paper - African Development Bank

SOCIAL INTEGRATION, GENDER ISSUES AND LABOUR MIGRATION

Department of Research and Corporate Planning, Kenya Utalii

College, P.O BOX 31052- 00600, Nairobi, Kenya.

Social integration, in sociology and other social sciences, is the movement of minority groups such as ethnic minorities, refugees and under privileged sections of a society into the mainstream of societies. In tolerant and open societies, members of minority groups can often use social integration to gain full access to the opportunities, rights and services available to the members of the mainstream of society.

Gender Issues publishes basic and applied research on the relationships between men and women; on similarities and differences in socialization, personality, and behavior; and on the changing aspirations, roles, and status of women in industrial, urban societies as well as in developing nations.

Labour migration refers to a condition where migrants cross borders in search of employment and human security due to the failure of globalization to provide jobs and economic opportunities.

Key words:

Integration, Gender issues, Labour migration, Opportunities, Development,

Gender, Gender discrimination, Gender mainstreaming, Sex-segregated labour market, Globalization and trafficking of people.

1.0 INTRODUCTION:

1 | Social Integration, Gender Issues and Labour Migration – African Economic

Conference, 2013

Africa is a region, historically, of intensive migration prompted by demographic, economic, ecological, political and related factors; these have acted in combination to produce the variety of migration configurations: labour migrants, nomads, clandestine migrants, migration of skilled professionals, refugees and internally displaced persons leading to social integration. Social integration requires proficiency in an accepted common language of the society, acceptance of the laws of the society and adoption of a common set of values of the society. It does not require assimilation and it does not require persons to give up all of their culture, but it may require to for go some aspects of their culture which are inconsistent with the laws and values of the society.

The component sub-regions are characterized by distinctive forms of international migration: labour emigration from western and central Africa; refugee flows within eastern Africa; labour migration from southern African countries to the Republic of South Africa (RSA); and clandestine migration in western and eastern Africa. In all cases, clandestine movements across long, porous frontiers by ethnic groups and pastoral peoples, and undocumented migrations, are perhaps the most common configuration.

What sets Africa apart from other regions, however, is that migration is essentially intra-continental. However, deteriorating socio-economic, political, and ecological conditions across the region have produced changes in the direction, pattern, composition, and dynamics of migration. The focus of this paper is on these intra-regional migrations, its root causes, and its implications for social policy and social service provisioning in the region.

This paper therefore seek to identify how minority groups such as ethnic minorities, refugees and under privileged sections of a society are able to move from one country to the other for various reasons, how gender affect there movement. It also focuses on the gender issues in relation to employment opportunities.

2.0 GENDER ISSUES



Gender inequality has maintained the suppression of women worldwide and unfortunately has impacted Sub-Saharan Africa with the greatest magnitude. Everyday in these countries are countless occurrences of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse that must be acknowledged as a primary concern for governments across the world.

A prime example of gender inequality is the use of rape as a weapon of war. For women in Darfur, it is a permanent scar of war; a painful reminder which will never go away. Girls as young as eight will never sleep well again or be able to have a normal relationship with a man because of this issue.

There are many ways to commit murder, and for these women and girls, they may as well be dead.

Another example of gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa is fistula and young African girls. What is a fistula? According to fistulafoundation.org, fistula is a hole between a woman's birth passage and one or more of her internal organs. This hole develops over many days of obstructed labor, when the pressure of the baby's head against the mother's pelvis cuts off blood supply to delicate tissues in the region. The dead tissue falls away and the woman is left with a hole between her vagina and her bladder (called a vesicovaginal fistula or VVF) and sometimes between her vagina and rectum

(rectovaginal fistula, RVF). This hole results in permanent incontinence of urine and/or feces. Women who develop fistulas are often abandoned by their husbands, rejected by their communities, and forced to live an isolated existence. In a land where boys are more valued than girls, girls are viewed as nothing more than as bargaining tools for their fathers who covet fat dowries. Their mothers are powerless to intervene and as a result many

African girls have been sold into marriage like cattle to men old enough to be their grandfathers. At the age of twelve, most little girls bodies are not ready for childbirth and an obstructed labor combined with the narrow hips of child will lead to many occurrences of fistula in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The last example of gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa is female genital mutilation (FGM). The practice of female genital mutilation, also known as female circumcision, occurs throughout the world, but it is most



common in Africa. Female genital mutilation is a tradition and social custom to keep a young girl pure and a married woman faithful. In Sub-Saharan

Africa it is practiced in the majority of the continent including Kenya, Nigeria,

Mali, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Mozambique and Sudan. It is a crosscultural and cross-religious ritual, which is performed by Muslims, Coptic

Christians, Protestants, Catholics and members of various indigenous groups

(Skaine 15). This practice is both sexist and invasive. The genitals of young boys are not operated on crudely to keep them pure so why should young girls have to submit themselves to such a painful and humiliating act?

