Migration Key Resources
Gender and migration
Globalisation
Migrant domestic labour and care work
Remittances
Impact of migration on families
Forced migration
Organisations
Gender and migration
UNFPA State of world population 2006. A Passage to Hope: Women and International Migration, http://www.unfpa.org/publications/state-world-population-2006, 107 pp. (also available in French, Russian, and Arabic)
This document is a very useful, clearly-written, and accessible introduction to the subject of women and contemporary migration, providing a comprehensive overview of the many different aspects of the topic, including / remittances, both financial and social; the ‘brain drain’ and the global nursing shortage; the impact of migration on gender roles and equality; trafficking in women; the exploitation of domestic workers; refugee women and asylum seekers - and argues for a human rights-based and gender-sensitive approach as a minimum standard to which any immigration policy should be held.
Feminization of Migration: Gender and Remittances and Development Working Paper 1 (2007), UN-INSTRAW, www.un-instraw.org/74-Migration-and-Dev/125-WorkingPapers/View-category.html, 6 pp.
This short paper seeks to explain the now common term, the ‘feminization of migration’, making clear that it refers more to the changes in migratory trends and patterns among women, than to any significant increase in their number / women constituting 47 per cent of migrants in 1960 and 49 per cent today. The paper outlines the main factors influencing female migration and urges caution when assessing the potential for migration to empower women, given migration’s relationship to the reproduction of gender inequalities at the global level.
On the Move: Women and Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China (2004), Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka (eds.) Columbia University Press, website: http://cup.columbia.edu
Women constitute a significant proportion of the vast number of migrants / the ‘floating’ population-who have moved from rural to urban areas in China. This fascinating collection, which includes a clearly written and comprehensive introduction by the editors, brings together original research and analysis from various regions of China and reveals the impact of migration on the identities, values, world views, and social positions of migrant women in a China undergoing dramatic economic and social change.
New Perspectives on Gender and Migration: Livelihood, Rights and Entitlements (2009), Nicola Piper (ed.), London and New York: Routledge, website: www.routledge.com
This book discusses recent theoretical and empirical developments in international migration from a gender perspective. Its main objective is to analyse the diversification and stratification of gendered migratory streams with regard to skill level, labour market integration, and legal status. In turn a migrant’s position in relation to these factors influences access to entitlements and rights. Conceptually, the book builds upon the recent shift in scholarly research on migration, with women-centred research shifting more toward the analysis of gender. Migration is now viewed as a gendered phenomenon that requires more sophisticated theoretical and analytical tools than sex as a dichotomous variable. Theoretical formulations of gender as relational, and as spatially and temporally contextual have begun to inform gendered analyses of migration. The contributions to this book, covering all major regions of the world, elaborate in more detail the broader social factors that influence migrating women’s and men’s roles, access to resources, facilities and services, and point to common trends, such as the increasing significance of the regionalisation of migration flows, as well as some noteworthy differences.
BRIDGE Cutting Edge Pack - Gender and Migration (2005), Susie Jolly with Hazel Reeves, BRIDGE, Institute of Development Studies, http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/bridge-publications/cutting-edge-packs/gender-and-migration
The Overview of this Cutting Edge Pack makes another useful introduction, incorporating discussion of both voluntary and forced migration (and making the point that the decision to migrate may fall somewhere on a continuum between the two) and international and internal migration. Gendered causes and impacts of migration are outlined, and gender and migration is analysed from a development perspective. The final sections look at policy approaches (as of 2005) and set out what a gender and human rights approach to migration would look like. The Supporting Resources Section of the Pack contains many interesting items, including case studies of migrants organising, plus a list of organisations working on issues covered in the Pack.
