This weeks task was to comment on the IOM and their role in improving conditions for migrant females.
Migration seems to be an evergreen in internationals discourse. And it should be, because it definitely is an issue in our globalised world and probably always will be. At least as long as we have huge differences in living conditions in different regions of the world, there will always be migration flows in order to look for better a better living. This does not necessarily require bad living conditions in the first place. For example, a lot of people from the so called "Western World" also migrate to other countries, because they are looking for different goals in life. But the main flows of migration will problably be from the poor, restrictive or (civil) war countries to supposably safer countries of which the migrants expect better living conditions.
As the text read in class and very often also reality shows that is not necessarily the case. The host countries might have poor laws to protect the migrants of any kind of abusion, may it be economically or even worse physically or mental. A lot of countries rule the labor force for their own citizen and forget and ignore the problems of foreigners entering their countries.
As seen in the text, especially live-in workers, for example housekeepers, may especially be in trouble because of this lack in laws. If they are only allowed to stay when having a job they are highly dependent on their employers which puts them in a really bad negotiation position in all terms. The text discusses many state-level regulations that are influencing the working conditions of migrants, especially of women.
The International Organization of Migration, or in short IOM, was founded formerly in Europe, to assist both, the immigrants and the nation-states to establish rules and ways of getting along and integrate the new comers in the system. It is "committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society." and works together with governmental (nation states), intergovernmental (f.e. NATO, EU, OAS) and non-governmental partners (Human Rights watch etc.). On their website they state their mission explicitly in 12 points. Here you can see, that they are not specialized on improve working conditions for women.
Nevertheless, they have already realized, that gender issues become more and more important in migration contexts and hence built a project group working on this: "The Gender Coordination function is responsible for the development and implementation of policies and programmes on gender issues, and for promoting gender awareness and sensitivity throughout the Organization" (source: see website)
While visiting the page, I got the impression that they are rather trying to identify gender related issues so far than actively implementing strategy. Although they already analysed and recommended strategies, these cases have been really specific!
In my opinion, what they are basically doing right now is to shape an awareness for the importance to integrate these immigrant women into the system and don't forget about them in migration issues. They take into consideration both the host country as well as the country of origin (see here)
The Gender Coordination is still doing a lot of research about problems women in general and in migration contexts in specific are facing. You can tell that by looking at the liste Key Documents or by reading some of the cases.
For me, the next step would be to actively develop strategies and programs to help migrant women or to go for laws to regulate some situations. But I also liked the idea sensibilize societies for those issues, such as gender equality, by using medias close to the people they want to reach. (Check this out: Radionovela: Tiempos de huracanes) Fascinating communication strategy, don't you think?!
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