The body of 20-year old Anget R. of Madagascar was found hanging from a rope at her employer’s bedroom door Nov. 11. A newspaper in Madagascar reported the deaths of two other Malagasy women in October. One, identified only as Mampionona, was said to have fallen from the balcony of her employer’s house. The other, identified as Vololona, died after reportedly jumping from the balcony.

Sunit Bholan of Nepal, who was 22, allegedly committed suicide Oct. 8. Ethiopian Kassaye Etsegenet, 23, died after reportedly jumping from the seventh floor of her employer’s house Oct. 15. She left behind a suicide note citing personal reasons.

On Oct. 21, 26-year-old Zeditu Kebede Matente of Ethiopia was found dead, hanging from an olive tree. Two days later 30-year old Saneet Mariam also of Ethiopia died after allegedly falling from the balcony of her employer’s house.

The list goes on: Nepalese national Mina Rokaya, 24, and then Tezeta Yalmoya of Ethiopia, 26 – who also died, it was said, when she fell from the balcony.

“It’s a national tragedy,” Nadim Houry, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells IPS.

The workers leave their families behind to travel to Lebanon and look after strangers. Many are treated well by their employers; others are less fortunate.

Once in Lebanon, the women may be confined to their employer’s house, and have their passports confiscated and their salaries withheld, increasing their sense of isolation. Many women say they are not allowed out of the house, or get a day off. Complaints of sexual or psychological abuse are not uncommon.

Lebanon’s controversial sponsorship system means that workers are bound to their employers, and face incarceration if they leave. “It’s distressing to note that suicide for some is the only recourse to release from an abusive situation,” says Azfar Khan, senior migration specialist at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) regional office for the Arab states.

Police investigations are often inadequate, usually taking into consideration only the employer’s testimony and failing to cross-check it with neighbours or the worker’s friends or family, says Houry. If the woman is lucky enough to survive a suicide attempt, the police almost never provide her with a translator, or ask whether she had been abused. Cases where abusive employers are imprisoned “are the exception, not the rule,” says Houry.

The recent spate of deaths is not the first. A HRW study last year found that at least 95 women had died between Jan. 1, 2007 and Aug. 15, 2008 – a rate of more than one a week.

Aimee, a freelance domestic worker from Madagascar, has been in Lebanon for almost 12 years. As a community leader now, she helps workers in distress by offering a sympathetic ear and advice.

Many of the women she counsels do not receive a regular salary, or have been abused by their employers or recruitment agency officials. Agencies “check the women’s bags for phone numbers or addresses of their consulate,” Aimee tells IPS. Any numbers found are destroyed to prevent the woman seeking help. “How can they ask someone to work so far away from home and treat them like that?”

Lebanon’s growing notoriety as a hotbed for abuse of rights has compelled the governments of Ethiopia and the Philippines to issue bans on their nationals working in Lebanon. But this hasn’t stemmed the tide of migrants entering through third countries. Bans in any case only “transfer the problem from one nationality to another,” says Houry, because recruitment agencies simply look to new countries for women workers.

One reason for suicides is the false expectations recruitment agencies raise among migrant workers. Many women are led to believe they will work as nurses or as other professionals. “A lot of these women are recruited in rural areas – it’s like taking someone and plucking them into a totally different environment,” says Houry.

One Nepalese woman he spoke to after she broke her leg trying to escape her employer’s house said “she saw the snow on the mountains and thought if she could cross the mountain, she’d be in Nepal.”

Lebanese labour laws do not cover domestic workers. Without any legal protection, foreign workers are vulnerable to exploitation.

“The ILO has been pushing for domestic workers to be covered under labour law – not just in Lebanon but in other countries of the region – so that at least institutionally they enjoy protection and have the option to have their grievances addressed in court,” says Khan. “They are workers, so why should the labour law not apply to them?”

Lebanon has signed the International Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, but has yet to move towards signing the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families – a measure that would obligate it to take protection measures for the migrant community.