Empowering Woman Migrant Workers in Asia: A Briefing Kit (2004), Jean D’Cunha, UNIFEM East and South East Asia Regional Office, www.unifem-eseasia.org/ projects/migrant/Briefing kit files.htm
International migration for work has become a pronounced feature of the Asian region in the context of globalisation. Migrants, women in particular, can face discrimination, exploitation, and violence. This kit from UNIFEM - a series of downloadable two- or three-page chapters - examines the experience of Asian migrant women workers through real-life accounts, facts about women’s migration for work in Asia, the gendered basis for Asian women’s migration for work, and gendered violations and their impacts throughout the migration cycle. It then moves on to consider the capacity and contribution of women migrant workers, and what positive steps can be taken to improve their experiences within the migration cycle / strategic interventions, examples of good practice, and tools and references for gender and rights-based migration programming.
‘Footloose’ Female Labour: Transnational Migration, Social Protection and Citizenship in the Asia region. IDRC Working Papers on Women’s Rights and Citizenship (2007), Naila Kabeer, International Development Research Centre (IDRC/CRDI), http://www.idrc.ca/EN/Documents/WRC-WP1-Kabeer-Migration.pdf, 57 pp.
In this paper, Naila Kabeer reviews the literature on female labour migration flows within Asia from a gender perspective, in order to gain a better understanding of their patterns, causes and consequences as well as their implications for social protection and citizenship. The rationale for a gender perspective stems from evidence that women migrate for different reasons than men, they migrate along different routes and the consequences of their migration are also often different. Female migration, therefore, poses a particular kind of challenge for social protection and for the citizenship status of migrants. In their move generally into poorly regulated sectors of the host economy, female migrants are also moving from citizen to alien status / losing their ‘right to rights’ twice over. In addition, the author argues that the study of gender-differentiated movements of the population are important for the mirror they hold up to the different ways in which gender inequalities in the division of labour are incorporated into the broader and spatially uneven processes of development in an era of globalisation.
Gender and Development 6(1) (March 1998), www.gender anddevelopment.org
This 1998 issue of Gender and Development looks at gender and migration. It includes an editorial by Caroline Sweetman, and the following eight articles: ‘Frustrated and displaced’: Filipina domestic workers in Canada’, by Nona Grandea and Joanna Kerr; ‘Gujurati migrants’ search for modernity in Britain’, by Emma Crewe and Uma Kothari; ’Workers on the move: seasonal migration and changing social relations in rural India’, by Ben Rogaly; ‘Food shortages and gender relations in Ikafe settlement, Uganda’, by Linda Payne; ‘Mental illness and social stigma: experiences in a Pakistani community in the UK’, by Erica L. Wheeler; ‘More words but no action? Forced migration and trafficking of women’, by Francine Pickup; ‘The use and abuse of female domestic workers from Sri Lanka in Lebanon’, by Lina Abu-Habib; and ‘Migration, ethnicity, and conflict: Oxfam’s experience of working with Roma communities in Tuzla, Bosnia Hercegovina’, by Alex Jones.
Globalisation
‘Women’s work unbound: Philippine development and global restructuring’ (2010), Pauline Gardiner, in Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances (Second Edition), Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan (eds.), London and New York: Routledge website: www.routledge.com
In the twenty-first century, Filipinos are perhaps the most mobile labour force in the world, working in approximately 180 countries, with the Philippines ranked third after China and India in the top three source countries for international migrants. Of the roughly one million workers leaving the country annually, 70 per cent are women, as has been the case since the late 1980s. Even as new forms of capital relocate to the Philippines in search of cheaper southern labour markets, labour export policies have remained a major component of Philippine development strategy. In this fascinating paper, the author examines the social, political and cultural consequences of the global mobility and economic agency of Philippine women, incorporating a case study of one Filipina migrant to Canada, and including an extremely helpful summary of the history of migration of health-care professionals from the Philippines, and their de-skilling.
Women’s Labour Migration in the Context of Globalisation (2010), Anja K. Franck and Andrea Spehar, Women in Development Europe (WIDE), http://www2.weed-online.org/uploads/women_s_labour_migration_in_the_context_of_globalisation.pdf (Executive summary available in English, French Spanish and Russian)
In this useful paper, the authors aim to make clear the connection between globalisation and patterns of women’s migration. Analysis of internal and intra-regional migration patterns shows that many women migrants find work in agriculture and export-oriented sectors, where women’s relatively low wages constitute a comparative advantage with - in manufacturing export sectors - the hiring of (young, flexible, cheap) women workers forming an explicit strategy of governments and big corporations. The paper incorporates discussion of women’s skilled and unskilled labour migration; women’s migration in the context of the economic crisis; migrant women in the European Union; empowerment and political voice; an overview of policy, and a set of recommendations.
