The case of migrant women

by Ms. Sylvia Lopez-Ekra Gender Officer, International Organization for Migration (IOM)

Violence against women is beyond a doubt one of the most pervasive, global and systemic forms of human rights violations that exist today. Although there is still a lot to be learned about the scope and extent of this phenomenon, evidence suggests that the majority of women in the world will, at one point in their life, experience physical or sexual violence.

One category of women is unfortunately even more susceptible to violence of all kinds: migrant women, who today represent about 105 million people worldwide. Data from several European countries indicates that migrant women are over-represented among the women who access services for victims of gender-based violence. That does not necessarily mean that all migrant women are vulnerable victims or that migrant communities/men are more violent. Indeed, violence against women is regrettably prevalent in every society, in every part of the world. There is no single group - irrespective of culture, class, religion or geographical location - that is immune to such violence. However, there is no denying the fact that migrant women are vulnerable to violence in a very specific way.

Migrant women are doubly vulnerable to violence insofar as they are exposed to violence that refl ects the status of women and gender inequalities both in the country of origin and the country of destination, while at the same time being exposed to particular forms of violence facing foreign nationals regardless of their gender. Moreover, those two main factors intersect with other risk factors that infl uence what forms of violence women suffer and how they experience it. These include economic status, legal status, race, educational status, ethnicity, class, age, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, religion and culture. Efforts to prevent and end violence against migrant women will achieve sustainable success only if these dynamics are fully understood and acknowledged.

This issue of the knowledge gap regarding violence against migrant women was already clearly identifi ed in the UN Secretary-General’s 2006 report on Violence against Women. This is a key factor of success, since naming all the forms and manifestations of violence against migrant women, in a non-stereotypical manner, already represents an important step towards recognizing and addressing them.

When talking about violence against migrant women, the issue of traffi cking of women and girls for labour and sexual exploitation immediately comes to mind. This is certainly one of the most horrendous and unacceptable forms of violence that the world has to deal with today, and the international community should be unrelenting in its efforts to put an end to this scourge. It is also important to fully comprehend that there are myriad forms of violence against migrant women and that other forms deserve equal attention. What is known is that migrant women can face physical, sexual and psychological/ emotional violence in their family and communities; they can face violence in the host community as well as violence perpetrated or condoned by the State in the host country.

In the family, the most commonly identified forms of violence are intimate partner violence and, in some communities, traditional harmful practices, including female genital mutilation, forced marriages and crimes of honour. Within the family sphere, the role played by migration as a trigger or aggravating factor in intra-family violence in migrant communities deserves greater attention from policymakers and practitioners. Migration impacts on traditional gender roles, often forcing spouses to renegotiate the distribution of power within the household, which can be a major source of domestic violence in migrant couples, especially when men have diffi culty living up to a culturally defi ned role of the breadwinner or when women are engaged in work outside the home.

Greater participation of migrant women in the labour market is a trend that can have a positive impact in terms of women’s empowerment, but it is also linked to many instances of economic exploitation. In a number of European countries, the domestic service sector is the most important employment category for migrant women. This is typically a poorly regulated, low-wage sector where workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation and ill-treatment.

The picture would not be complete without mentioning a form of violence that is particularly worrisome and still receives far too little attention: violence perpetrated by States through their agents, in particular law enforcement offi cials, social security offi cials, prison guards, offi cials in places of detention and immigration offi cials. This type of violence is unfortunately not anecdotal. States may also passively condone violence against women through inadequate laws or ineffective implementation of laws, effectively allowing perpetrators of violence against migrant women to go unpunished for their acts.

The question of impunity is extremely important since violence against women will go unabated as long as perpetrators are not appropriately punished and women survivors do not receive proper redress. In the case of migrant women, this is a challenge in itself since migrant women face various hurdles in accessing support and seeking redress. What makes them more vulnerable to violence is also very often the very thing that prevents them from seeking help. Migrant women rarely report their situation out of fear, due to a lack of trust, the belief that the authorities cannot, or will not help, ignorance of the law, language barriers, feelings of shame, fear of rejection by their families, etc. … Having one’s status tied to a main migrant, being in an irregular situation, facing unprepared service providers as well as isolation and lack of supportive social networks do not help either. For all these reasons, it is feared that migrant women may stay in abusive relationships longer than native-born women and suffer graver physical and emotional consequences.

For the International Organization for Migration, putting an end to violence against migrant women is a priority. It deserves and gets the Organization’s full attention and efforts, fi rst as a migration management issue but also as a human rights issue. That is why, in November 2009, when a group of parliamentarians gathered in Paris at the invitation of the Inter-Parliamentary Union came to the conclusion that addressing violence against migrant women called for a human rights approach and insisted that human rights considerations should prevail in all instances, I silently breathed a sigh of relief.

Female genital mutilation: Men take action

How can the process of putting an end to female genital mutilation (FGM) be accelerated? One way is by encouraging men to take action alongside women, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC) and the Human Rights Offi ce (ODH), Geneva Department for Security, Police and the Environment (DSPE).