But more practical measures the Lebanese could take are to create a national hotline for distressed workers and a labour inspection force to monitor the treatment of migrants, says Houry. “More broadly, society has to mobilise. Not everyone is guilty of ill-treatment, but everyone has to feel responsible. People need to start speaking out and express that this is unacceptable.” (END/2009)

Daughters of globalisation

According to Ms. Mongaya Hoegsholm, in her talk entitled ‘Daughters of globalisation: Filipino women bridging the development gap’, the main push factor for Filipinas leaving the country in such huge numbers is poverty and its flipside: the lack of jobs or at least underemployment. In the Philippines, as in most Asian countries, the main focus is the family, and the main family value is education. In the case of the Philippines (which has a significant segment of its population in poverty in the rural areas), families still prioritise education, and without discriminating against girl children. But while the females in society educate themselves well (more women than men in the Philippines have PhDs), there are not enough possibilities in the job market, if at all. Therefore, the move from countryside to urban areas, thence from the overcrowded cities to leaving for abroad – even when accepting jobs not commensurate to their education – is a more and more common phenomenon, exemplified by au pairs in Europe.

Push and pull factors

Together with KULU and FOA (a labour union of unskilled workers), Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm founded a network of au pairs in Denmark with the aim of helping out the new arrivals from the Philippines. In her talk, she focused on the pull factors in this kind of feminised migration, namely the demographic deficit of an ageing Europe, where the elderly people need care, young women are busy with their careers, and young families need care for their young children and other household chores. It is for the latter that European countries open up for Filipina au pairs. Europe needs its cheap labour harnessed under what should strictly be a cultural exchange scheme for young people but is nowadays used as a source for young and cheap labour.

The disadvantage to Filipina women in this situation is not only the unfair labour practice of unjust compensation but also the fact of deskilling where their own educational qualifications slowly diminish from lack of use because they are mainly doing housework or ‘dirty work’. They also run the risk of becoming undocumented because of expired visas, which can occur unintentionally.

Double jeopardy

Filomenita also discussed diaspora philanthropy in the course of the evening. It is widely known that Filipino migrants send high remittances home. Filipinos rank among the top three worldwide in sending billions of dollars of money home. Here the Filipina women workers in Europe experience a double jeopardy: not only do they have obstacles in their everyday situation, fighting for labour rights and against discrimination, racial and gendered, but they also have to argue against European feminists who look at remittances as problematic.

While Filipina migrants see it as their primary aim in migration to help their families and thus send most of their earnings home, this is often seen negatively by European women coming from nuclear families. According to some views, remittances not only impinge on Official Development Assistance (ODA) but also affect a concept of family (as migrating women often leave their children back at home).   

But in fact there is a paradigm shift today, so even in the UN the annual assembly called the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) is precisely looking at the question of remittances – of course, without reneging on migrants’ rights in either the receiving or sending country.

The evening’s panel also consisted of Renate Anderl, the Chairperson of G-mtn frauen, and Helga Neumayer, who is Frauensolidaritaet’s Editor-in-Chief. There were quite a few questions fielded by the participants who came with other competences to add different perspectives to the topic of women and migration and how women mobilise against the current multiple crises resulting in poverty.

First published: WIDE October 2009 Newletter

Filomenita Mongaya Hoeghsolm is also one of five members of the Executive Committee of newly joined WIDE member, Babaylan, the Philippine Women’s Network in Europe, and is the Founding Chair of Babaylan Denmark. She will be addressing a CEDAW+30 Roundtable in Geneva on Women and Migration on 4 November.

It was the UN Secretary General at that time, Kofi Annan, and his Special Envoy on International Migration and Development, who tabled at the High Level Dialogue on the same topic the importance of a UN-level meeting for this area. So on 14–15 September 2006, within the framework of the General Assembly of the UN, it became reality to devote international attention each year to one of the most significant phenomena in modern history: migration, and how it could be harnessed for development.

In July 2007, the first meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), which this UN-level meeting has come to be called, was held and hosted by the government of Belgium, in Brussels, the heart of Europe.

The GFMD is, among other things, an intergovernmental forum: a meeting of governments alternately hosted by a migrantreceiving and a migrant-sending country (after the Brussels meeting in 2007, it was Manila, the Philippines, who hosted the second conference in October 2008). The GFMD has three goals:

• to bring together government expertise from all regions to enhance dialogue, cooperation and partnership in the areas of migration and development;
• to address in a transparent manner the multidimensional aspects, opportunities and challenges related to international migration and its links with development; and
• to foster practical and action-oriented outcomes at the national, regional and global levels.