Migrant domestic labour and care work
Global Dimensions of Gender and Carework (2006), Mary K. Zimmerman, Jacquelyn S. Litt, and Christine E. Bose, Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, ISBN: 978 0804753234, email: info@www.sup.org, website: www.sup.org
At the heart of this book is the idea that globalisation is producing ‘multiple crises of care’, and that carework now needs to be viewed in relation to new and expanded global hierarchies of gender, class, nationality, and ‘race’ and ethnicity. The authors, in what is an extremely wellconceived work, have divided the book into four parts / ‘Globalization and Multiple Crises of Care’; ‘Transnational Migration: Influences on Citizenship, Social Control, and Carework’; ‘Motherhood, Domestic Work, and Childcare in Global Perspective’; and ‘Valuing Carework Through Policy and Culture: Communities, States, and Supranational Institutions’. Each part starts with an essay by the authors, and then continues with a selection of excerpts from ‘classic’ works in the field, along with more recent research studies, which support, and further illuminate the points made in the opening essay.
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy (2003), Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild (eds.) London: Granta Books, ISBN: 9781862 075887, 328 pp., email: info@granta.com, website: www.granta.com
This classic work, published in 2003, provides an excellent introduction to the ‘feminization of migration’, in a global economy which sees millions of women every year leave behind their homes and children in the developing world, to work as nannies, cleaners, carers, maids, and sex workers in richer economies. Their absence creates a ‘care deficit’ in their own countries, even while they are easing the ‘care deficit’ in the North. The collection includes essays on; domestic workers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the US, the effects of female emigration from Sri Lanka and from the Philippines on familial relationships, and sexual slavery in Thailand. Whilst including rigorous research and analysis, all the essays are extremely readable, and the voices and experiences of individual women which appear throughout, bring a human face to the global trends and dynamics the authors are describing, and powerfully convey the emotional costs involved in engaging in such work.
Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (2000), Bridget Anderson, Zed Books, ISBN: 9 781856 497619, 213 pp., London: Zed Books Ltd, email: sales@ zedbooks.net, website: www.zedbooks.co.uk
Another classic, this book offers a more theoretical approach to many of the issues explored in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy. After seeking to locate the role of domestic worker and female employer in relation to the public/private divide, and power relations, the author then examines the experiences of migrant domestic workers in cities in Northern and Southern Europe Through a chapter on the legacy of slavery in the US and contemporary migrant workers, she draws out the parallels between the racialised attitudes towards, and the experiences of, enslaved workers in the nineteenth century and migrant domestic workers today. Final chapters investigate how ideas relating to the contract / social, sexual, and employment - affect domestic workers; and the relationship between domestic workers and the state, in which citizenship is explored. The book is based on primary research carried out by the author, and the voices of the many women she interviewed, which punctuate the chapters, bring alive the theory. As with Global Woman, Doing the Dirty Work raises difficult questions for feminists, laying bare as it does, the race and class dynamics at work in the relationships between female employers and their female domestic employees.
The Implications of Migration for Gender and Care Regimes in the South (2009), Eleonore Kofman and Parvati Raghuram, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/search/9C17B4815B7656B0C125761C002E9283?OpenDocument
(note: users need to register online with UNRISD before accessing the pdf), 29 pp., (summary in English, French, and Spanish)
This paper examines the implications of migration for gender relations and care provisioning in the countries of the global South, in particular through the use of the notion of the ‘care diamond’ / a model which depicts the four points of the organisation of care in a society / and the interplay between its spatial and institutional dimensions. It explores some of the ways in which the care diamond needs specifying and moderating in relation to a Southern context. The paper also assesses the applicability of key concepts such as the global care chain and the ethics of care for migration in Southern countries. Finally, it draws lessons for policy makers with regard to the care-related needs of migrant families and households in different regions. Too often the importance of migration as a buffer securing a cheap care workforce has meant states have not recognised the economic and social importance of care; the authors of this paper argue for the need to correct this imbalance.