Because they are females and total control of a woman’s life must be achieved, even at the expense of her mental and physical health.

Finally, In Sub-Saharan Africa, most women have little or no rights. This affects what they can do for work, how their family life is, and what future they have. Until the world’s governments decide to take a stand on these issues, little or nothing will be done to help these women.

2.1 Causes and Impacts Gendered Movements

“While working in Hong Kong I experienced many things – the way people treat a dependent or independent woman. I have gained much experience and my confidence has grown. Now, I have a say in decision-making at home. My husband does not shout at me. I have bought a piece of land and four rickshaws and I am creating a means of livelihood for four other families…”

Sushila Rai, Nepalese migrant domestic worker (UNIFEM 2004, section 2, p1)

“I can’t believe I did it. If I had someone to talk my problems over with, this would not have happened”. Twenty-one-year-old Leonor Dacular, is reported to have said this to a Philippine embassy official in a prison cell in Saudi

Arabia as she awaited execution.



She had complained to her employers that she had been raped twice by their 16-year-old son, but they did not seem to care. She had no one to turn to as she was not allowed to use the phone, her letters were confiscated and she was often locked in the house. She finally killed the son and his parents in their sleep and tried to kill herself. She was executed in Saudi Arabia on 7

May 1993.

UNIFEM 2004, section 2, p4

Citing the above two experiences, Individuals may migrate out of desire for a better life, or to escape poverty, political persecution, or social or family pressures. There are often a combination of factors, which may play out differently for women and men. Gender roles, relations and inequalities affect who migrates and why, how the decision is made, the impacts on migrants themselves, on sending areas and on receiving areas.

Experience shows that migration can provide new opportunities to improve women’s lives and change oppressive gender relations – even displacement as a result of conflict can lead to shifts in gendered roles and responsibilities to women’s benefit. However, migration can also entrench traditional roles and inequalities and expose women to new vulnerabilities as the result of precarious legal status, exclusion and isolation.

Migration can provide a vital source of income for migrant women and their families, and earn them greater autonomy, self-confidence and social status.

At the same time, women migrants, especially if they are irregular migrants, can face stigma and discrimination at every stage of the migration cycle.

Before departure, women can be faced with gender-biased procedures and corrupt agents. In fact, gender discrimination, poverty and violence, can provide the impetus for women to migrate or enable women to be trafficked in the first place.

During transit and at their destination women can be faced with verbal, physical and sexual abuse, poor housing and encampments, sex-segregated labour markets, low wages, long working hours, insecure contracts and



precarious legal status. And upon return to the source country they may be faced with broken families, illness and poverty.

2.2 Globalization, remittances and new challenges for women migrants

An important positive contribution of female migration to developing countries is the money they earn and send back home. At the global level, female migrants send approximately the same amount of remittances as male migrants; however women tend to send a higher proportion of their income, even though they generally earn less than men. Migration also affects women who stay behind, as women play a central role as recipients and managers of remittances. Remittances are an important source of income for developing countries: formal and informal remittances are estimated to be three times the size of official development assistance.

While remittances can contribute to changing gender relations – winning respect for women who remit and providing more resources to women who receive remittances - they are also part of the so-called Global Care Chain, where migrant women from poor countries fill the gaps in care activities in richer countries in order to send money to other women left behind in the country of origin who take care of their family members, often through unpaid family labour.

While women who are willing to migrate in search of better economic and social conditions should not be refrained from doing so, there is a need for more coherence between trade, development and migration policies in both sending and receiving countries. To avoid jeopardizing their growth potential

, sending countries should create overall conditions that make it appealing for women, especially qualified women, to stay or to come back home after a period spent abroad. Receiving countries, on the other hand, need to offer decent work and living conditions to migrants and mitigate the effects of

"brain-drain" by providing training and capacity-building in the countries of origin.

