As economic pressures and family break-ups impose increasing socio-economic pressures on women and children in parts of Latin America, the option of migration is being seen in parts of the region as the most feasible option. This, according to information disseminated by the International Labour Organization earlier this month, indicates that women in search of a better life, not least jobs and improved living conditions, is now making up 40% of migrants. “This evidences the feminization of migration,” ILO Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ana Virginia Moreira was quoted as saying earlier this month in the course of a presentation setting out the ILO’s new regional strategy until 2030.
Highlighting the challenges associated with women undertaking what, in many instances, are largely unplanned migratory undertakings, Moreia is quoted as saying that migrant women are “increasingly traveling alone and not as part of a family group,” with all of the hazards that go with such undertakings. ILO Regional Migration Specialist, Francesco Carella, adds that migrating women “have a double vulnerability as women and as migrants,” given their exposure as likely “victims of violence and harassment.” Having eventually arrived at their destinations, the defenseless women can also become victims of “hyper-sexualization,” he added.
Beyond these travails associated with unplanned migration, there is the additional burden of an “overload of responsibility” associated with underpaid domestic and care work in instances where they migrate. Carella asserts that the migration experience “reinforces the traditional sexual division of labour.” The ILO alludes to Venezuelan migrant women, who, reportedly, make up more than 50% of the over 6.5 million people who left the country, often with higher qualifications than men but with fewer job opportunities in the destination countries. “They work in jobs for which they are overqualified,” Carella says, in the course of a strategy presentation on the issue.
Reportedly, it was also highlighted during the presentation that a migrant person “is three times more at risk of being a victim of forced labour than a non-migrant person.” The ILO estimates that illegal profits from forced labour of migrants worldwide amount to $37 billion, with $27.2 billion coming from forced commercial sexual exploitation, to which women and girls are more exposed.
