Gendered Migration: The Price of “Financial Security”

Gendered Migration: The Price of “Financial Security”

Choosing to migrate is incredibly emotional and challenging, especially for women who are propelled to make this decision for themselves and their family's survival. Fleeing poverty, violence, or political instability are a few of the push factors that act as determining components in these decisions. However, migration is dangerous and expensive, often leaving women in dire straits.

Comprising roughly half of the 272 million migrants worldwide, migrant women are representatives of change. These individuals contribute to their home countries and destinations socially and economically in innumerable ways. These women bring diverse talent and reshape culture and norms with the social and cultural capital they carry. Despite migrant women hosting valuable contributions, they experience pervasive, intersecting forms of prejudice impacting their well-being and security. With the gendered nature of migration, stereotypes heavily affect these workers' autonomy and decision-making processes. This vulnerability opens women to systematic human rights violations, positioning them to take on debt while escaping their home country.

Debt bondage is one of many aspects of forced migration that has become pervasive in the contemporary world. Debt bondage refers to forced labor where individuals have an exploitative financial obligation to pay off their creditors. On the other hand, forced migration refers to an individual's displacement for various reasons, such as natural disasters, war, and poverty. Forced migration and debt bondage are significant drivers of modern-day exploitation, disproportionately impacting women who are pushed into dangerous positions to meet basic needs. With migrants desperate to escape poverty, they put everything on the line, signing their lives away to ensure survival. This paper explores the devastating impact of forced migration and its correlation to debt slavery on women. It explores migration's push and pull factors, the exploitation experienced, and the illustration of grave infringement of human rights.

Forced Migration

Women migrate for many reasons, from escaping war, natural disasters, and poverty to fleeing deep-rooted gender-based inequalities. To live a fulfilling life with education, resources, and a livelihood, women are left to make the challenging decision to migrate. These devastating realities prompt millions of women to leave their homes each year.

In 2022 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that 1.2% of the world's population has become displaced from their home countries. However, there are disparities in forced migration, with only 32% of displaced migrants granted refugee status. Refugees are those who have left their country of origin and cannot return because of a well-founded fear of persecution for religion, race, group membership, nationality, or political opinion. Many forced migrants cannot claim refugee status due to technicalities resulting in millions of displaced individuals being left vulnerable to exploitation, discrimination, and harm, exacerbating their traumatic experiences.

Forced migration has become a global crisis, impacting millions worldwide, with its impact on women becoming particularly devastating. Push factors influencing women's decision to migrate include a lack of access to economic opportunity and education, discrimination, and gender-based violence. Women often migrate to escape conflict, violence, and poverty in their home countries, only to end up in unstable situations like exploitative work, debt bondage, or becoming human trafficking victims. Unfortunately, women face unique challenges in the migration process, exacerbating their vulnerability to exploitation, including gender-based violence, high risk of trafficking, and a lack of access to healthcare.

A case study from the ethnography Sacrificing Families follows an El Salvadoran single mother named Esperanza, who is crippled by poverty in her home country. Working all day in a field and still unable to pay for groceries, Esperanza was desperate to provide for her daughter. Stricken with fear over her inability to survive, she ultimately takes on a hefty debt and migrates.

Esperanza is one of a million immigrants arriving in the U.S. yearly. Incapacitated with insurmountable desperation, migrants like her are propelled to leave their children and families behind indefinitely. This highlights women's devastating experiences when leaving their homes and the dire macroeconomic conditions many migrants face. The sacrifices migrants make to provide remittances and a better life for their families is heartening; however, the abuses they experience underscore the severity of their decisions.

Debt Bondage

Debt bondage is an insidious practice that utilizes predatory tactics to target vulnerable groups such as refugees and those living in poverty. The individuals are promised work and a better life, only to be thrown into a cycle of exploitation and debt. Forced international migration and exploitation go hand in hand. With thousands of desperate migrant workers seeking employment abroad yearly, young women fall into traffickers' traps. These victims have a poorly informed vision of jobs, money, and success in destination nations resulting in women undertaking exploitative positions in hopes of a better life abroad.

Gabriella, a woman from Columbia, was stricken with poverty and grief after her father's death. Looking for the opportunity to support herself and her family, Gabriella took an offer from a childhood friend to get smuggled into the United States. Once in the United States, her traffickers forced her into prostitution, holding her in a five-year debt bondage of $10,000. If she tried to escape, the trafficker threatened to harm her family. Unfortunately, Gabriella's account of debt bondage and gendered exploitation is not uncommon.