Facilitating remittance transfers, minimizing transfer costs, improving the financial literacy of migrants and their families, and diversifying the supply of financial services are all policy measures that would benefit women



migrant workers and their families. On the other hand, practices such as banks requiring approval from a male family member before allowing women to open bank accounts, to obtain credit or to transmit remittances, should be reconsidered. Women’s financial autonomy and literacy are preconditions for achieving economic efficiency and equal social status.

2.3 Gender, Migration and Development

International migration has occurred all through history. Globalization, demographic shifts and the shortage of skills and labour in many countries is accelerating migration rates. What is new in recent years is that there has been a rapid feminization of all forms and stages of migration. Women now comprise nearly half of the migrant population worldwide and they are often faced with many challenges and opportunities.

Their work and income contributes to their own well-being and that of their families as more and more families in the developing world depend on the remittances of migrant women. For some women migration leads to career enhancement. For others, it can lead to deskilling as they accept low skilled jobs for pay higher than in their own countries for skilled work. Labour migration of women for some categories of work such as domestic work and care giving can result in high levels of exploitation and abuse due to the invisible nature of their work. Women may even find themselves trafficked for sexual or labour exploitation or in organized migration for marriage.

Gender-responsive solutions in enhancing opportunities and upholding rights are still in short supply as each year millions of people women and men leave their homes and cross national borders in search of better standards of living and greater security. Combined, their numbers would equal the fifth most populous country on the planet. The number of migrants crossing borders in search of employment and human security is expected to increase rapidly due to widening income and wealth disparities across countries, the failure of globalization to provide sufficient jobs and economic opportunities where people live, environmental and natural disasters, political persecution and armed conflict.

Demographic decline in many destination countries is fuelling the demand for migrant labour. Around half of the world's estimated 192 million migrants are migrant workers. While women traditionally accompanied men migrants,



increasingly it is women, both skilled and unskilled who are migrating for work, often leaving families and children behind.

The complex relationship between migration and development has been recognized and is increasingly the subject of research as policy makers attempt to maximize the benefits of remittances for development. There is no doubt as to the potential long-term benefits of circular migration, crossfertilization of skills and technology exchange, but the permanent loss of workers with critical skills, especially health and education workers, from many developing countries is of concern in the effort to attain the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs). It is clear that labour migration can contribute to employment, economic growth, development and the alleviation of poverty. Recognizing and maximizing this for the benefit of both origin and destination countries is the subject of many think tanks and conferences such as the Global Forum on Migration and Development.

Although migration is only now emerging as a development issue, migration may lead to development in receiving communities through the contribution of labour and skills. On the other hand, remittances and Diaspora investment can provide much-needed economic support to sending communities. However, the labour and skills that are brought in – and in turn who benefits – depend on sex-segregated labour markets and gendered migration policies which provide differential opportunities for women and men. Sometimes immigration policies push “unskilled” women workers into irregular and more risky migration channels. Migration may also hinder development through the social disruption of displacement due to conflict, or through “brain drain” and possible increases in HIV/AIDS rates, to which women and men are at different risks.

Theory, policy and practice that link gender equality concerns with migration from a development perspective are rare. Migration is still primarily seen as the concern of the state and migration as a development issue is only just emerging, with limited attention being paid to gender. Indeed, migration remains on the margins of the global policy agenda, with the exception of that which is conflict- and disaster-induced. While there is increasing recognition that women are also migrants and that the causes and impacts of migration are gendered, attempts to mainstream gender issues into policy are still patchy. Work has focused primarily on “adding women” as a discriminated and vulnerable group, particularly in relation to displacement due to conflict and trafficking for sexual exploitation.



Therefore, if women and men are to benefit from the empowering and development potential of migration, a shift is needed to a gendered human rights approach to migration. The key elements of such an approach could be:-

1.

Immigration and emigration policies that enable women as well as men to take up opportunities that are safe and regular migration may offer, and which will foster the positive impacts of migration for the social and economic development of migrants, and the receiving and sending countries. This would include measures to ensure sufficient regular channels for women’s entry, to avoid them being pushed into more risky irregular channels and bilateral agreements between sending and receiving areas which protect women migrants’ rights.

2.

Mobilize around and support for international rights frameworks that offer protection for women migrants to ensure that governments ratify and adhere to such. This includes not only those relating to migrants, trafficked peoples, refugees and displaced peoples, but also womenspecific frameworks such as the Convention on the Elimination of All

Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), UN Resolution 1325 and the Beijing Platform for Action.