Global Care Chains, Gender, Remittances and Development Working Paper 2 (2007) UN-INSTRAW, http://www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/web/imagesFTP/1282320595.Amaia_Perez_Global_Care_Chains.pdf, 8 pp.
This short paper defines and describes global care chains / perhaps the archetypal example of the feminisation of migration / and the economic and social forces which have led to their creation. The paper examines the consequences of these chains for development at a global level, arguing for the need to make visible the gendered division of labour with regard to care work / regarded for so long as ‘natural’ / and for recognition by governments of ‘the social and economic value of the unremunerated domestic work of women; of care as a public affair that is incumbent on States, local governments, organizations, companies and families; and the necessity to promote the shared responsibility of women and men in the family arena.’
Remittances
‘‘‘Remittances are beautiful’’? Gender implications of the new global remittances trend’ (2008), Rahel Kunz, Third World Quarterly 29(7): 1389-409
In this article, the author defines as a new ‘global remittance trend’ (GRT) the heightened interest of actors, such as governments, international organisations, non-governmental organisations, and private sector actors, in the development potential of international migration and remittances. The author argues that although the debate about the GRT has been largely gender blind, it is nevertheless infused with gendered representations and stereotypes, most commonly, that men are mainly remittance senders and women are mainly remittance receivers; women remittance senders tend to send more than men; and women make better use of remittances than men. These stereotypes have concrete, gender-specific implications in terms of policymaking. Illustrated with an example from rural Mexico, the paper demonstrates how policies based on such representations lead to complex and seemingly contradictory processes of gender exclusion and inclusion, and may have adverse gender implications.
Migration and Development: Gender, Remittances and Development Working Paper 3 (2007), UN-INSTRAW, http://www.flacsoandes.edu.ec/web/imagesFTP/1282321600.Amaia_Perez_Orozco_Migration_L.pdf, 8 pp.
This INSTRAW paper helpfully outlines the ‘remittance-to-development’ paradigm, in which mainstream thinking on the impact of migration on the development of sending countries and communities has evolved from being rather negative - focusing on ‘brain drain’ - to a much more positive interpretation, emphasising the benefits of financial and social remittances for development in countries of origin, particularly at a local level. The paper sets out the assumptions which lie behind this interpretation, highlighting areas of concern, and the issues which must be included in thinking and analysis on migration and development in the future.
Remittances: Gender, Remittances and Development Working Paper 4 (2007), UN-INSTRAW, http://www.globalmigrationgroup.org/sites/default/files/uploads/UNCT_Corner/theme5/remittances/grd_Working_Paper_4w.pdf, 12 pp.
Remittances are the most visible factor that link migration and development. Despite the increasingly optimistic visions, this paper argues that the empirical evidence for the positive effects of the flow of remittances on development is weak, and that the use of different methodological and conceptual frameworks can yield mixed results. It discusses the impact of remittances at the local level, with special attention to the proposal for channelling remittances through formal financial institutions. Finally, some reflections are made on the additional elements of discussion that arise when introducing the issue of gender into the debate, the differential role of women and men in sending and receiving remittances, and their impact on gender relations.
Migration, Remittances and Gender-Responsive Local Development series (2010), UNINSTRAW,
http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2010/casestudy-executivesummary-migration-remittances-genderresponsivedevelopmemt-en.pdf
This series of studies, which consists of case studies from Albania, Dominican Republic, Lesotho, Morocco, Philippines, and Senegal, focuses on the sending, transfer, receipt, and utilisation of remittances, and affirms that gender influences and shapes the movement and experiences of migrants and their communities in both origin and destination countries. The studies map the key actors and discuss the historical and current migratory patterns and remittance practices in each country.