Women trapped in bonded labor are commonly subjected to physical and sexual abuse, with little or no access to healthcare. This is detrimental, considering their unsafe work results in lifelong health consequences. Those trapped by debt bondage are not the only victims in this equation; debt bondage has ripple effects on victims' families and communities. Women incapable of repaying their obligations cannot provide for their families, perpetuating intergenerational poverty.

This subjection to abuse, poor living conditions, and little access to resources are commonplace. According to the 2022 International Labour Organization (ILO) report on modern slavery, an estimated 50 million people are trapped in forced labor, with debt bondage accounting for a significant portion of the statistic. The ILO also notes that 71% of all trafficking victims are female. Due to migrant women having less access to education and legal knowledge, they are the perfect targets for traffickers.

Feminization of Migration

In the international globalization and migration age, feminization has become a core dimension. Beginning in the 1920’s regulation of immigration pushed for a gender balance in global migration. This resulted in women and families becoming a more significant portion of the migrant population. Women embarking on the migration journey have no guarantee of safety with the hazardous process leaving women vulnerable to gendered abuse in transit and at the destination. While there are male victims of sexual assault, a large majority of victims are female. Due to unequal power balances, a climate of gender-based abuses is cultivated. These abuses include mental and physical harm, threats, sexual assault, honor killings, coercion, and more. Survivors experience many physical and physiological effects that do not end after the initial migration process.

Women remain at risk even after leaving conflict zones. With traffickers praying on women, coercion is widespread as many females lack financial resources. These at-risk individuals are left to exchange sexual favors for places on boats, food, and housing. Continuing to capitalize on these endangered individuals, women enter “pay as you go” schemes accumulating more debt perpetuating their pregnable status.

Even after a treacherous journey, the abuses continue at the destination country. From refugee camps lacking single-sex washroom facilities to employers abusing migrant workers, the plight for survival doesn’t end in the destination country.

Numerous immigrant women have reported widespread labor exploitation, specifically surrounding undocumented workers. Along with low wages, exploitation in common occupational sectors for women, such as housekeeping, garment manufacturing, and domestic work, is rampant. With the private nature of their employment sectors, these domestic workers are especially vulnerable due to the lack of industry regulations . According to the New York City Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, the median annual earning for an undocumented worker is $25,300 a year, a figure significantly lower than the median earnings of a natural-born citizen standing at $45,000 a year. This income gap highlights the intersection of illegality and overt exploitation.

Illustrating the disparities in pay and work, Sacrificing Families depicts the hardship immigrants experience by following the story of an El Salvadoran woman named Graciela. Graciela, a middle-aged college-educated migrant, described the hardships of working in downtown LA, speaking of how she experiences harassment from the shop owner while also explaining how most women have work contracts forcing them into prostitution while performing retail jobs.

Undocumented women are facile targets for labor and sexual exploitation due to a fear of retaliation or deportation for speaking against their abuses. Unfortunately, undocumented immigrant women face obstacles in receiving justice due to an inadequate understanding of their legal rights, fear of retaliation, language barriers, and cultural differences, making it challenging to seek assistance.

Addressing gender-based discrimination is a complex situation; however, through creating support and access to legal rights, migrants will better understand their liberties. Through this, abuse victims will understand their rights and learn if they qualify for a U Visa. A U Visa is given to victims of abuse who report misconduct. Fear of reprisal is common among migrant workers. However, the U Visa is a safeguard that supports victims in reporting crimes.

However, the U Visa is a bandaid for a more significant issue. Mistreatment and abuse are ubiquitous in migrant work resulting in the only way for substantial change to occur is through policy. This may comprise of enforcing labor laws, expanding access to healthcare and other benefits, and, most importantly, paving a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants. By addressing the root causes of gendered discrimination, such as poverty, lack of education, and immigration status, policymakers can make society more equitable for all workers regardless of immigration status.

Conclusion

Women’s plight for a better life abroad is treacherous, resulting in grave human rights violations. With migrants lacking legal protection, the population is left vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers, employers, and other elements of their journey. These human rights abuses are perpetuated through living in unsafe conditions, lack of access to health care and necessities, and education. Migrants are victims, and the global community needs to recognize their plight and offer redress for the transgressions they encounter. Creating more opportunities for these individuals to receive support and protection is a step toward addressing the crisis.

Migrants are an invaluable asset to any country by promoting culture while boosting their home country and destination economies. Protecting these individuals needs to become a priority. Identifying the root causes of migration and creating support through legal recourse will give migrants the support and protection they deserve. Governments can address poverty, persecution, gendered stereotypes, and other root factors in deciding to migrate. A more equitable society starts with the global community converging to devise efforts guaranteeing the liberties of all forced migrants, ensuring that they are no longer victims of human rights abuses and are empowered to live fulfilling and dignified lives.

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