3.

Support for the acknowledgement and realization of the rights of migrants throughout the migration process, including providing predeparture information on legal rights, facilitating remittances, ensuring access to basic services such as housing, education and health, and supporting migrant organizing and solidarity between different migrant groups to address issues of exclusion and isolation.

3.0 Changing Configurations of Migration in Africa



Migration in Africa is dynamic and extremely complex. This is reflected in the feminization of migration, diversification of migration destinations, transformation of labor flows into commercial migration, and brain drain from the region. Completing this picture are trafficking in human beings, the changing map of refugee flows, and the increasing role of regional economic organizations in fostering free flows of labor. Some of the most important trends are highlighted below:

3.1 Feminization of migration.

The traditional pattern of migration within and from Africa — maledominated, long-term, and long-distance — is increasingly becoming feminized. Anecdotal evidence reveals a striking increase in migration by women, who had traditionally remained at home while men moved around in search of paid work. A significant share of these women is made up of migrants who move independently to fulfill their own economic needs; they are not simply joining a husband or other family members.

The increase in independent female migration is not confined by national borders: professional women from Nigeria and Ghana now engage in international migration, often leaving their spouses at home to care for the children. Female nurses and doctors have been recruited from Nigeria to work in Saudi Arabia, while their counterparts in Ghana are taking advantage of the better pay packages in the UK and United States to accumulate enough savings to survive harsh economic conditions at home.

The relatively new phenomenon of female migration constitutes an important change in gender roles for Africa, creating new challenges for public policy. For instance, before the outbreak of civil war, an ongoing economic crisis in Cote d'Ivoire did not prevent female migration from Burkina Faso.

This was possible because women gradually clustered in the informal commercial sector, which is less affected by economic crises than the wage sector, where most male migrants work. This emergence of migrant females as breadwinners puts pressure on traditional gender



roles within the African family.

African men, along with women, increasingly participate in migration as a family survival strategy. At the same time, an increasing scarcity of traditional male labor has also promoted new roles for the women they leave behind. As the job market in destination countries became tighter during the 1980s and 1990s, and remittances thinned out, many families came to rely on women and their farming activities for day-to-day support. These women became the de facto resource managers and decision makers, particularly within the agricultural sector.

The gendered division of family labor has also been upset by the loss of male employment through urban job retrenchment and structural adjustment, forcing women to seek additional income-generating activities to support the family.

3.2 Commercialization of migration.

There is an overall trend away from labor migrants from Africa, and towards commercial migrants — that is, entrepreneurs who are selfemployed, especially in the informal sector.

The traditional pattern of emigration to France from Africa's Sahel (a region of drought-prone countries south of the Sahara) in order to engage in menial wage labor is rapidly changing. A large proportion of these migrants in the Cote d'Ivoire, France, and Italy can today be classified as commercial migrants, especially those from Senegal.

Sahelians are moving to unconventional destinations to which they had no prior linguistic, cultural, or colonial ties. Initially, the emigration focused on Zambia. When Zambia's economy collapsed, it shifted to

South Africa in the wake of the demise of the apartheid regime.

More recently, West African French-speaking migrants have been moving to Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, and Spain, despite an increasingly hostile reception involving growing xenophobia, apprehension of foreigners, and anti-immigrant political mobilizations.



As a result, a growing number are crossing the Atlantic to seek greener pastures as petty traders in the United States.

Since 1994, South Africa has received an influx of migrants from various parts of the sub-Saharan region, including Congo, Mali, Ghana,

Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Zaire, Kenya, and Uganda. Some of these nationals had earlier entered clandestinely South Africa's then nominally independent homelands, during the period of apartheid. The numbers were small, but their skill profile set them apart from traditional migrants from neighboring states, whose nationals were mostly unskilled mineworkers and farm laborers. Traders and students from the Congo followed. The post-apartheid wave of immigrants from

Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe are mostly street vendors and traders seeking to capitalize on the relatively affluent market of South Africa. These mostly informal-sector entrepreneurs import traditional African clothing and handicrafts, employ and train locals, and generally invigorate the informal sector.