Impact of migration on families
Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes (2005), Rhacel Salazar Parren˜ as, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, website: www.sup.org
Drawing on in-depth interviews, this ethnographic study looks at the social impact of labour migration from the perspective of the sending country; in this case, the Philippines. The author finds that the migration of women to better-paying jobs overseas has not resulted in changing the way the men back home view their place in the family, and that what is needed is for those parents left behind to give up traditional gender roles and find more creative ways to run a working household. The author also argues for Filipina and Filipino migrant workers to come together themselves, and translate their financial capital, in the form of remittances, into political clout, to lobby for better treatment for migrants and their families, both at home, and in their host countries.
Left Behind, Left Out: The Impact on Children and Families of Mothers Migrating for Work Abroad - Research Findings and Policy Challenges (2006), Save the Children in Sri Lanka, http://www.crin.org/docs/save_sl_left_out.pdf, 11 pp.
The majority of Sri Lankan migrants are women, most of whom are married with families, and their remittances provide vital foreign exchange for the Sri Lankan government. However, despite these women’s contribution, this 12-page paper argues that the children they leave behind are often ‘left out’ of social policy planning, despite suffering psychosocial costs attached to their mothers’ absence. The paper documents the research, the objectives of which included developing a profile of migrant Sri Lankan mothers and their families, establishing the effects on the children and husbands of women who migrate abroad as domestic workers, and examining the extent to which the effects were problematic. It also provides examples of best practice, and a set of recommendations.
The Impact of Migration on Elderly People: Grandparent-headed Households in Kyrgyzstan (2008), Mehrigul Ablezova, Emil Nasritdinov, and Ruslan Rahimov, HelpAge International Central Asia/Social Research Center of the American University of Central Asia, http://src.auca.kg/index.php?optioncom_content&taskview&id 534&Itemid48, 29 pp.
In Kyrgyzstan, one in every five people of working age has left to find work abroad, mainly in Russia or Kazakhstan. This study of 120 older people in the two poorest provinces of the country highlights the poverty in which many of the older people who stay behind live, some in what are known as ‘ghost villages’. In nine out of ten families looked at, adult children had migrated, and although the decision to migrate was supported by the older generation, and most grandparents derived pleasure from caring for their grandchildren, some said they found it difficult. Only one in five of the older people in the families studied regarded the remittances sent home by their migrant children to be a source of income. The study calls for more support to be made available to those older people who care for grandchildren, and for a more realistic view of the sometimes questionable benefits of migration to be adopted in Kyrgyzstan.
Grandparents and Grandchildren: Impact of Migration in Moldova (2008), HelpAge International Moldova, www.helpage.org/Worldwide/EasternEuropeandCentral Asia/Resources?autocreate_RelatedHelpagePublicationList_start11, 9 pp.
According to an International Office of Migration 2006 survey, every third Moldovan able to work has left the country to find employment overseas. Government/UNICEF data suggest Gendthat some 75,000 children have at least one parent abroad, and 35,000 are living with neither parent, which means that many grandparents, particularly grandmothers, find themselves having to look after grandchildren at a time when their own health and economic situation is deteriorating. This report finds that while remittances from abroad improve the short-term financial situation of the family, in the long term, migration negatively affects children’s emotional and psychological well-being, and argues that children left behind by migrant parents should be considered at risk, and prioritised in state policy. The report’s recommendations include: that the state should consider older people as an important resource for child care and provide special entitlements and support at community level; and as older people, especially women, play an important role in caring for the children of migrant parents, special attention must be given to social integration of vulnerable older people, to improved access to information and social services, and to revision of social pensions.
Forced migration
Forced Migration Online Thematic Guide: Gender and Forced Migration (2002), Anastasia Bermu´dez Torres, www.forcedmigration.org/guides/fmo007/fmo007.pdf, 27 pp.
