WOMAN MIGRANTS WORKERS

First, let’s define what migration is: movement of people from one country to other. People use to do this because of many reasons, for instance: improve quality of life, give better opportunities to their descendents, avoid poverty, conflict or hunger. Another important reason that is going to be developing in this article is the differences in gender that can be reflected in women.

Economical, social, political and environmental reasons are related with migration, for example, people move to search new jobs with better salaries or to develop their professional direction, also as I said before to improve their quality of life or to be more close to their familiars, many others move because of the types of governments (there still exist many countries that have many restrictions to people to live free).

Sri Lanka is an island nation in south Asia; its govern type is a republic and a unitary state which is governed by semi-presidential system, where the major migrants are women, because they work many hours and receive low pay. And there are 3 important factors that affect this situation: gender norms, lack of participation in national politics and the bad position in the international division of labor. (Gamburd. R, Michele, Advocating Sri Lanka migrants workers, Critical Asian Studies, 41: 1 (2009), o61-088)

According to OIM, women are nearly half of the migrant population in the entire world. OIM develops some rights to protect migrants around the world, especially for women, because they are the most vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation and abuse: (OIM.Retrieved on October 16,2010, form http://www.gemmaproject.eu/publicdocs/prevent_violence_against_wmw_2009.pdf)

• Promotes legal and safe migration for women

• Promotes policies that regulate the recruitment and deployment of women migrant workers

• Protection and protection of women migrant workers human rights

• Counter-trafficking activities including capacity- building and direct assistance to victims.

• Promotion of gender-sensitive international migration policies

Nowadays there are not these visible gaps between men and women; women participate in many important labors in companies or even tough helping and getting high jobs in politics. Today women migrate independently to search better opportunities of life and give them the place they think they disserve.

(image taken from:agadjanian.org)