3.3 Diversification of destinations.

As West Africa's economic instability deepened in the period 1980-

1990, fewer migrants found stable and remunerative work in traditional regional destinations. Consequently, circulation and repeat migration expanded to a wide variety of alternative destinations, often to places without any historical, political, or economic links to the countries of emigration. This movement also became more varied and spontaneous, with rising levels of both temporary and long-term circulation.

There is also some evidence to support a pattern of replacement migration, whereby migrants of rural origin move to towns to occupy positions vacated by nationals who emigrate abroad, as seems to be occurring in Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, and Gabon.

This also seems to hold true for Senegal (where urban workers go to

France) and Egypt (whose migrants move to the Persian Gulf). In some instances, immigrants from neighboring countries occupy



positions vacated by nationals have who emigrated, yielding a step-bystep migration pattern, first from rural areas to cities, and then from cities to foreign destinations.

3.4 From brain drain to brain circulation.

The migration of skilled Africans has precedents in the 1960s, when developing countries engaged in an unprecedented expansion of access to education. The brain drain of the newly educated generation was later spurred by a combination of economic, social, and political factors. In the 1970s, highly qualified, experienced workers in trades and professions, drawn by higher wages, migrated from Zimbabwe,

Zambia, Senegal, Ghana, and Uganda to South Africa and even destinations outside of Africa. Since the 1980s, emigration to Europe,

North America, and the oil-rich nations of the Middle East has increased uniformly, for similar reasons.

Today, brain drain is being altered by brain circulation within the region. Skilled professionals, pressured by uncertain economic conditions at home, have found the booming economies of Gabon,

Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa to be convenient alternatives to

Europe, the United States, and the Gulf. Their work in these countries' tertiary institutions, medical establishments, and the private sector has created a form of brain circulation.

3.5 Trafficking and smuggling of human beings.

Africa's human trafficking and smuggling map is complicated, involving diverse origins within and outside the region. Little was known until recently about the dynamics of this trafficking.

Today, analysts are looking into trafficking in children (mainly for farm labor and domestic work within and across countries); trafficking in women and young persons for sexual exploitation mainly outside the region; and trafficking in women from outside the region for the sex



industry of South Africa.

African migrants are adopting more sophisticated, daring, and evasive methods to elude increasingly tight border controls and enter countries in the developed North. A growing number of young people are involved in daredevil ventures to gain entry into Europe. Movements are more clandestine, involving riskier passages and trafficking via diverse transit points, such as trafficking through Senegal to Spain by way of the Canary Islands. Individual stowaways engage in lifethreatening trips hidden aboard ships destined for Southern Europe, and recently they have headed as far as East Asia. Unscrupulous agents exploit these desperate youths with promises of passages to

Italy, Spain, and France.

Most of these people end up stranded in Dakar and Morocco. In fact, hundreds of undocumented immigrants and trafficked persons, especially from West African countries, get stranded in Morocco en route to Spain for upwards of four years. Most end up living in shacks, and some women give birth under these poverty-stricken conditions.

Many others perish during perilous attempts to cross the sea to Spain in rickety boats. Others who manage to find their way into Europe are often apprehended and deported on arrival or soon thereafter.

In West Africa, the main source, transit, and destination countries for trafficked women and children are Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal.

Trafficked children are recruited through networks of agents to work as domestic servants, in informal sectors, or on plantations. Parents are often forced by poverty and ignorance to enlist their children, hoping to benefit from their wages to sustain the family's deteriorating economic situation. Some of these children are indentured into "slave" labor, as in Sudan and Mauritania. In East Africa, young girls and women abducted from conflict zones are forced to become sex-slaves to rebel commanders or affluent men in Sudan and the Gulf States.

South Africa is a destination for regional and extra-regional trafficking activities. Women are trafficked through the network of refugees resident in South Africa; children are trafficked from Lesotho's border towns, as are women and girls from Mozambique. Women are also



trafficked from Thailand, China, and Eastern Europe to South Africa.

Traffickers have recently extended the destinations of children to the

EU, especially the Netherlands, UK, and beyond. Women and children are trafficked to Europe (Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Sweden, UK, and The Netherlands) for commercial sex. Children are similarly moved in connection with domestic labor, sexual exploitation, and pornography. Trafficking syndicates obtain travel documents and visas for women and link them up with brothels abroad.

3.6 Increasing xenophobia.

African societies and people are noted for their traditional hospitality to strangers, which involves welcoming and sharing their limited resources with newcomers. This is no longer the case in many countries. Increasingly, political leaders have resorted to the use of ethnicity and religion to reclassify longstanding residents as nonnationals (as has been the case in Cote d'Ivoire).

