Regional Women Migrants Encounter: Women Migrants Confronting Crisis and Advancing Change
On April 1, online via zoom, the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM) together with Migrante International, Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB), and Keluarga Besar Buruh Migran Indonesia (KABAR BUMI) held the Regional Women Migrants Encounter (RWME).
Women migrants and advocates from 10 countries and regions come together and share their issues and demands, forming unity and solidarity in confronting crises and advance changes for their rights, welfare, and dignity. The countries and regions are the Middle East, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Each of them already conducts the National Women Migrants Encounter (NWME) to discuss their situation, issues, and demands. The results of the NWMEs were shared and discussed during the RWME.
The RWME was opened by Eni Lestari, the chairperson of the International Migrants Alliance, a first-ever global grassroots alliance of migrants. Eni expressed her appreciation for the conduct of RWME, especially after two years of the pandemic. She said that the RWME is really timely as probably now we are in transition from pandemic to post-pandemic, where some countries are already opening up their borders and trying to normalize their economy.
Eni conveys how corporations and governments are using the Covid-19 pandemic to multiply the vulnerability of women migrants. During the pandemic, migrants were deported without any compensation, deny their rights to work, furthermore criminalize undocumented migrants, no job security, no wage raise, and were always at threat of stigmatization and discrimination. These situations can easily be found in the Asia Pacific region.
However, Eni stated that migrant workers and women migrants are surviving and thriving even in these two years of the pandemic through the movement that we are creating on the ground. Despite the lockdown, immobility, and suppression, migrant workers continue to organize, and help each other, working hand in hand with local partners in overseas and home countries, to overcome these challenges, fight back against the anti-migrant policies and expose the human rights violations.
Eni hopes that the RWME will be a venue where women migrants will share their issues and demands. To get common lessons and to strategize and make a priority on how to fight together through advocacy and campaign plan.
After opening remarks from Eni Lestari, 10 countries and regions that have been conducting the National Women Migrants Encounter shared the results of their NWME.
The 10 NWMEs, concluded that COVID-19 Pandemic has worsened the situation of migrants, especially the women migrants. The women migrants faced an intensified and multiplied vulnerability of situations that already existed even before the pandemic.
The covid-19 pandemic has caused many women migrants to lose their jobs and income. Their contract was terminated, they got fired, or their area of work was closed. At the same time, no other job available, no protection available, and forced them to come back home or be stranded. When they arrived home, the same situation happened, because there was no decent work and living wage in the country of origin. Still, they aren't recognized as benefactors of social protection. While no job means no income. Regarding this, the situation is much worse than what can be told, for example, many women migrants come home in sickness with empty wallets and lost their savings.
Amidst the hardship shared by women migrants with other society, women migrants felt it double because policies on Covid-19 measurement was discriminatory to migrants, was made in the stigma that migrants are virus spreader, especially for women who work as domestic workers. Aside from that, the call to stay at home without paying attention to the migrant’s situation has caused women, migrant domestic workers, to work with more workload, longer working hours, stay in poor accommodation, exhausted because they only got limited time to rest, denied their rest day and movement restriction.
Because of the lack or absence of support or assistance from the government of both origin and placement country, women migrants have to bear their situation by themselves. Migrants were not provided with relevant information, fell sick, and had mental health issues, they had to buy their own personal protection equipment, were not provided with support to implement the health protocol, were not provided with a quarantine place, no medical assistance, no financial aid, no assistance with visa problems. The poor situation of living in the original country, however, forced people harder to keep working abroad. During the covid situation, there are more requirements and costs before deployment, creating situations that make women vulnerable to illegal recruitment and human trafficking. While the government has passed its responsibility to the agency, the agency itself also neglects migrants.
The trend of abuse also rose during this pandemic. Cases of domestic violence faced by marriage migrants, physical, verbal, and sexual abuse faced by domestic workers, delayed wage payment, and also child-rearing difficulties for home-based and work-from-home set up.
Migrants and their supporters continue and advance their work. Responding to the Covid-19 situation, migrants and their supporters keep doing the advocacy and campaign. They are pushing their effort to be able directly to support migrants, by raising donations, to distributing relief, and delivery of services. Migrants’ organization itself collaborates with other organizations and supporters, both their compatriots and local people to provide support for distressed migrants. Many migrants also volunteer for this work.
Advocacy and campaigns on related issues faced by migrants, as well as organizing are still running and planning. There are various forms of methods conducted, as part of adaptation to the covid-19 situation. Migrants’ organizations and their supporters organize education, online and offline campaigns, advocacy, building and strengthening networks and alliances, and also submit letters to the government.
From the Open Forum
In advancing works during the covid-19, women migrants recommend intensifying education and raising awareness campaigns. As unity and solidarity are the power of change, organizing work to reach out to migrants, to expand and strengthen the organizations, also needs to be intensified, together with networking and partnership to strengthen solidarity. Advocacy and campaigns by engaging local governments in the country of origin also need to be intensified. As National Women Migrants Encounter is regarded as a good platform to share, discuss and unite, it is necessary to do regular national consultation.
During the open forum, the participants agreed to develop a Regional Women Migrant Agenda that will unite the works at the regional level and also as space to give solidarity to each other. Some priority issues have also been discussed and suggested to be part of the Regional Women Migrant Agenda.