Migrant Women: Wives and Workers

By Rina Jimenez-David
Philippine Daily Inquirer

AMONG the most immediate impacts of the global financial crisis arising from the "meltdown" of venerable giant Wall Street firms is the foreseen loss of jobs among migrant workers and significant reductions in the amounts of remittances sent home by overseas workers and migrants.

In a discussion with the media, Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos said that while it may take some time before Filipino workers in construction, health services and in white-collar trades abroad are hit by the crisis, migrant workers who are unskilled and of less value to their employers would likely take the first, earliest hits.

This is an observation shared by Philippine Ambassador to Germany Delia Domingo-Albert, who delivered the keynote address in last month's international conference on "Gender, Migration and Development." Recently, the ambassador, a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, said the DFA has served notice that "several traditional destinations for women service workers were closing their recruitment doors. It was also reported that even low-paid jobs were getting lower (paid)." Given this trend, said the ambassador, it might do well for the Philippine government to rethink its policy of sending out (mostly) women for service work abroad, the most prominent of which is domestic work. "Soon, it may not even be an economic win to have women workers continue with overseas jobs, if one has to take into account the serious social costs of an absent wife and mother," she noted.

This may be the best time to reexamine government polices and practices with regard to migration, Albert said. Looking back at "more than 30 years of women migration experience," the ambassador posts several questions: "Do we want a second generation of Filipino domestic workers overseas? What are our choices? How can we as concerned women bring about those choices?"

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ALSO part of the migration debate, albeit an often-overlooked part, are the so-called "marriage migrants"—men, but more often women, who migrate to other countries not for employment, but as spouses of nationals.

"Despite its significant social and cultural impact, marriage migration has not been included in mainstream migration agenda, merely explained as sex trafficking, mail order bride or part of female migrant labor issues," a background paper on the forum "Happily Ever After? Different Tales of Marriage Migrants" states.

"For most sending countries, marriage migrants' economic and social contributions either in the form of remittances or skilled work are ignored. Marriage migrants also are seen to change their original nationality when they migrate to another country and are therefore no longer subjects or citizens of their countries of origin. In receiving countries, marriage migrants are regarded (as) potential nationals to be assimilated rather than as culturally autonomous migrants."

Held last Friday, the forum (organized by the Action Research on Marriage Migration [ARMMNet] at the People's Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights) sought to give voice to marriage migrants and their issues centering on citizenship, cultural and social assimilation, support services from their countries of origin, as well as means of coping with their situations, including efforts to organize themselves.

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ALTHOUGH some marriages between women from a developing country and men from a more developed one are still arranged through marriage brokers, many others result from genuine relationships, though perhaps differing motivations.

While an "emotional investment" may have been made by one or both parties, a migrant marriage may also have been undertaken as an investment in one's future and a means to support the family back home, as well as a "painless" way of contracting companionship and establishing a family.

And yet, even while embarked upon with some genuine feeling, a migrant marriage still presents difficulties for the migrant spouse, not least of which is her lower social stature, the opposition and disdain of her in-laws, her unfamiliarity with the culture and practices of her husband's people, and her uncertain status in her adopted country.

"The situations of these women entail a different kind of protection," notes the ARMMNet. Specifically, protection measures "(should) take into account their roles in the husband's family and clan; privacy of their households; their physical and social isolation; and their very vulnerable positions as women and foreigners."

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"THE HOME and the family as sites of democratic practice, the promotion and development of democratic culture have to be significantly considered for the substantive realization (not just legal ones) of women's rights and other human rights," Maureen Pagaduan, research fellow of Asian Regional Exchange on New Alternatives (Arena) and a faculty member of the University of the Philippines, asserts.

Adds Tesa de Vela, associate director of Isis International, which is part of ARMMNet: "Development players are not here to judge why women go into marriage migration. The job of governments is to ensure that the rights and welfare of women are protected. The job of NGOs is to look into ways of supporting women wherever they may be. One way of achieving this is to accept the challenge to broaden or create multiple frames of analysis that is reflective of what women want and the life they choose."

They may not all be victims, although all are vulnerable and at risk, but migrant spouses also deserve other forms of support within an arrangement fraught with uncertainty, ambiguity, loneliness and estrangement, from both their governments and NGOs.

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