Many ruling parties are wary of the presence of large numbers of immigrants during hotly contested elections, fearing that migrants may swing the vote in favor of an opposition party with ethnic or religious alliances.

The undocumented are scapegoats in periods of economic recession and are accused of stealing jobs from nationals. They are also stigmatized as criminals, and in places like South Africa are blamed for the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS. The press and politicians fan public discontent among locals with calls for immigrants to be expelled, driving a wedge between the native population and newer arrivals.

3.7 Labor migration in the HIV/AIDS pandemic

The high rates of HIV/AIDS infection in Africa create a nightmare scenario of acute labor shortages in key sectors of education and



health. This is especially true in the major labor-sending countries

(Lesotho, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, and Swaziland) and laborreceiving countries (Botswana and South Africa) of Southern Africa.

However, it is also increasingly the case elsewhere in the region.

These acute labor shortages are now translating into more migration from skills-surplus sources, especially Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria, and outside Africa. South Africa's struggle with the disease, in particular, is taking a heavy toll on the education sector of the traditional sending countries by luring away their skilled health professionals. The emigration of doctors and nurses from South Africa is occurring at a time when their services are urgently needed in the overstressed health sector.

It is important for policy makers concerned with migration to focus not only on the demographic, but also on the economic and social consequences of this trend on the productive sectors, at the micro

(household), meso (community), and macro (national) levels.

Furthermore, the role of migration in spreading HIV/AIDS should be re-examined critically. Immigrants are uniformly blamed, but the evidence is spurious and untested.

3.8 Regional economic organizations.

The problems posed by migration, circulation, permanent residence, and settlement — and the policy responses to them — are quite different, and seemingly intractable. Many African countries are acting half-heartedly, and a few decisively, to foster regional integration.

Their belief is that sub-regional and regional economic organizations may facilitate intra-regional labor mobility and promote self-reliant development.

The free movement of persons has already been institutionalized by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and most notably by the Economic Community of West African States. In 1993, the Abuja treaty for the establishment of the African Economic

Community came into force, and with it the promise of helping to



facilitate inter-regional mobility. NEPAD (the New Partnership for

African Development) also includes programs to foster labor mobility within Africa and the sustained development of the region. This type of integration is likely to accelerate, paving the way for closer economic cooperation and labor migration in the region.

4.0 Current issues and challenges confronting migrant workers

Efforts to maximize migrants’ contribution to development as regards monetary remittances (increasing the use of formal transfer methods, reducing the transfer cost of remittances, promoting migrant savings, optimizing remittance utilization for household and community welfare, and promoting entrepreneurship development schemes) are valid contributions and should continue to be encouraged. However there appears to be less preoccupation with factors affecting directly or indirectly the level of remittances such as: migration status, working conditions and wages, recognition of their diplomas, etc.

A study by Sorensen states that the level of remittances significantly depends, among other factors, on: The migration status of the worker and his/her family; level of employment and occupational status; labour market availability; wage rates and economic activity in the country of destination.

4.1 The migration status

Employment opportunities of migrant women and men depend to a great extent on their migration status. In addition, a documented or regular migration status (tied to the possession of a work permit, to the conditions of family reunification or to marriage with a migrant worker possessing a work permit or with a citizen) has been recognized to be the most important means to guarantee the protection of men and women migrants against discrimination, exploitation, and social protection. Indeed, documented migrant workers have greater opportunities to obtain a decently remunerated job and can be in a better position to send back home larger amounts of remittances.

Experts estimate the percentage of undocumented migrants as between 30 to 50% of all migrants abroad. The demand for migrant workers to meet labour market shortages in various sectors is often larger than that recognized by governments in countries of destination. No reliable data on undocumented migrants broken down by sex can be found. Moreover, according to the report on Gender and Migration prepared by the



Global Commission on International Migration, “the undervaluing of women’s labour (e.g. domestic labour) and restrictions on their right to work, and involvement in activities that are deemed to be criminal offences or against public order (e.g. prostitution) means that a higher proportion of women are statistically invisible and are, or become undocumented.

