WIMN’s message to AWID closing plenary: Migration is a feminist issue

At the closing plenary of the AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) Forum on 5 December in Bangkok, WIMN Board member Nalishha Mehta, also representing the Solidarity Center, shared this message:

Migration is a feminist issue.  

In our current system, migration is encouraged to meet the labor needs of states while migrants are also stigmatized and criminalized in many places.  Nations are exporting people to get needed remittances. Increasing numbers of people are being displaced due to climate change as well as conflict and occupation.  These are outcomes of centuries of colonialism and unequal global power relations and more recently, 40 years of neo-liberal economic policies that have squeezed Global South economies dry.  Add to that years of economic austerity in the global north which has made life more precarious for working people, some of whom then blame migrants for their economic woes.  

Labor rights, climate justice, economic inequality, right to bodily integrity, gender justice, LGBTQ rights, disability rights, racial justice, rights of people discriminated against due to caste, religion, ethnicity and all types of work including sex work, ending gender-based violence, building feminist power—migration is an intersectional issue.  

I represent the Solidarity Center and I am a member of the board of the Women in Migration Network, an Intersectional Feminist network that views migration across all of these realities, identities and experiences.  Here in Bangkok we just held a Feminist Forum on Migration & Displacement, where over 120 people from 35 countries put forth our bottom up demands, including:  

  • Migrants are human beings and should be treated with dignity and respect
  • Governments must protect migrants’ rights regardless of status.  
  • Decriminalize migration. Migrating is not a crime. End Detention.  
  • Governments must regularize undocumented migrants, including pathways to long-term residency and citizenship for all migrants and their families.
  • Women and gender diverse migrants must have access to social protections, to justice and freedom of association, including the right to form and join labor unions. 
  • Domestic work is work!  Recognize this in national labor laws.  Ratify and implement ILO Convention 189 on decent work for domestic workers and ILO Convention 190 on ending violence and harassment in the world of work.
  • Let’s unite to end war and occupation.  Not only do war and occupation increase displacement and forced migration but they often strand women migrant workers.
  • Donors– we need you to fund migration and diaspora organizations and support feminist work to build cross-sectoral strategies and movements.

We demand dignity and equal rights for all migrant women, gender diverse migrants and other women in migration.  Raise your voices!  Let’s build feminist alliances and collective solidarity!  Let’s work together to build feminist power! 

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