In 2009, the GFMD will again take place in a migrant-receiving country, Greece. Athens, the Greek capital, will be hosting this annual meeting of governments and stakeholders in the migration nexus, including NGOs and migrant groupings who want to be heard. In the context of the GFMD, it is considered vital that civil society groups are heard, so each host country takes it upon itself to choose some 200 delegates from all over the world, representing different sectors of society: immigrant organisations., migrant-rightsfocused NGOs, labour unions, immigrant media representatives etc. who are able to push the agenda through constructive discussions in roundtables and plenary sessions. The results of the two days of intense discussions on migration and development are then collated and presented to the governments who meet the following two days.
There is another forum within the context of the GFMD that creates space for alternative views and opinions to be presented. This goes under the parallel events, the ‘people-led’ activities, collectively called the People’s Global Action (PGA). As in other international UN-level conferences, a wide range of people’s organisations organise different kinds of activities and happenings to focus on the burning question of the day. These could be the familiar demonstrations, alternative conferences, cultural events etc. Some migrant coalitions prefer to hold congresses or discuss more pointedly the issues that bind them together – for example, migration and development policies – or to take a more popular topic: remittances. It is worth mentioning that remittances are now four to five times higher than the amounts of Official Development Assistance (ODA) that developing countries receive.
The annual GFMD thus is a unique space in which governments, while discussing bilaterally and multilaterally and perhaps negotiating certain agreements, are also able to hear and, hopefully, act on the recommendations of civil society and people’s organisations.

First published: WIDE October 2009 Newsletter

WIDE was represented at the Global Forum on Migration and Development 2009 by Filomenita Høgsholm from KULU, WIDE’s Danish Platform, and Babaylan, the Philippine Women’s Network in Europe. For more information, contact Filomenita Høgsholm: filomenitamh@gmail.com

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WIDE participated in the international conference ´Are we on the right track? Paradigm Review by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) as development actors´,held in Prague, Czech Republic, on 14­16 May 2008 and co-organised by TRIALOG, CONCORD and the Ecumenical Academy of Prague. With the conference secretariat allegedly turning down around 50 last-minute applicants, WIDE´s two representatives considered themselves lucky to be inside the magic circle of some 150 participants who met over the two days.The conference aimed to serve as a forum for civil society actors from the old and new EU Member States and from developing countries in the South and East. Participants were encouraged to challenge current development approaches and paradigms, by trying to find and identify new and more promising ones and learn from changing contexts. Burning issues were discussed such as: ´Is there a difference between the approaches taken in old and new Member States, or between European NGOs and CSOs in developing countries?´, ´Where are the common areas?´, ´Are there alternative visions in Europe and in developing countries for sustainable development?´, ´Can we agree on promising development paradigms together?´.

Gender in new development contexts

We made a much-needed effort to bring into the plenary discussions around development a gender perspective that was sorely lacking apart from the lip service paid to it by speakers and resource staff.Gender issues resurfaced when we formed a small reflection group. In this group the lack of representation of women in Eastern European societies came up, while conferences such as this need participants that are sources of first-hand information regarding the situations of women in many countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Balkans. For instance, there is no day care system in Georgia. WorkshopsBoth WIDE representatives participated in their chosen workshops on the second day of the conference. Monika, an expert on global education, took part in the workshop on ´Empowerment & Change´, facilitated by Jochen Oppenheimer. In this workshop, the discussion on the current understanding and goals of development co-operation finally led to a very concrete proposal being presented to the plenary. The working group defined development education as a solution for bringing a change to the European mentality, and saw in this way a possible impact on current development approaches.Filomenita, a writer on migration and gender, joined the workshop on migration, which was facilitated by Lidia Barreiros, formerly working at the EU´s DG Development.

Are we on the right track as far as migration is concerned?