4.2 Conditions of work: weekly rest, daily hours of work, annual leave, holidays

In considering the strengthening of the positive linkages between migration, gender and development, it cannot be forgotten that women and men migrants often have to accept harsh working conditions and sacrifice living conditions, health care, nutrition and education in order to be able to remit funds back to their families. Indeed, the majority of women migrants are concentrated in less regulated economic occupations where they tend to work excessive hours without overtime pay and no weekly rest days, and can be exposed to psychological, physical and sexual abuse. Some of them can even suffer from virtual imprisonment with their travel and identity documents confiscated.

One factor that affects women migrant workers negatively is the fact that they are usually employed in jobs, not covered or inadequately covered by labour legislation or other social security or welfare provisions (even more so than those jobs occupied by their male counterparts). The typical example is domestic work. The majority of countries’ labour laws still refer to domestic workers either to exclude them completely from their scope or to grant them lower levels of protection by depriving them of the rights accorded to other categories of workers. However, experience has shown that working and living conditions for many migrants are not ideal. It would seem that a larger number of women migrants would suffer from bad working conditions than their male counterparts.

4.3 Wages (non-payment and withholding), non-provision of benefits and welfare

Some studies on remittances have examined how incomes and remittances interact. Findings suggest that transfers increase the higher the sender’s income. The effect of rising incomes of the migrant sender thanks to respect for minimum wage laws, decent working conditions & employment



opportunities normally shows up as an increase in remittances. These findings can be viewed in light of the large number of migrant workers

(mainly those undocumented) that receive very low wages, have their wages withheld or never receive them from their employers.

These factors seem to acquire even more importance when studying migrant women who tend to be concentrated in gender-specific jobs that typically pay less than traditional male occupations or that often work as unpaid family workers. Not only do they not enjoy pay equity compared to men migrants, but they also usually earn less than native-born women. Women more so than men migrant workers can experience either non-payment, withholding or unreasonable deductions of their wages without their consent.

Domestic workers and women victims of trafficking are the best examples of women migrants found in situations completely deprived of their wages.

Undocumented women migrant workers, even more so than documented are highly exposed to this type of practice.

5.0 Good practices and lessons learned on maximizing benefits and minimizing costs of migration

As mentioned in the previous sections migration results in winners and losers and the challenge to policy-makers is how to distribute the benefits equitably while minimizing possible adverse consequences especially on the most disadvantaged groups in society.

5.1 Upholding Rights and Ensuring Decent Work

Migrant worker policies need to be accompanied and supported by measures to prevent abusive practices and promote decent and productive work for women and men migrants, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.

In order to maximize their positive results, such policies should recognize the similarities and differences in the migration experiences of different categories of women and men and aim at eradicating all forms of discrimination, and gender inequality, as well as tackling other vulnerabilities, violations and their consequences. Discriminatory emigration or immigration legislation at the national level that can have an impact on migrant women’s protection by not including family reunification rights, not



permitting the emigration of women without male family member permission and by establishing age limits on women’s migration, should be repealed.

5.2 Co-development Strategies

The 2006 United Nations’ report International Migration and Development mentions that international migration constitutes an ideal means of promoting co-development, that is, the coordinated or concerted improvement of economic conditions in both areas of origin and areas of destination based on the complementarities between them, encouraging jobcreation initiatives in countries of origin.

Policy-makers are exploring co-development strategies that offer opportunities for integrating gender responsive development into agreement-based migration regimes for highly skilled to better protect sectors at risk in developing countries. Ensuring that wider development goals such as PRSPs and MDGs are taken into account in migration agreements is one way to ensure that migration of skilled workers is not detrimental to wider poverty alleviation efforts. In addition, it is important to adopt measures to mitigate the loss of workers with critical skills, including by establishing and enforcing guidelines for ethical recruitment.

5.3 Qualification and Recognition Frameworks in order to enable

Portability/ Transferability of Skills across national borders

The more protection and more recognition of his-her qualifications the migrant worker is provided with, the higher the possibilities that his/her contribution to development will increase in significance and the higher the possibilities that the worker will return to the country of origin in a shorter period of time. The provision of legal channels of safe and secure migration according to the qualifications of the workers is not and should not be considered as "promoting migration", but as providing the necessary protective framework and opportunities for the migrant to maximize the benefits during his-her migration experience.

A lack of provision of these opportunities represents for most migrant workers going abroad undocumented and to even lower skilled and lower wages jobs and often under harsher working conditions or labour exploitation situations. Safe and secure migration contributes to minimizing the risks involved in the migration cycle.

