Women Migrant Workers

Ethical, Political and Legal Problems

Zahra Meghani

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780415534079
• eBook ISBN: 9781317387640
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Labour Economics
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume makes the case for the fair treatment of female migrant workers from the global South who are employed in wealthy liberal democracies as care workers, domestic workers, home health workers, and farm workers. An international panel of contributors provide analyses of the ethical, political, and legal harms suffered by female migrant workers, based on empirical data and case studies, along with original and sophisticated analyses of the complex of systemic, structural factors responsible for the harms experienced by women migrant workers. The book also proposes realistic and original solutions to the problem of the unjust treatment of women migrant workers, such as social security systems that are transnational and tailored to meet the particular needs of different groups of international migrant workers.

1 Women on the Move

Zahra Meghani

DOI: 10.4324/9781315677262-1

Introduction

Over the last three decades, millions of women from poorer countries have crossed borders to find employment in richer nations.¹ Whether they are documented or undocumented, a significant number of them are systematically exploited, dominated, discriminated against, objectified or marginalized in both undemocratic regimes and liberal democracies. Their work and life prospects are constrained by the dominant sexist and racist norms and ethnic and cultural stereotypes. For the same work, migrant women workers employed on the lower tiers of the hierarchy of professions tend to be paid less and receive fewer benefits and protections than their male counterparts or the citizens of the receiving countries. Those injustices are compounded if the immigration policies of the labor-importing nations make it very difficult, if not impossible, for migrant workers in ‘low skill’² professions to acquire permanent residency or citizenship.³ Thus those nations use them on terms that benefit their economy and citizens even as they deny them substantive legal status or any political agency.

The women’s home countries feel their absence in the short term and the long term in a variety of ways. They experience a significant brain drain as their knowledge and skills are lost to wealthier nations. When the women leave home to work abroad, they have to shift their caregiving responsibilities onto the shoulders of another family member, usually their elderly mother or an adolescent daughter.⁴ It is often difficult for migrant workers who are on the lower rungs of the professional hierarchy to visit their families because of the cost of airfare and restrictive immigration and labor policies. Undocumented workers usually do not see their families for years on end because border crossings are a particularly dangerous prospect for them.

The contributors of this volume offer richly nuanced ethical, political and legal analyses and critiques of the treatment of migrant women workers in liberal democracies by drawing on an array of disciplinary perspectives, including those of anthropology, economics, gender studies, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science and sociology. The failure of liberal democracies to treat international migrant workers – especially those who are on the lower tiers of the hierarchy of professions- as the moral equals of their citizens deserves attention because it violates the key ethical principle that justifies the existence of the liberal democratic state. According to that maxim, everyone matters and matters equally (Nielsen, 1985). Commitment to that principle, among other things, means that the state must not deny rights, benefits or protections to members of any group living within its territories on the basis of an arbitrary biological or social characteristic.⁵ It should also not give preference to members of one group over another on that basis.

To understand why the exploitation, domination, objectification and marginalization of ‘low skilled’ international migrant workers is the norm in liberal democracies (such that discrimination against them is even enshrined in the law of those nations), it is useful to analyze the (political) philosophical arguments against open borders because the two issues are deeply entwined.⁶ A standard argument against open borders (and in support of the differential treatment that is meted out to noncitizens who live and work within liberal democracies) is that it is necessary to protect the right of the citizenry to engage in self-definition. The case is made, for instance, that if persons who are not a part of the culture that defines a particular nation may enter, live and work in its territories without the acquiescence of those who are a part of it (i.e., citizens), then the ability of citizens to engage in self-determination is undermined (Kymlicka, 2001, p.215; see Wellman (2008) for a more recent variant of this argument).

This argument is erroneous for at least three reasons. First, it is not justified in negatively stereotyping all international migrant workers as the fundamentally different ‘other’ who are a threat to the ability of citizens to be autonomous. Second, it is not warranted in stereotyping democracies as constituted of a homogeneous culture. Today, most liberal democracies are diverse, comprising of a multitude of cultures (Shaw, 2003). Third, in privileging the right to self-definition of a particular group over the principle of moral equality of all human beings, the argument fails to recognize that it is the status of all persons as moral equals that is the grounds for any group’s claim to a right to self-definition. In other words, this argument for protecting the right of groups (within liberal democracies to engage in self-determination) violates the moral principle that is the basis of that group right.⁷

A related argument against open border for liberal democracies (and in support of differential treatment of foreigners who live and work within the territories of those nations) is as follows: States are more likely to be governed democratically and implement social justice policies if its citizens have a sense of common identity that is based on a feature shared by all of them (such as, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.), but which is not their citizenship⁸) (see Miller, 2003, p.270). If noncitizens who do not share that identity become a part of that nation, then that country may no longer remain committed to democratic governance and social justice.

This argument makes the unjustified assumption that functional democracies presuppose a homogeneous citizenry. Most democracies today (as previously argued) are heterogeneous, and yet they are committed to democratic governance and social justice, including the redistribution of wealth. This argument also negatively stereotypes citizens of democracies as persons who tend to need a shared sense of identity (that is not based on their citizenship) in order to practice democratic governance and implement social justice policies. It does not take seriously the possibility that they may be motivated by a commitment to the principle of moral equality of all persons or a sense of common humanity.