Around 75-80 per cent of refugees and internally displaced people are women and children. Explaining that the focus of planning and implementation of humanitarian assistance has gradually shifted from ‘women’s’ to ‘gender’ issues, this paper argues that women and girls still need special attention; recognition of gender-based persecution and the rights of women asylum seekers need to be strengthened, protection and assistance of IDPs in general need to be improved, and more attention should be given to development- and disaster-induced development and their impact on gender roles and relations. The paper discusses issues related to gender and conflict-induced displacement, including life in refugee camps, providing a case study on conflict-induced displacement from Colombia, and looks at women in post-conflict settings, with case studies from Rwanda and the Balkans. There is also a useful resources section.
Gendering the International Asylum and Refugee Debate (2007), Jane Freedman, Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, website: www.palgrave.com, ISBN: 978-0-2300-0653-9, 244 pp.
Although women make up at least half of the world’s refugees, they constitute only a minority of those asylum seekers who reach the West. International conventions along with national laws and policies on asylum have frequently been gender blind. Drawing on interviews with refugees, asylum seekers, members of NGOs and voluntary organisations, and policy makers, this book seeks to redress the lack of gender-specific analyses of asylum and refugee issues by providing an account of women in global forced migration, and explaining the ways in which women’s experiences are shaped by gendered relations and structures. The book provides a wide-ranging examination of all sides of the debate, looking at causes of refugee flows, international laws and conventions and their application, responses to refugees and asylum seekers and the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers themselves.
Transnational Ruptures: Gender and Forced Migration (2006), Catherine Nolan, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, website: www.ashgate.com, ISBN: 978-0-7546-3805-6, 266 pp.
Focusing on the experiences of Guatemalan refugees in Canada, displaced by violence in their own country and seeking to make a new home elsewhere, this ethnographic, multi-sited study provides a compelling discussion of exile and transnationalism, and the reconstruction of identities, at a time when more women are participating in the migration process as principal wage earners and heads of household, rather than as ‘dependants’.
Organisations
European Network of Migrant Women (ENOMW), 18 rue Hydraulique, B-1210 Brussels, Belgium, tel: 32 02/210 04 28, website: www.migrantwomennetwork.org
ENOMW is a European network of non-governmental organisations, representing the concerns, needs, and interests of migrant women in the European Union (EU). The network’s objectives are: to promote equal treatment, equal rights, and better integration for migrant women in Europe; to provide regular input on all areas of EU policy development and implementation that have an impact on migrant women’s lives; to help shape social policies and design action programmes addressing migrant women’s specific needs; to represent members’ organisations, and to lobby for and with migrant women to have a stronger voice at the European level; and to support migrant women’s organisations and movements through information and training.
International Organization for Migration (IOM), 17 Route des Morillons, CH-1211 Geneva 19, Switzerland, tel: 41 22 717 9111, fax: 41 22 798 6150, email: hq@iom.int, website: www.iom.int
Established in 1951, IOM is an inter-governmental agency working in four broad areas of migration management: migration and development; facilitation of migration; regulation of migration; and forced migration. IOM activities that cut across these areas include the promotion of international migration law, policy debate and guidance, protection of migrants’ rights, migration health and the gender dimension of migration. The organisation’s research activities world-wide encompass several migration management topics, including migration trends and data, international migration law, migration and development, health and migration, countertrafficking, labour migration, trade, remittances, irregular migration, integration, and return migration. The IOM produces the annual World Migration Report, and the journal, International Migration and the organisation’s website also provides numerous free to download resources, including the quarterly bulletin, IOM Gender & Migration News.
UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) (now part of UN Women), 15th Floor 304 East 45th Street, New York, NY 10017, USA, tel: 1 212 906-6400, fax: 1 212 906-6705, email: via the UN Women website, website: www.un-instraw.org/migration/programme-page/ (last accessed 5 January 2010)
Migration and development is one of the focus areas of the UN-INSTRAW (now part of the new UN Women agency) / a body responsible for conducting much valuable research on gender and migration. The INSTRAW programme uses remittances, global care chains and migrants’ rights as key lines of investigation to investigate the ways in which gender affects and determines the links between migration and development. The website provides information on the INSTRAW programme, projects, and donors and partners, along with events, news, and downloadable tools, resources, and publications and hosts a virtual community for those working in the area of gender, development, and migration.