6.0 Recommendations



It is evident that, radical Measures have to be taken to in order to Ensure

Coherence between Gender, Migration and Development Policies and

Programmes. The following measures include:- a) Ensure that gender-sensitive migration policies reinforce development efforts and remain consistent with human and labour rights obligations by setting up or strengthening frameworks at the government level in both sending and receiving countries, to establish dialogue on migration and development of all relevant ministries (labour, economic planning, cooperation for development, interior, foreign affairs) b) Ensure that gender dimensions are incorporated into migration policy and are linked to employment and development policies; c) Recognize fundamental labour and human rights including trade union rights of migrants, regardless of their status; d) Recognize women migrants as “economic and social change agents”

(not just as victims) by fully empowering them and according them space to participate in decision making processes in trade unions, at the workplace, and in society. e) Strengthen consultative frameworks, at the international level, involving the private sector, trade unions, organizations of migrants and other civil society actors in discussions to enhance coherence between migration, employment and development policies.

7.0 Conclusion

The feminization of migration and the large numbers of women in more vulnerable situations in destination countries are giving added impetus and urgency to address the human rights of women migrants worldwide. Efforts to maximize women and men migrants’ contribution to development have mainly included increasing the use of formal transfer methods and reducing the transfer cost of remittances. Other programmes have also included the



promotion of migrant savings while optimizing remittance utilization for household and community welfare as well as promoting skills training and entrepreneurship development schemes.

In addition, there is growing awareness that although monetary remittances have become one of the largest sources of foreign exchange for some countries of origin, this should not engender complacency about State responsibilities for development, employment creation and social protection.

Addressing the root causes of the labour migration of women and men in countries of origin and their inter linkages to development has been recognized to be particularly essential: labour market discrimination, high unemployment, limited access to productive resources and poverty. For example, at the macro level, commitment towards pro-poor and job rich growth strategies and gender-sensitive employment creation can make migration a genuine option for both women and men migrants: migration by choice and not by necessity.

In order to enhance migrant women’s participation in development, the differential and often discriminatory impact of legislation, policies and programmes on different groups of women and men migrant workers are to be addressed if countries aim at obtaining a win-win situation.

A very significant starting point is that policy-makers recognise the importance of integrating and mainstreaming labour migration in national employment, gender equality, labour market and development policies as key in maximizing opportunities and minimizing risks for the benefit of both origin and destination countries and for women and men migrants themselves.

A gender-sensitive, rights-based approach is gradually being recognized as essential to all migration policies’ discussions while efforts are being made to mainstream gender in migration practices. At the same time, policy-makers realize the need for employment policies to operate in joint arenas with migration policies reinforcing development efforts while respecting human and labour rights and permitting men and women to obtain employment opportunities, education, health care and other services in countries of origin as in countries of destination.

8.0 References

1.

Improving Access to the Labour Market for People at its Margins with a Special Focus on People with a Migrant or Minorities Background /



Editors OSB Consulting GmbH, Thematic Review Seminar of the

European Employment Strategy, Brussels, 2008, 77 p.

2.

A Global alliance against Forced Labour. Global Report under the

Follow-Up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. International Labour Conference, 93rd Session, Report I(Part

B), 2005, 87p

3.

An Information Guide. Preventing Discrimination, Exploitation and

Abuse of Women Migrant Workers: Booklet 1 - Introduction: Why the

Focus on Women Migrant Workers. / Booklet 2 - Decision-making and

Preparing for Employment Abroad. / Booklet 3 - Recruitment and the

Journey for Employment Abroad. / Booklet 4 - Working and Living

Abroad. Booklet 5 - Back Home: Return and Reintegration. / Booklet 6

- Trafficking of Women and Girls, Geneva, Switzerland.

4.

Handbook on Establishing Effective Labour Migration Policies in

Countries of Origin and Destination / with OSCE and IOM, 2006, 248p.

5.

Crossing Borders: Remittances, Gender and Development / Editors

Carlota Ramírez, Mar García Domínguez, Julia Míguez Morais, Santo

Domingo, República Dominicana, 2005, 68 p.

6.

Remittances, Gender and Development / Encuesta sobre Remesas en

Guatemala con Perspectiva de Género, Santo Domingo, República

Dominicana, 2007, 19 p.

7.

Remittances, Gender and Development / Working Paper, Santo

Domingo, República Dominicana, 2007



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