PRESS BRIEFING ON WOMEN AND INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION

 

The nature of international migration was changing, with growing numbers of women migrating on their own rather than as family members as in the past, Jose Antonio Ocampo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said at a Headquarters press briefing this morning.

That made migration an important opportunity for the empowerment of women as they took on new roles in recipient societies, he said at the launch of the 2004 “World Survey on the Role of Women in Development:  Women and International Migration”.  Women left behind when their husbands migrated also had to take on new responsibilities, which could also be an empowering experience, he added.

Mr. Ocampo said that, according to the survey, published by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs every five years for the past 20 years, the proportion of women migrants had increased from 46 per cent in 1960 to 49 per cent in 2000.  There were now about 90 million of them around the world, most of them in developed countries.  However, there was a significant amount of South-South migration of women from lower- to middle-income countries in the developing world.

The survey emphasized that women could also be forced to migrate as refugees or victims of natural disasters, he said.  But the issue that concerned women in particular involved criminal trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation, which had become a topic of major international concern.

Also present at the launch was Carolyn Hannan, Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, who said it was important to examine the supply of victims of trafficking and to work on education and information about the dangers of trafficking.  It was also necessary to look at the demand side of trafficking –- those who exploited trafficked women, the traffickers themselves and officials who might support them.

Responses to trafficking must balance prevention and prosecution with protection of the rights of trafficked persons, she said.  Harsh punishments for undocumented workers would make them afraid to come forward with information about their situation.  It could also be highly dangerous for victims to testify and they may fear retaliation.  Economic opportunities in the home countries, as well as channels for legal migration, could prevent women from being lured into trafficking networks.

She said that, while discrimination and exploitation could affect all types of women migrants, those who entered a country illegally were at particular risk, as were those who left their home countries in anticipation of taking on work only to find themselves trapped in situations of exploitation.  Even women who entered as documented migrants could find that pay levels were not equal with those of men, or that working conditions were unsafe.  Women also faced discrimination from legislation requiring pregnancy tests in order to enter or stay in the destination country.

Susan Martin, Director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at GeorgetownUniversity and lead author of the survey, said that the vast majority of migrants left home for labour purposes or to join family members who had already left.  But while women were increasingly migrating to support their families, a small but extremely important proportion of migrants, about 10 per cent, were refugees.  About 75 per cent of the world’s approximately 60 million refugees were women and their dependent children.

Women became refugees because of conflict, repressive policies or their well-founded fear of persecution, she said, noting that forms of conflict now included mass rape as a means of ethnic cleansing or reprisals against religious, ethnic or political minorities.  They also left their home countries because of gender-based persecution, including female genital mutilation, honour killings and domestic abuse.  In such situations, they could not call upon their own governments for protection and were forced to leave their homes and countries.

Even refugee and displaced women faced particular problems and vulnerabilities, she pointed out.  The survey recommended that the best way to protect them was by helping them to know their rights through education programmes where they could gain literacy, as well as economic and other skills; providing access to livelihoods in order to reduce their dependency on humanitarian aid; and, perhaps most importantly, ensuring that they could participate in the decisions that would affect their lives.  That participation was key to ensuring their long-term protection.

Asked whether recent sex-abuse allegations against peacekeepers had influenced the survey’s recommendations, Mr. Ocampo replied that the Secretary-General’s report had stated in the strongest terms that such abuse must be eradicated.  However, the survey was concerned with the broader issues of the violations of women migrants’ rights, rather than the specific issue of abuse by peacekeepers.

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