While most countries in the world today allow their populations to leave the country, there is a growing number of countries in the Western hemisphere that hinder people, especially from developing countries, settling or even just entering their borders. In the workshop, participants discussed two ways of thinking. A negative way of thinking defines migration as a development hindrance, since it contributes to the so-called political instability in Europe, resulting in xenophobia, because it stimulates the thinking of Europeans that developing- country nationals are out to exploit European society. Another strand in this thinking is seeing migration as opening up trafficking.The positive way of thinking looks at migrants in terms of human rights and the need to uphold such rights. First and foremost, migrants must have freedom of movement. The working group participants felt that more attention should be paid to the economic benefits of migrants for host European societies, but also for the migrants themselves and their country of origin, as in the instance of remittances that, when managed correctly, can be used for development. Remittances have increased immensely and now hugely exceed the amount of Official Development Aid spent by host countries.The workshop addressed the following challenges: 1) the role of NGOs vis à vis immigrant or diaspora groups organising themselves into NGOs so that they can deal with money, and new alliances with European NGOs that lead not to dependency but to empowerment; 2) the role of remittances in the diaspora. Hearing some speakers from the plenary session bemoan the aspect of remittances vis à vis development, why do NGOs perceive it as somehow morally ´wrong´? Duncan Green´s comment was that development NGOs need to do a lot more to properly address the migration gap in their work. It seems they are afraid to talk about migration because there is a highly negative opinion of migration among European populations, according to a recent study reported by the Financial Times. However, it is surprising that the same people interviewed in the study who showed dislike and aversion of migrants will themselves not hesitate to migrate given the chance.Some of the main conclusions from the workshop are that Northern NGOs must support, empower and enter into dialogue with migrant and diaspora organisations in their efforts to be development actors rather than victims, and both should engage in projects as equal partners. Migrant groups should be involved in the policy and political discourse around development. And organisations should advocate for the Convention on the rights of Migrant Workers and their Families that still needs ratification and has not yet been signed by one EU Member State.It is also important that the way migration interacts with gender inequality, specific roles for women, etc. is highlighted and addressed in policies around migration and in projects with migrant groups, etc. The feminisation of migration is growing, and almost 50% of the people who migrate globally are women, such as female workers ­ often with tertiary education ­ in the care and health industry in an ageing Europe. For some countries like the Philippines, women make up the majority of people migrating ­ sometimes up to 85% in some sectors and geographical areas, for example the Middle East and to some extent Europe.

Conclusions

There was a general consensus that in order to work for change, NGOs need to deal with power and advocate for political change to reallocate the cake, so to speak. At the same time, we need to think ´outside the box´ and reach out to other sectors outside the development sector as well as critically reflect upon our own policies and practices.One of the most important outcomes for KARAT, the regional WIDE platform for Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS), was to contribute to a significantly growing interest in experiences coming from exchanges between new EU Member States and developing countries and to find out that at this conference the voice brought to the discussion by CSOs from Eastern Europe seemed to represent a completely new approach for understanding development as such. At the plenary closing session, T. Rajamoorthy spoke of the South´s historic encounter with Eastern Europe and pinpointed that while the Eastern Europeans are sceptical about the role of the state they also have a different view of NGOs in their free market economics, for instance a more critical stance towards CSOs. This chasm can be bridged by further dialogues and networking that will narrow the differences.From Brazil, Chico Whitaker expressed his wish for NGOs from the North to link more deeply with Southern NGOs so as to deepen their understanding of the South. Since Eastern and Central Europe have taken the road from communism to capitalism, this dyed-in-the-wool socialist asks to what extent capitalism can be harnessed for development. In parallel, what are the limits of social democracy, for example in the Scandinavian countries? There is a need for active citizens who are conscious of their rights and who have the will to fight for keeping these rights and the rights of others, and this active citizenship should grow in number of citizens.For the representative of the Danish WIDE platform, KULU, it was important to refocus attention on the issue of the feminisation of migration, precisely because globalisation´s demands seem to be traditionally met by women in nursing, childcare, the service sector, the catering industry, hotel services, cruise ships, etc. ­ many of them skilled workers, often with tertiary education. And there are many other issues pertaining to gender, migration and development that need to be discussed. A rights-based approach to development should be the aim. In this context, migration is of a positive value to Europe, so we must open up fortress Europe. While gender equality should be a priority in NGO and CSO work, environmental questions should also be tabled, such as energy, and climate justice.And, as Hildegard Hagemann stated in her conclusions: “Global coalitions need diversity: look beyond your garden fence!”

About the authors

Monika Matus works at the CEE/CIS WIDE platform, KARAT, as Project Coordinator working on projects that focus on consumer electronics and awareness-raising campaigns. 

Filomenita Mongaya Høgsholm is active within the Danish WIDE platform, KULU, and recently edited the bookIn de olde worlde: view of filipino migrants in Europe. She is co-founder of Babaylan Denmark and Babaylan Europe, a Philippine Women’s Network.