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Poverty, Gender and
Migration ‘There is something to be said for exile/ you learn roots are deep/ that language is a tree, loses colour/ under another sky.’ —Rough Passage by R. Parthasarthy
The trials and travails of arranging for a passage to utopia, the journey that may or may not lead to the destination aimed at, the identity crisis in a new scenario and the search for that elusive pot of gold are all discussed in the Asian context with just the right amount of graphs and data thrown in. The book, second of a five-volume series, turns upside down, whatever notions you may have held about women migrating independently, intra-nationally or trans-nationally, in search for betterment. Post-colonial societies have moved from agricultural economies to materialistic ones. Because of the uneven development of nations set in motion by colonisation viz dispossession, displacement, land-alienation and consequent unemployment or under-employment, we have nations who are dependent partners. The presence of MNCs, large external debts and export-oriented growth ensure their subordination. Migratory flows correspond to these patterns of development. The fact that nearly half of those who constitute the flow are women, has led to the term ‘feminisation of migration’ being coined. This could be due to the demand for traditionally female jobs, e.g., maids, nurses and entertainers (women working in the sex industry, dance bars, etc.) and labour intensive sectors in the garment industry. This also means a shift of labour demand from the industrial sector to service sectors and the informal economy. One of the paradoxes this results in is that though the ones to migrate may be the "needy ones", the poorest of the poor simply cannot afford to migrate. Lack of information and resources, more so for the women, who are at the tail end of this economy, makes their stepping-out, at best, temporal and seasonal. Then again, in the case of women, who makes the decision for migration? Is it voluntary, rational and calculated (as is claimed for the majority of maids and garment industry workers) or involuntary (for prostitutes, for example)? Neither is true you learn as you read on. Can women’s migration be independent—considering you require male kin support for transnational documentation or their sanction, in the least, for intra-national travel? Alternatively, is their migration doomed to be associational, e.g., through marriage (where women undergo ‘double migration’—from kin’s place to husband’s and then the move further on)? In addition, what of those who’s accompanying male kin are silenced and both employers and co-workers sexually exploit the female migrants? Is it really a way out from the vicious cycle of poverty, even if temporary? Alternatively, does it suck women into a fate worse than that they faced at ‘home’? Does it provide a ‘pseudo’ economic boost to a nation’s economy—as in the case of Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia or Nepal that ‘actively’ export maids? Or are these countries sealing their subordinate position being forever branded as ‘nations of servants’? Migration is a means for managing risk and building assets. That, however, is not always the case. Then you are a double loser if you are alienated from your land back home upon migrating or in the case of women, shunted out upon return through devious means like witch-hunting. It is often argued that migration is liberating for most women, as they need to shed cultural inhibitions when they ‘come out’ to work in the open. Then again, aren’t cultural identities reinforced by ‘back-linking’ to the past/village or even dividing slums into separate mini cultural areas? This volume also examines how shifts in state policies bring about corresponding changes in patterns of migration and how states actively promote migration but withdraw protective mechanisms. And significantly, why would their host first-world countries, which are always harping for a more humane world order, redress grievances of ‘those hordes of starving people’? The work also emphasises amendment to labour laws worldwide as the social construction of reproductive work (i.e., care-giving and nurturing) jobs as private has rendered women workers invisible, isolated and unprotected. Finally, it calls for freeing borders for people as much as for products. "Women of every race are the only discriminated group, with no territory, no country of their own, not even a neighbourhood' a poor man’s home may be his castle, but even a rich woman’s body is not her own." —Gloria Steinem |
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Immigration
