“Madam,” Amiina calls out to the Caucasian lady who has just walked through the gate. Amiina’s right hand disappears into her guntiino (the traditional dress that Somali women wear) and it hastily resurfaces with a piece of paper in firm grip. With great stealth, she scoots the bewildered visitor into a corner and starts to bombard her with requests.
“We need a visa; we fear for our lives; these are my children,” she turns round, but there is no one by her side. She swings her head to the right-hand side of the compound and throws a glaring look at the five children who are huddled in a far corner. One glance is all it takes. They scuttle to her side.
She animates her voice, raising it and lowering it, each time to emphasize different parts of her story. Amiina’s voice fades off as I walk further away.
I am at a transit centre in Nairobi, Kenya. Transit centers are places that are built to accommodate refugees as they await possible movement to countries that are willing to absorb them. With an approximate number of 440,000 refugees, Kenya hosts the fifth largest number of refugees in the world.
According to the latest World Migration report, there were an estimated 214 million international migrants in the world in 2010, a figure that represents an increase of almost 40 million in the first decade of the 21st century, and over double the number of international migrants in 1980.
In Africa, female migrants like Amiina are said to comprise 46 per cent of all migration, and according to the International Organization for Migration, this figure is set to increase. Yet women are generally neglected in migration studies; they are mostly seen as the people that are left behind, and in some cases are viewed as mere add-ons to male migration.
Amiina, and other female migrants like her, introduce the aspect of gender considerations into discussions about migration. Gender, in its simplest sense, refers to the characteristics that distinguish a man from a woman in a given society. These roles are acquired during the socialization period. The gender aspect of migration is very complex and it highlights the different reasons why women and men move, the process of migration, and the varying social, political and economic environments that each of the sexes encounter in their countries of destination.
Around the world, the question of gender is taking centre stage in many fora, and Africa is not being left behind. In February 2009, the African Union (AU) adopted the AU Gender Policy. Prior to this, the AU had adopted several other important gender-related documents, including Article 4(1) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa. These policies are aimed at accelerating MDG 3 which highlights Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.
Humanitarian actors in Africa are also active participants in the gender deliberations. Here in Kenya, against the backdrop of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) and following year-long consultations with national stakeholders, the United Nations (UN) system in Kenya recently embarked on a joint gender mainstreaming program. Signed into force towards the end of 2010 by 14 of the 17 UN bodies resident in Kenya, ‘The UN Joint Program on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment’ is aimed at mapping and promoting enhanced coordination of the UN systems support to national priorities in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment in Kenya.
As the gender movement continues to gain momentum around the world, research in the field of migration and its gender dimension is advancing. This notwithstanding, much more remains to be understood about this complex issue. Very little, for example is known about what determines female migration, the new migration pressures for women and girls and the specific migration routes that they prefer to use. To this day the patterns of female migration remain scantily researched and inadequately understood.
With specific regard to female labor migrants, Gloria Moreno Fontes, a migration specialist with ILO Migration Branch, notes:
“Besides being subject to sometimes very harsh working and living conditions, migrant women workers are in some instances prohibited from marrying with local citizens, lose their jobs if they become pregnant, and are subject to pregnancy tests every six months. It is not only their status as female and non-nationals that puts women migrants in a vulnerable situation, but also the type of work they engage in. They find themselves incorporated into an already disadvantageous labour market for women, and these disadvantages intensify in the case of migrant women, especially for those who are undocumented.”
Female migrants like Amiina can no longer be ignored or clustered into one homogenous group with men because their needs are very distinct from the needs of the men. Policy makers and various stakeholders ought to be mindful of these dynamics as they shape migrant laws, and as they work towards capitalizing on the benefits that come from the migration of women.
The author is a humanitarian analyst and she writes on migration. Email her on: msanyu@yahoo.com
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