INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS DAY
More Women, More at Risk
by Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) — More women than ever, about 90 million, are living outside their countries of origin, where most of them are at risk of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation, says the United Nations in a report marking International Migrants Day on Dec. 18.
"Whether they are labour migrants, family migrants, trafficked persons or refugees, they face the triple burden of being female, foreign and, often, working in dangerous occupations," says the 89-page 'World Survey on the Role of Women in Development'.
Since many migrant women are of a different race, ethnicity and religion than their host population, they may also face additional discrimination on those bases, the study added.
"What is different today is the sheer scale of the migration and the entry of women into migration streams that had previously been primarily male ... at no time in human history have as many women been on the move as today."
Representing about one-half of all people living outside of their homelands, a significant number of women are forced migrants who have fled conflict, persecution, environmental degradation, natural disasters and other situations that affect their habitat, livelihood and security, the study noted.
Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) says women and girls dominate in many of these migrant labour flows, going into domestic service, low-paid sweatshop industries, street begging and commercial sex work.
"Many are driven by intense poverty and the need to survive or by the need to escape conflict; others are pulled by the desire for a better life," she adds.
"Underlying both of these are deep structures of gender inequality at all levels — national, community and family — in both sending and receiving countries," Heyzer told IPS.
The study says migrant women boost economic development in both their country of destination and at home, through financial contributions from remittances, improving their own skills or helping to improve the education skills of the next generation.
In a message to be released Dec. 18, International Migrants Day, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the global community must continue to work for wider ratification of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers.
The treaty, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in December 1990, came into force in July 2003, needing nearly 13 years to receive the 20 ratifications required to become international law.
Still, Annan says only 27 of the 191 U.N. member states have so far ratified the convention, a process that makes it legally binding in those countries. "I call on all other member states to follow their example," he said.
Nations ratifying the convention include Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Mexico, Morocco, the Philippines, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Uruguay.
In 2003, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) complained that not a single industrial country had ratified the convention, despite the important contributions that migrant workers make to their economies.
The situation remains the same today, because most industrial countries are reticent about joining the convention for fear it may afford too many rights and entitlements to undocumented migrants in their midst.
At least nearly 60 percent of the world's migrants live or work in Europe or North America. The rest live in countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Japan, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.
The convention aims to protect migrant workers by providing them fundamental rights such as the right to: form associations and trade unions, freedom of expression and religion, and due process, as well as equal treatment with nationals in respect of economic and social rights.
"What needs to be remembered is that receiving countries are not bestowing a favour on foreign workers by giving them jobs," Heyzer pointed out.
"The truth is that the relatively low-paid foreign workers are contributing a labour subsidy that provides hidden savings and makes possible the receiving countries' levels of economic growth," she added.
Moreover, as these economies expand, their labour needs also increase -- as seen by the increasing numbers of foreign workers in receiving countries such as Singapore and Malaysia, as well as in the West.
Sending countries too are increasingly benefiting from the remittances that workers abroad remit home, Heyzer said.
In a study released in November, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs said migrant remittances have grown parallel with the number of international migrants and are estimated to have reached 130 billion dollars in 2000 compared to about 55 billion dollars paid by rich countries to poorer ones in official development assistance (ODA).
Also in November, both the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) predicted that migrant earnings sent to home countries would soon rise to over 150 billion dollars annually.
A study commissioned by the IDB in May predicted that Latin American and Caribbean migrants living in the United States will convey a record 30 billion dollars to their families and friends at home in 2004.
The U.N. study recommends several measures to improve the situation of migrant women worldwide:
Ratify and implement all international legal instruments that promote and protect the rights of migrant women and girls;
Review national emigration and immigration laws and policies in order to identify discriminatory provisions that undermine the rights of migrant women;
Develop policies that enhance migrant, refugee and trafficked women's employment opportunities; and
Create education and communication programmes to inform migrant women of their rights and responsibilities. (END/Copyright IPS)
