Woman, training and work

Gender! A Partnership of Equals
Geneve: International Labour Office, 2000. 115 p.

 

Migrant Workers
Give them their due

Some 90 million people worldwide are involved in international migration, excluding refugees and asylum seekers, according to an ILO estimate - and approximately half of these are women. The graph below gives approximate data on the proportion of women entering traditional countries of immigration from 1960 to 1992.

It was previously assumed that most women migrated for reasons of family reunification. This assumption is epitomized in The ILO Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Recommendation, 1949 (No. 86), when it refers to a migrant worker's family as being "his wife and minor children". Fifty years later, the same assumption cannot be made, since in many countries the migration of women for employment exceeds that of men by far.

Images of the "typical migrant" persist, however: the migrant worker is perceived as male, and most often, young and economically motivated. Unsurprisingly, this bias leads to the formulation of unrealistic and unresponsive policies which do not take into account the needs of prospective, incoming and returning migrants of both sexes. In establishing immigration policies and legislation, the importance of gender analysis and planning should not be underestimated.

The newly created International Labour Migration Database aims to record the numbers and flows of men and women in member States, and information on their daily living and working conditions, among other information. Disturbing trends in female migration patterns have come to light.

Disturbing trends The concentration of women migrants in vulnerable occupations, such as domestic service, "entertainment" (including forced participation in the sex-sector), and nursing, is clear in many parts of the world. The vulnerability of these workers stems from the high degree of subordination which exists between the worker and the employer. This vulnerability is heightened by the fact that these sectors tend to be excluded from national labour legislation and international migration instruments. The participation of women in international labour trafficking, often, but not always into various forms of forced labour, is another disturbing trend which commands international attention.

A new mechanism in the field of international labour migration, known as "pattern and practice studies", approved by the Governing Body of the ILO at its 265^th session in 1996, gives the ILO an opportunity to address cases where female migrants are repeatedly exposed to serious and widespread violation of their rights. This mechanism provides a means of action to resolve cases of persistent and widespread abuse of migrant workers. It is triggered when a constituent informs the ILO of abuse of migrant workers falling outside Convention-based procedures. Governments themselves can also initiate a pattern and practice study in their own countries if they feel that there are problems to which the ILO could respond.

With regard to international labour trafficking, the Tripartite Meeting of Experts on Future ILO Activities in the Field of Migration, adopted a set of guidelines on special protective measures for migrant workers recruited by private agents. These guidelines follow the principles enumerated in the Migration for Employment (Revised) Convention, 1949 (No. 97), and the Migrant Workers (Supplementary Provisions) Convention, 1975 (No. 143). But the guidelines go beyond those Conventions by encouraging both those states which send migrants and those which receive them to provide adequate sanctions against abuses or malpractices regarding migrants; e.g., "forcing the migrant worker, upon arrival in the receiving country, to accept a contract of employment with conditions inferior to those contained in the contract which he or she signed prior to departure".

While the scale of women's participation in migration patterns has not changed in recent years, the nature of their participation has. Women are more likely to migrate spontaneously and independently in search of employment. Various protective measures have been taken at the international, regional and national levels to redress some of the abuses of which female migrants are victims. Still, qualitative and quantitative data on the impact of the 'feminization' of migration on the labour market of home and host countries has not yet been tackled. As a result, both labour market and migration policies often remain inappropriate and unresponsive - a discrepancy which the ILO is in a unique position to redress.

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