Mercy Global Concern - 2006

Mercy Global Concern: Briefing paper 1, April 2006

Commission on the Status of Women
50th session, February 27-March 10, 2006
“Gender Dimensions of International Migration”
What Mercy Has to Offer

Introduction

People are on the move all over the globe today. International migration, especially among women, is a growing and complex phenomenon that is garnering increasing attention at the United Nations and in countries where Sisters of Mercy minister today. While the international movement of people is not new, the advent of globalization has accelerated and intensified these movements. The number of international migrants has doubled to two-hundred million people since 1980. Following from this is the disproportionate impact of migration and globalization on the lives of women, who now constitute fifty-one percent of migrants and who are increasingly migrating without male accompaniment. To address this increasing trend, the General Assembly of the United Nations is calling for the inclusion of a gender perspective in national immigration and asylum policies and practices in order to promote and protect the human rights of women. A globally coordinated response is needed to address societal gender inequalities that are amplified when women migrate.

What does Mercy have to say to the gender dimensions of international migration? What are the particular issues concerning women migrants and refugees that we need to be aware of? Is there something distinct about the aspects of migration that negatively impact women, or are existing societal inequalities only exacerbated by the hardships of migration? Here are some introductory thoughts.

Why people migrate – the pros and cons for women

Women migrate for different reasons and under different circumstances which greatly affect their migration experience. Some women migrate by choice, others by coercion, and still others flee persecution. Most migration occurs because of necessity. Consider a single woman who is educated and moving to a new country where her new employer is sponsoring her on a work visa. Now consider a woman with a primary school education who has children and whose husband migrated years ahead of her but who has been out of contact for some time. She and her children can no longer survive in their local economy so they enter the new country with no official papers or viable job prospect. These two women will experience migration very differently.

There are many conditions and factors that pull and/or push people to migrate internationally today. Pull factors are conditions that draw or entice people to migrate to a new place. These factors include better work opportunities, an increase in economic compensation for the work done, desire to reunite with family, security, and the hope of a better life. Push factors are conditions or events in one’s birth country that cause people to migrate to a new country. These factors include poverty; limited work options or poorly paying jobs, which in poor countries are often due to international trade agreements that negatively impact local economic sectors like farming; environmental degradation and disasters that make life unsustainable; lack of social safety nets, educational opportunities and healthcare services, which are often due to governments using national wealth to service external debt obligations owed to donor countries and international financial institutions; human rights violations; political, religious, racial or ethnic persecutions; corruption; and conflict and violence born of war or abusive relationships.

In circumstances such as these there can be positive as well as negative effects for women who migrate. Possible positive effects are the ability to earn significantly more money and the ability to send money home (remittances). There is also the likelihood of self autonomy and self-reliance as well as potential for education, learning new technology, and forming new networks of support and friendship. Migration can free women of former societal and cultural gender constraints. However, there can also be negative effects for women, such as separation from family and support networks; the risk of falling into a human trafficking situation; exploitation in a new society and work place; and the risk of discrimination by immigration laws that tie a woman to a husband or male relative. Migrating may also introduce a woman to previously unknown societal and cultural gender constraints.

Likewise, there can be positive and negative effects of migration for the women who stay behind. Possible positive effects include women becoming decision makers for family and communities and becoming the recipients of money sent home from a husband or family member who has migrated. This can be empowering for a woman and her family and can improve their quality of life and make education or business ventures possible. On the other hand, possible negative effects for a woman who stays behind are separation from family, spouse, and children, and the economic hardship of having to support a family by herself.

Gender-specific research is needed to tease out the real impact of international migration on women, especially at a time when gender roles are changing so rapidly. The concerns sketched briefly here are not new for women of Mercy who have followed in the footsteps of Catherine McAuley. The root causes of international migration and many of its consequences stem from de-humanizing poverty and inequalities. From the earliest days, Sisters of Mercy have attended to the needs of poor women and children and have historically moved around the world to tend to immigrant needs. Catherine would not have used the language of ‘gender analysis’ or ‘migration push and pull factors’ but she would understand them as they are used today.

Conclusion

Sisters of Mercy are in countries where migrants leave from, travel through, and eventually make new homes. None of us is untouched by the global realities that cause people to seek out new ways to live and survive in this world. What Mercy can contribute today is the call to incorporate a gender perspective and gender analysis into our ministries by asking, “How will this decision and action affect persons who are poor and marginalized, especially women and children?” Mercy Global Concern brings this perspective to the work of influencing policy and practices to increase the positive aspects of international migration and globalization for more people, especially women and children. There are no easy answers or quick solutions, but neither were there in Catherine’s time. As we hold the whole of our collective ministries and global concerns, let us also attend to the many aspects of gender dimensions of international migration.

Kathy Kelleher is a Mercy Associate and a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Institute Justice Team in Silver Spring, Maryland in the United States of America. She will be following Immigration and Migration at Mercy Global Concern at the United Nations.