic has also highlighted the lack of social protection for migrant women, leaving them with limited access to healthcare and financial support during times of crisis. These issues must be addressed to ensure the safety and well-being of migrant women.

V. Empowering Women Migrants

Empowering women with such different backgrounds and specific needs can be oriented in many different ways. The process of empowering women migrants can be divided into four stages: access to information and resources, increasing awareness, participating in decision-making and influencing others35.

Empowerment of women migrants cannot be achieved only by governmental efforts. It is required that other institutions and organisations such as NGOs, IGOs and private companies come together with the government and work towards achieving empowerment. Initiatives previously taken together by countries and economic blocs can serve as examples for others. In Brazil, partnerships of the local offices of UN Women (ONU Mulheres Brasil), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Global Compact, alongside companies and funding governments, resulted in several different projects to promote the socio economic inclusion of women migrants and refugees36. The actions included courses targeting these population’s professional needs; offering daycare to their children so they could work; including them in the supply chain or in the communication’s strategies; promoting forums with companies to exchange good practices, focusing in inclusive hiring, with special solutions for families led by single mothers; and creating platforms to publish products made by refugees (most of the1m women), which provides visibility to their business and facilitate purchases by the audience. Education programs should be a crucial component in empowerment of migrating women. NGOs in the Philippines have been working towards economic empowerment of women through complex reintegration programs, where the women contribute part of their earnings to a communal saving scheme to create sustainable economic alternatives in return37.

Not only this, majority of the women migrants decide to migrate in the first place as they are lured with the promise of a better future but end up getting cheated and trafficked, i.e., their desire to escape oppressive conditions and relationships, end up victimising themselves (UN Women, 2012). There are also cases of debt bondage to recruiting agencies for migrant women. Most of these cases go unreported since they cannot afford to lose their jobs if they are to repay their debts (Cyment, 2021). To look into such miseries, UN Women along with the Government of Bangladesh has established resource centres so that women planning to move abroad can get correct information about migration easily. They also have a detailed plan for rehabilitation programs for women returnees.

VI. Conclusion

To better alleviate the current problems and obtain better living conditions, more and more people choose to migrate, and the proportion of women migrating is gradually increasing, nearly reaching half, and more attention needs to be paid to their migration process. And in actual operation, we have to think of migration as a gender issue, because it reminds us all the time. Unlike men, women migrate for more diverse reasons, both exogenous and internal, but it is particularly evident that domestic violence and exploitative factors force them to become refugees. Therefore, the women face more challenges in the migration process, and some are even sexually exploited and become instruments of ‘payment’ to gain benefits. Women face tougher work environments and conditions, hard work for meagre pay and poor health. This is why it is important to strengthen the protection of women migrants’ rights and provide them with suitable education and legal assistance, as well as effective medical services. This work requires the contribution and efforts of various organisations, including not only governmental organisations, but also non-governmental organisations and some civil society institutions.

It can be expected that future women will not migrate less even if these difficulties exist, and will continue to face unequal treatment. Therefore, strong support for their choices is the key, not only in terms of policy support, but also in terms of support and assistance from others in their behaviour so that the long and uncertain journey can be less dangerous.