A similar argument against open borders that attempts to justify some forms of time de-limited, differential treatment of undocumented and documented persons is as follows: Democracies may be ethically justified in excluding documented workers and irregular noncitizens who have lived within their borders for less than five years from social programs “… that are financed by some general tax and that have as their primary goal the transfer of resources from better off members of the community to worse off ones … [specifically], income support programs and other programs aimed at poorer members of society such as social housing” (Carens, 2014, p.549; 2013; 2015). During that five-year period, the state has the moral right to deport undocumented persons, but it has an obligation to afford them the same civil, economic and social rights as other workers (except access to the social programs previously mentioned) and a variety of legal rights (Carens, 2014, p.550; 2013). After the five-year period, undocumented persons, provided they have not been convicted of any criminal activity, acquire a right to apply for legal status.⁹

There are problems with this attempt to justify the differential treatment of noncitizens. The proponent of this position, Carens (2010), acknowledges that the five-year condition appears to be arbitrary. Why should undocumented persons not acquire a right to apply for legal status in three or even four years? He contends that it is not the number of years that is of relevance but the passage of time that is of significance because it denotes the unfolding of a human life, including formation of ties of noncitizens to other persons who live in that nation. But the assumption about the forging of connections (over a period of five years that serves as the moral warrant for undocumented persons acquiring a right to apply for legal status) is not justified. The threat of deportation may inhibit undocumented persons from forming relational bonds with others, especially citizens, such that they live fearful, isolated lives in the shadows (Bosniak, 2010). Another problem with this position is that it considers it ethically justifiable for the democratic state to deny food and housing assistance to undocumented persons and documented workers with low or no income (see Carens, 2014, p.551).¹⁰ This stance does not take into account the reality of the existence of documented and undocumented persons who are employed in ‘low skill’ professions. Most undocumented workers, for instance, tend to be employed in low paying jobs and they may be paid lower than market wages (UN, 2013) and given that a number of them remit a portion of their income to support their dependent family members in their nation of origin (IOM, 2013),¹¹ they may be in difficult financial straits.¹² Thus, denying indigent undocumented persons (and documented workers) access to food and housing assistance cannot be considered morally justified. This stance is also at odds with the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, especially Article 25, according to which “everyone has the right to … food, clothing, housing and medical care … (my italics)” (Assembly, 1948). States that are signatories of the declaration have an obligation to respect this right of all persons who live within their borders, not just their citizens. Moreover, by not acknowledging that many migrant workers, including irregular workers, support dependent family members in their nation of origin, this position relies on an abstract conception of them that perniciously overlooks a relevant aspect of their identity. It fails to recognize that they are human beings in relationships that place moral obligations on them.

This volume aims to provide a textured analysis of the problem of the mistreatment of noncitizens in wealthy liberal democracies that is particularly attentive to gender, class, race and ethnicity. It limits itself to analyzing and evaluating the treatment meted out in those nations to female migrant workers from the global South who are employed in the lower (highly gendered) tiers of the professional hierarchy.¹³ This population merits special attention because, even though since 1960 women migrants have made up approximately half of the total population of migrants (UNDP 2009, p.25), there is a paucity of aggregated, detailed data on the international migration of women. For instance, the World Migration Report 2013 of the IOM has only a one-page section on women’s migration titled, “Migration and Gender.” Although, in contrast, women and international migration is the subject of the 2006 State of World Population report of the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), the United Nations entity does not report on the issue on a regular basis. This collection focuses on women migrant workers who are employed in the informal and unregulated sectors of the economy. They are a particularly vulnerable and marginalized population because they are afforded few, if any, rights, benefits or protections that are extended by the receiving nations to other groups of workers.

This introductory chapter offers a brief discussion of the causes of the South to North labor flow, with particular attention to the role of neoliberal reforms in establishing and maintaining this phenomenon and the economic benefits that host nations receive from the labor of foreign migrant workers. Then, the migration experience of women laborers from the global South are delineated. After that, the contribution of this volume to the literature on the feminization of the global flow of labor is outlined. The chapter concludes with a roadmap to the volume; the five major themes of the collection and the concern of each chapter are identified, and the geographic connections and overlaps between the chapters are sketched.

The South to North Labor Flow

International migration has substantially increased as a result of globalization (IOM 2013, p.31). According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in 2010, the number of people from the global South living outside their birth nation was approximately 174 million, and they constituted an estimated 75 percent of the global population of migrants (IOM 2013, p.58). Whereas the IOM’s World Migration Report 2013 does not distinguish between documented and undocumented international migrants, the UNDP’s Human Development Report 2009 does attempt to calculate the number of migrants who are undocumented. It estimates that there are approximately 50 million undocumented migrants (UNDP, 2009, p.2). In its 2006 State of the World report (whose theme was international migration an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword: Protecting the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Migrant Women Workers
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Women on the Move
• Part I Circumstances of Injustice
• Part II Uncaring Development Paradigms
• Part III Unjust Social Security Systems
• Part IV Care for Care Workers
• Part V The Way Forward
• Contributors
• Index