COLUMN

In a `no-woman's land'

JAYATI GHOSH

Despite the growing significance of female migration in the Asian region, there is little recognition of this in the relevant governments in terms of ensuring decent working conditions for the migrants.

HISTORICALLY, women in Asia did not migrate for work. If they did move, it was usually as part of families that were economic migrants together, accompanying the male head of the household. But the past two decades have seen an explosion in female migration for work, both within and across borders, and this is having profound effects on the economies and societies across the region.

PAT RIQUE/AP

A Fillipino migrant worker protesting against the crackdown on undocumented migrant workers in Taiwan and South Korea.

Of course, the past two decades have been momentous for the Asian region, and especially for East and South-east Asia. This is now the most "globally integrated" region in the world, with the highest average ratios of trade to GDP (gross domestic product), the largest absolute inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI), substantial financial capital flows and even significant movements of labour.

These processes have, in turn, been associated with rapid changes in forms of work and life, especially for women. Indeed, the changes have been seismic in their speed, intensity and effects upon economies and societies in the region, and particularly upon gender relations. The processes of rapid growth (and equally rapid and sudden declines in some economies) have been accompanied by major shifts in employment patterns and living standards as familiar trends are replaced by social changes that are now extremely accelerated and intensified.

We have thus observed, in the space of less than one generation, massive shifts of women's labour into the paid workforce, especially in export-oriented employment, and then the subsequent ejection of older women and even younger counterparts, into more fragile and insecure forms of employment, or even back to unpaid housework. Women have moved - voluntarily or forcibly - in search of work across countries and regions, more than ever before. Women's livelihoods in rural areas, dominantly in agriculture, have been affected by the agrarian crisis that is now widespread in most developing countries.

Across societies in the region, massive increases in the availability of different consumer goods, owing to trade liberalisation, have accompanied declines in access to basic public goods and services. At the same time, technological changes have made communication and the transmission of cultural forms more extensive and rapid than could even have been imagined in the past. All these have had very substantial and complex effects upon the position of women and their ability to control their own lives, many of which we do not still adequately understand.

Asian migration is not a new phenomenon historically, but in the last two decades, more women have moved than ever before. Within the Asian region, there is a complex and changing mix of countries of origin, destination and those that are both. The dominantly labour-sending countries in all of Asia include Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The countries that are mainly destinations of host countries for migrant labour include all of those in West Asia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and China. Some countries are both sending and receiving international migrants: India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Thailand.

Obviously, migration is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, which can have many positive effects because it expands the opportunities for productive work and leads to a wider perspective on many social issues. But it also has negative aspects, dominantly in the nature of work and work conditions and possibilities for abuse by employers and others.

Cross-border migration in Asia is highly gendered, with women migrants largely found in the service sector, especially in the domestic and care sectors, as well as in entertainment work. Male migration, by contrast, tends to be more in response to the requirements of industrialisation, in construction and manufacturing, as well as in semi-skilled services.

Economic considerations are, of course, the primary reason for migration by individuals, especially women; but when this is large enough in sheer numbers, it has a substantial macroeconomic impact. Remittance incomes from migrant workers have shored up the balance of payments over the past decade in India and the Philippines, to name just two countries. Female migrant workers are less affected by business cycle phenomena in the host countries because of the different nature of activities in which they tend to be employed; therefore, both female migration and remittances from such migration have, in general, been more stable than the male versions in the recent period.

However, despite the growing significance of female migration in the region, there is little recognition by officialdom in the relevant Asian governments of this process, in terms of ensuring decent working conditions and remuneration for migrants.

Over the past decades, women migrants have come dominantly from three countries in Asia: the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. In the Philippines, women migrants have outnumbered their male counterparts since 1992, and in all these countries women are between 60 and 80 per cent of all legal migrants for work. The majority are in services (typically low-paid domestic service) or in entertainment work. While Filipino women tend to travel all over the world, women from the other two countries go dominantly to West Asian countries in search of employment. Elsewhere in the region, restrictive regulations have reduced legal female emigration, but may have increased illegal migration, or trafficking.