For the third time, the four partners have joined efforts to heighten awareness of this pressing issue. This year, they held two events in Geneva: a panel discussion entitled Men take action, at the University of Geneva - with an audience of more than 250 people - and a temporary exhibition of objects and material related to FGM at the Museum of Ethnography (MEG).

The purpose was to explore in greater depth the often positive role that men can play in putting an end to this practice, which affects between 100 million and 140 million girls and women throughout the world, and which each year threatens three million girls in Africa, certain countries in Asia, the Middle East and Europe - within some migrant communities. The panellists included Dr. Oumar Mariko, a physician and a member of parliament from Mali, who underlined the need for genuine political will in order to eradicate this practice. The IPU video, entitled FGM: Men take action, was shown to the public. It was also broadcast at the Museum of Ethnography and to the 75 Active European Broadcast Union’s Members from 56 countries in and around Europe and 43 Associate Members around the world.

FGM : The case of Mali

According to Dr. Mariko, Mali still has not passed any laws banning FGM, but the debate on excision has been a longstanding one. “Public opinion tends to show a strong tendency against the practice, but the political leaders, who represent all tendencies - those for and against the practice - still have not managed to have an anti-FGM law passed in the National Assembly. But the problem has been raised and everyone is talking about it”.

In the words of this physician, member of parliament and former presidential candidate of Mali, who had included the abolition of FGM in his election campaign, “there is an intentional mixing of religion and culture. From the religious perspective, it is interesting to note that in regions such as Timbucktoo, a highly religious town, excision is not practised. Nowadays, the tradition is no longer respected by the very persons who wish to have it applied”.

Dr. Mariko recalls that “excision in Mali was not carried out on babies or young girls but rather on teenage girls between 13 and 16 years old, who, once excised, were married off. The practice wasn’t carried out in the village itself, but outside it. There was a special knife to perform the excision, which was blessed by the spirits, and therefore a whole ritual surrounding it. In the village, the girl’s parents didn’t know if their daughter would come out safe and sound from that ceremony.

Several songs evoke the pain, the anxiety and the fear of the parents who had remained behind in the village, waiting to see in what condition their daughter would return”. Excision did not only entail the cutting of an organ; it was also a test of endurance and a rite of passage. “Nowadays, this is no longer the case; we are no longer in the past but are caught in the vestiges of a tradition”, says Dr. Mariko, adding that “there is a reaction to the cultural domination of very powerful countries. People feel that it is because we want to mimick rich countries that we want to put an end to excision. This is a way of denying one’s sociocultural experience although, in practice, it has already been denied because as a cultural experience, it is outdated”. The MP from Mali concludes by saying: “One can understand that passing a law will cause a commotion but there will not be any big fi ght to restore the practice. If you ask women what are their priorities, excision does not fi gure among the top five”.

L.B.

IPU President meets with Ethiopian traditional leaders on FGM

During the 120th IPU Assembly in Addis Ababa, IPU President Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, who is also Speaker of the National Assembly of Namibia, accompanied by the Vice-President of the IPU Executive Committee, Greek legislator Ms. Elsa Papademetriou, visited a centre of the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC). They exchanged views with Ethiopian religious and traditional leaders on how to put and end to female genital mutilation. President Gurirab and Ms. Papademetriou also met with two former women practitioners who had decided to abandon their knives and benefit from an IAC reconversion programme, which allows them to now run a shop in the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital. FGM is an ancient practice which dates back to pre-Islam and pre-Christianity. Contrary to popular belief, it is not encouraged by any religion. According to Dr. Gemal El Serour of Al- Azhar University in Egypt, “When we come to the fi rst of primary source of Sharia, the Koran, we fi nd that there is no mention whatsoever of female genital mutilation explicitly or indirectly”. These traditional practices can be eradicated only if people get information and knowledge, explained Mr. Negese Negewo, an Ethiopian Traditional Chief. Moreover, in Ethiopia, a committee of intellectuals has found that circumcision goes against the doctrine of the Church, added Dr. Agedew Redie, a representative of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. If religious sources do not mention this practice, why do women continue to perform it? Just to please men? For Ms. Abebech Alemneh Belay, Programme Offi cer at the IAC, “It is because of the social pressure. Women do it to please the men, but most of the time the men say indirectly that they are not so pleased. They can tell the difference between circumcised and uncircumcised women”.

Dr. Morissanda Kouyate, Director of Operations at the IAC, says that today men accept to marry girls who are not excised. “If you present the disadvantages and the consequences of this harmful practice, they will say: Ah! If it is like that, I prefer to protect my wife, I prefer to protect my daughter, and they accept now to marry girls who are not subjected to FGM”. He added that in 17 countries in Africa there are specifi c laws against FGM. At the African Union level, the Heads of State adopted the Maputo Protocol, which fully condemns female genital mutilation. “So from 100%, the trend is now going down everywhere”.

IPU President, Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, believes that FGM is a “community and culturally entrenched practice; they use religion, they use customs, they brainwash women so that they can be shaped and follow; that is what their grandmothers did, that is what their mothers did, and that is what their sisters do, so of course they will do it. At the end of the day, it is legislation [that matters]. The constitutions are there but we must adopt laws that specifi - cally tackle that. There must be people not only of vision but of courage to enforce them, to impose them”.

L.B.