Kalayaan, St Francis of Assisi Community Centre, 13 Hippodrome Place, London W11 4SF, tel: 44 (0)207 243 2942, fax: 44 (0) 207 792 3060, email: info@kalayaan.org.uk, website: www.kalayaan.org.uk
Founded in 1987, Kalayaan is an organisation which provides advice, advocacy, and support to migrant workers in the UK, who may be facing abuse, discrimination, low pay, long hours, and exploitation. For its migrant worker clients it offers advice on immigration and employment, support in retrieving passports from employers, training in accessing health care and mainstream services in the UK, English language classes, support with reading and writing letters or forms, and provides practical emergency assistance to clients who have recently left abusive employers. It also serves as a social space where clients can come and meet friends, have tea or coffee and pick up mail. As well as outlining the services Kalayaan offers, the website gives information on immigration and employment rights for migrant domestic workers within the UK, along with employers’ responsibilities and a ‘model’ contract, as well as hosting resources and news sections.
Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), WIEGO Secretariat, Harvard University, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA, tel: 1 617 496 7037, fax: 1-617 496 2828, email: via website, website: www.wiego.org
Established in 1997, WIEGO is an international research and policy network, aiming to improve the status of the working poor, particularly women, in the informal economy, and effectively sees itself as ‘a ‘‘think tank’’ for the SEWA-inspired international movement of organisations of informal workers’. WIEGO members and associates come from over 100 countries and are drawn from three broad areas: membership-based organisations of informal workers; research, statistical, and academic institutes; and development agencies, both non-governmental and inter-governmental. The organisation has five main programme areas: global markets; organisation and representation; social protection; statistics; and urban policies, and its specific goals are to put work, workers, and workers’ organisations at the centre of economic development policies and processes; to investigate how different groups of the working poor in the informal economy, especially women, are linked to the formal economy and to the global economy, and with what consequences; to investigate the quantity and quality of employment opportunities created by different patterns of economic growth and global integration; and to identify appropriate policies, regulations, and practices, to manage and govern the employment arrangements of the working poor in the informal economy.
Anti-slavery International, Thomas Clarkson House, The Stableyard, Broomgrove Road, London SW9 9TL, UK, tel: 44 (0)20 7501 8920, fax: 44 (0)20 7738 4110, email: info@antislavery.org, website: www.antislavery.org
Anti-slavery International works to uncover and eradicate all forms of modern slavery around the world. The exploitation and rights abuses to which migrant workers are sometimes vulnerable can create conditions akin to slavery. The organisation’s website provides information on forced labour and trafficking, along with free-to-download reports on these subjects, which highlight some of the key inter-connecting dynamics between slavery, trafficking, migration, and forced labour.
International Labour Organization (ILO), 4 route des Morillons, 1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland, tel.: 41 22 799 6730, fax: 41 22 799 6388, email: gender@ilo.org, website: www.ilo.org (website also available in French and Spanish)
A UN agency, the ILO brings together representatives from governments, employers, and workers, to help shape programmes and policies, and is responsible for drawing up and overseeing international labour standards. It is the only UN agency with a mandate to protect migrant workers, and has been involved with labour migration issues since its inception in 1919. Central to the ILO’s vision is the idea of ‘decent work for all’, and within this overarching framework all major sectors of the ILO / standards, employment, social protection and social dialogue / work on the issue of labour migration, with the International Migration Programme (MIGRANT) unit within the ILO having overall responsibility. In 2004, the ILO adopted a (non binding) Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration / part of an ILO plan of action aimed at ’better managing labour migration so that it contributes positively to the growth and development of both home and host societies, as well as to the well being of the migrants themselves’. The organisation is also working towards a convention on domestic work, with a view to the setting of labour standards. The ILO website page ‘Labour migration’, http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/labour-migration/lang–en/index.htm, provides information and resources.