Migrants typically tend to fill unskilled, labour-intensive and low-paid jobs and are generally unprotected by labour laws. While male migrants in the region are usually (but not exclusively) in the 3-D occupations (difficult, dirty, dangerous), women migrant workers tend to be concentrated in the low-paid sectors of the service industry, in semi-skilled or low-skilled activities ranging from nursing to domestic service, or in the entertainment, tourism and sex industries where they are highly vulnerable and subject to exploitation.

They rarely have access to education and other social services, have poor and inadequate housing and living conditions. When they are illegal or quasi-legal and dependent upon contractors, they also find it difficult to avail themselves of existing facilities such as proper medical care and are almost never found to be organised to struggle for better conditions.

In general, host governments are less than sympathetic to the concerns of migrant workers, including women, despite the crucial role they may play in the host economy. Host country governments tend to view migrants as threats to political and social stability, additional burdens on constrained public budgets for social services and infrastructure, and potential eroders of local culture.

This is why there is so little attempt across the region to ensure decent conditions of work for migrants, even in terms of ensuring their basic safety and freedom from violence. This is an important issue for women migrants in particular, since they are specially vulnerable to sexual exploitation, not only when they are workers in the entertainment and sex industries, but also when they are employed in other service activities or in factories as cheap labour.

There is often a fine line between voluntary migration and trafficking in women (and girl children). Trafficking is a widespread problem, which is on the increase, not only because of growing demand, but also because of larger and more varied sources of supply given the increasingly precarious livelihood conditions in many rural parts of Asia.

A substantial amount of trafficking of both women and children occurs not only for commercial sex work, but also for use as slave labour in factories and other economic activities such as domestic or informal service sector work. It is true, of course, that the worst and most abusive forms of trafficking are those relating to commercial sexual exploitation and child labour in economic activities. Nor is it the case that trafficking occurs mainly through coercion or deception: there is significant evidence to indicate voluntary movement by the women themselves, especially when home conditions are already oppressive or abusive, or at least voluntary sending by the households of such individuals, given the poverty and absence of economic opportunities in the home region.

Traffickers throughout Asia lure their victims by means of attractive promises such as high paying jobs, glamorous employment options, prosperity and fraudulent marriages. When there is employment, however badly paid, precarious and in terrible conditions, it may still be preferred to very adverse home circumstances. This, in turn, means that those who are employed through trafficking may not always desire to return home, if the adverse economic and social conditions persist. Also, the possibilities of return to home communities with safety and dignity are often limited, given the possibilities of being stigmatised and not easily reintegrated into the home society.

All this makes the problem of dealing with trafficking much more complex than is generally appreciated. From the point of view of attacking the causes, it is important to address the issues of economic vulnerability, marginalisation and attitudes to women which encourage such movement. Environmental disasters and development-induced risks such as displacement are also known to play a role in increasing the incidence of trafficking.

Obviously, across the region, there is need for more pro-active policies regarding migration. It is unfortunate that most government policies with respect to migration are designed with the male breadwinner model in mind, because this effectively excludes women, especially those who are trafficked, from the purview of regulation and protection by law.

Easy immigration policies can create routes for easier trafficking; but conversely, tough immigration policies can drive such activities underground and therefore make them even more exploitative of the women and children involved. The specificities and complexities of the trafficking processes, as well as the economic forces that are driving them, need to be borne in mind continuously when designing the relevant policies.

Across the region, there is hardly any host country legislation specifically designed to protect migrant workers, and little official recognition of the problems faced by women migrants in particular. The same is true for the sending countries, which accept the remittances sent by such migrants, but without much fanfare or gratitude, and with little attempt to improve the conditions of these workers in the employment abroad. Women migrants, who are typically drawn by the attraction of better incomes and living conditions or by adverse material conditions at home, are therefore in a "no-woman's land" characterised by a generalised lack of protection.

Recently, there is also a trend for increased migration by more educated women workers in the software and IT-enabled service sectors. While such female migration is still a very small part of the total, it is pointing to a different tendency with different implications both for work patterns and for gender relations in both sending and receiving countries.

The picture of women's migration in Asia today is complex, reflecting both the apparent advantages to women of higher incomes and recognition of work, as well as the dangers and difficulties associated with migrating to new and unknown situations with the potential for various kinds of exploitation. The desperation that drives most such economic migration, and the exploitative conditions that it can result in, should not be underestimated. But is it also true that the sheer knowledge of conditions and possibilities elsewhere can have an important liberating effect upon women.

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