  1. https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/events/coordination/3/docs/P01_DAW. pdf
  2. https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/explainer/migration/en/index.html
  3. https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/explainer/migration/en/index.html
  4. Wachter and Cook Heffron (2021) ‘Intimate partner violence against women in forced migration’ in Devaney, J., Bradbury-Jones, C., Holt, S., Macy, R. and Øverlien, C. (eds) The Routledge Handbook on Domestic Violence and Abuse, Oxford: Routledge
  5. Freedman (2021) Domestic violence through a human rights lens In: Devaney, J., Bradbury-Jones, C., Holt, S., Macy, R. and Øverlien, C. (Eds) The Routledge Handbook on Domestic Violence and Abuse, Oxford: Routledge
  6. https://www.unhcr.org/uk/1951-refugee-convention.html
  7. Freedman (2021) ‘Domestic violence through a human rights lens’ in Devaney, J., Bradbury-Jones, C., Holt, S., Macy, R. and Øverlien, C. (eds) The Routledge Handbook on Domestic Violence and Abuse, Oxford: Routledge
  8. Crenshaw (1991) cited in Wachter and Cook Heffron (2021) ‘Intimate partner ciolence against women in forced migration’ in Devaney, J., Bradbury-Jones, C., Holt, S., Macy, R. and Øverlien, C. (eds) The Routledge Handbook on Domestic Violence and Abuse, Oxford: Routledge
  9. https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/explainer/migration/en/index.html
  10. https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/explainer/migration/en/index.html
  11. https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/explainer/migration/en/index.html
  12. https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/events/coordination/3/docs/P01_DAW .pdf
  13. Wachter and Cook Heffron (2021) ‘Intimate partner ciolence against women in forced migration’ in Devaney, J., Bradbury-Jones, C., Holt, S., Macy, R. and Øverlien, C. (eds) The Routledge Handbook on Domestic Violence and Abuse, Oxford: Routledge
  14. Nawyn, Reosti, & Gjokaj (2009) cited in Wachter and Cook Heffron (2021) ‘Intimate partner ciolence against women in forced migration’ in Devaney, J., Bradbury-Jones, C., Holt, S., Macy, R. and Øverlien, C. (eds) The Routledge Handbook on Domestic Violence and Abuse, Oxford: Routledge
  15. https://www.iom.int/gender-and-migration
  16. https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/policy-areas/migration
  17. Dubow, T and Kuschminder, K. (2021) ‘‘I don’t have any other choice’ – refugee women’s journeys to Europe’, Women dn Migration Blog. Available at: https://womenandmigration.com/case-study/journey/
  18. Dubow and Kuschminder (2021)
  19. Dubow and Kuschminder (2021)
  20. UN Women (2020) How Migration is a gender equality issue. Available at: https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/explainer/migration/en/index.html#:~:text=Introduction,-Ph oto%3A%20UN%20Women&text=Women%20migrate%20for%20diverse%20reasons,access%20to% 20livelihoods%20and%20resources.
  21. UN Women (2020)
  22. De Regt, M. (2021) ‘‘The work itself has changes me’’- The experience of (rural) migrant women and girls in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’, Women dn Migration Blog. Available at: https://womenandmigration.com/case-study/ethiopia/
  23. De Regt (2021)
  24. Yu (2021)
  25. Yu (2021)
  26. United Nations (2022) Climate change exacerbates violence against women and girls. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2022/07/climate-change-exacerbates-violence-against-women-and-gi rls#:~:text=It%20is%20estimated%20that%2080,High%20Commissioner%20for%20Human%20Right s.
  27. Standke-Erdmann, M. (2021) Intersectionality and refugee women: The shortcomings of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum from an intersectional perspective, Heinrich Boll Stiftung
  28. UN Women (2020)
  29. UN Women (2020)
  30. UN Women (2020)
  31. Johnston, A. (2020) Policy briefings on coronavirus and inequalities: Covid-19 and economic challenges for migrant women, Women’s Budget Group
  32. Forum (2022) FOR AN EQUAL EUROPE FOR ALL: MIGRANT WOMEN RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS: Key issues and recommendations for policymakers
  33. Integral Human Development (20220) Female migrant workers: challenges and strengths https://migrants-refugees.va/2022/08/04/female-migrant-workers/#:~:text=Once%20they%20can%20g et%20a,having%20children%20in%20host%20countries.
  34. Johnston, A. (2020)
  35. Piper, N. (2004)
  36. ONU Mulheres Brasil (2022)
  37. Piper, N. (2004)

References:

Cyment, P. (2021) ‘No Borders to Equality: Global Mapping of Organizations working on Gender and Migration’, Women in Migration Network & Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Available at: No-borders-for-equality-Final-reduced.pdf (womeninmigration.org).

De Regt, M. (2021) ‘‘The work itself has changes me’’- The experience of (rural) migrant women and girls in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’, Women dn Migration Blog. Available at: https://womenandmigration.com/case-study/ethiopia/

Dubow, T and Kuschminder, K. (2021) ‘‘I don’t have any other choice’ – refugee women’s journeys to Europe’, Women dn Migration Blog. Available at: https://womenandmigration.com/case-study/journey/

Forum (2022) FOR AN EQUAL EUROPE FOR ALL: MIGRANT WOMEN RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS: Key issues and recommendations for policymakers. Available at: https://rm.coe.int/policy-brief-forum-en-final/1680a9f45c

Integral Human Development (20220) Female migrant workers: challenges and strengths https://migrants-refugees.va/2022/08/04/female-migrant-workers/#:~:text=Once%20t hey%20can%20get%20a,having%20children%20in%20host%20countries

Johnston, A. (2020) Policy briefings on coronavirus and inequalities: Covid-19 and economic challenges for migrant women, Women’s Budget Group. Available at: https://wbg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/migrant-women-with-cover.pdf

ONU Mulheres Brasil (2022) ONU Mulheres, ACNUR e Pacto Global unem esforços pela empregabilidade de mulheres refugiadas e migrantes no Brasil. Available at: https://www.onumulheres.org.br/noticias/acnur-onu-mulheres-e-pacto-global-unem-e sforcos-pela-empregabilidade-de-mulheres-refugiadas-e-migrantes-no-brasil/

Piper, N. (2004) Gender and Migration Policies in Southeast and East Asia: Legal Protection and Sociocultural Empowerment of Unskilled Migrant Women. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25, pp.216-231. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0129-7619.2004.00183.x

Standke-Erdmann, M. (2021) Intersectionality and refugee women: The shortcomings of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum from an intersectional perspective, Heinrich Boll Stiftung. Available at: https://eu.boell.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/Intersectionality%20and%20refugee%2 0women_FINAL_1.pdf

United Nations (2022) Climate change exacerbates violence against women and girls. Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2022/07/climate-change-exacerbates-violence-agai nst-women-and-girls#:~:text=It%20is%20estimated%20that%2080,High%20Commis sioner%20for%20Human%20Rights.

UN Women (2012) Empowering women migrants in Bangladesh. Available at: Empowering woman migrant workers in Bangladesh | UN Women – Asia-Pacific.

UN Women (2020) How Migration is a gender equality issue. Available at: https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/explainer/migration/en/index.html#:~:text =Introduction,-Photo%3A%20UN%20Women&text=Women%20migrate%20for%20di verse%20reasons,access%20to%20livelihoods%20and%20resources.

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