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MIGRATION & WOMEN'S RIGHTS
Where do we go from here?Donna Gabaccia is Professor of History at the University of Toronto and former Director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. An award-winning author on gender and migration, Gabaccia was the keynote speaker at the Families on the Move conference, co-organised by UN Women, the Center for Global Affairs and NYU School of Professional Studies, in December 2016, which examined how migration shapes and transforms families. The final papers presented at the conference will inform the 2018 edition of UN Women's flagship report, Progress of the World's Women: Families in a Changing World. In this one-onone, Gabaccia speaks about the challenges and opportunities to protect women's rights and support families in the context of migration. Q: How does migration impact women's rights within families? A: Migration often separates family members. In some societies, women who are left behind as the men in their lives migrate for work may have less decision-making power within the family — be it about property or education and mobility of their children. In some cases, they may have no claim or control over the remittances sent by emigrated men. When women migrate, in some countries they may be unable to seek work independently or to report abusive husbands or partners. If unmarried and pregnant, they may be subject to criminal prosecution for their sexual activity and any children they bear may be taken from them or become stateless. Rights to inheritance may also be limited for women living away from their country of birth and citizenship. Conversely, in some cases, migration can expand women's rights and opportunities within families when they are economically empowered and key contributors to household incomes. Q: Is the scale of migration that we are seeing today unprecedented? How is it different now, specifically for women? A: Today, 3.3 per cent of the world's population is living outside their country of birth. Although the world has more people—both migrants and non-migrants—than ever before, the proportion of contemporary migration is roughly comparable to what it was 120 years ago. However, there are significant differences in the patterns of migration. Many more regions of the world are involved in today's migration systems, either as sending or receiving societies. Migration has become more global. Whereas men predominated among migrants in 1900, gender balance has been characteristic of most migrations since the middle years of the twentieth century. It's also likely that relatively more women migrate long distances independently nowadays as compared to the past. In some countries, migrant women constitute the majority of care workers. Indeed, the only significant form of female labour that has for the last 50 years been specifically targeted for labour recruitment by foreign countries is care work, in a variety of forms (from nursing to child or elder care and domestic service). However, care workers do not constitute the majority among female migrants. The largest group of women migrants presently is refugees and women who migrate to unify families separated by earlier migrations of men, or to find safety. Q: What are the major data gaps in our understanding of gender and migration? In what areas do we need more data and why?
Syrian refugees at Keleti railway station in Budapest. The largest
group of female migrants presently is refugees.
A: Most
historical data on
migration was
"flow data",
meaning records
t h a t
g o v e r nme n t s
kept on the
number of
people entering
or leaving their
n a t i o n a l
territories. By
contrast, much of
the evidence on
today's migrants
comes from
census records
that count
"persons living
outside the
country of their
birth."
Most modern censuses capture
sex disaggregated data, but in
published statistical reports, most
countries aggregate their census data
on migrant occupations. Statistics on
family relationships are even more
limited. While it may be possible to
identify the numbers of males and
females in migrant populations in
receiving societies, it is not always
possible to know the gender, age or
occupational groups within those
migrant populations. Such data is
critical for understanding the full
impact of migration on gender and
the gendered experience of
migrants, and subsequently, for
developing policies that leave no one
behind.
Q: How can laws, policies and public action support families in ways that empower and benefit women in the context of migration? A: Laws and policies that create safe w o r k p l a c e s , ensure fair wages and offer rights to p e r m a n e n t residency, family unification and options for citizenship, have h i s t o r i c a l l y b e n e f i t t e d migrant women and their families. But these conditions prevail almost nowhere in the world. In mixed status families, where one parent has permanent residency and the other parent is clandestine, dependent, or out of status, power inequalities may get exaggerated and lead to abuse. The rights of citizen children are sometimes ignored when their parents are detained or deported. The children of migrant women still too easily become stateless in countries that tie women's citizenship exclusively to their fathers or husbands. The rights of people to enter into nonheteronormative marriages and families and to have these marriages and families recognised by states is still extremely uneven around the world. (WFS) |