WIMN mobilizes women impacted by migration
We organize across sectors and bring an intersectional, feminist approach to policy change as part of a broader movement for social change.
We convene working groups among our members and work with allies and partners to:
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- coordinate our work within global migration policy spaces
- host advocacy activities and caucuses
- agree on talking points
- issue joint statements
- conduct joint research
- share strategies
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We host virtual monthly member meetings to share updates, coordinate activities and address current issues. Additional updates, news and reports are shared to a members’ email list, and those who have joined WIMN’s broad e-list are also provided with periodic news, updates and alerts.
Promoting Women’s Grassroots Leadership
WIMN launched a pilot grassroots leadership program – LIGA, Leadership in Global Advocacy – in 2023 with four groups from around the world. This pilot program is creating and facilitating opportunities for local, directly affected groups to engage in global policy spaces.
Our Theory of Change
The lives of women in migration are impacted by a broad array of policies—from fiscal, to tax and trade, to climate, labor, development and migration policies. All of these are gendered—they impact women and girls in specific ways due to the roles that are too often “assigned” to women and girls in society, particularly in informal and formal care work.
We believe that mass-based movements must understand how power works and that multiple entry points are needed to create a “tipping point” for social transformation and policy change. Our focus is on defending the human rights of all, regardless of nationality or documentation, and addressing the intersectional oppressions that women in migration face daily.
Thematic Work
WIMN is playing a key civil society role to help shape the new global architecture on global migration.
Lifting Women's Voices
Helping to lead the way for social change
Building Analysis
Bringing the experience of women in migration to collective social analysis.
Working Across Sectors
Connecting across diverse sectors, local to global, for policy change.
Promoting Intersectional Feminist Organizing
Reaching across silos, breaking down barriers, honoring intersecting identities.
Engaging in Policy Advocacy
Building movements, advancing rights-based policies and practices towards a feminist migration policy.
Throughlines
The lives of women in migration are impacted by policies in countries of origin that force them to leave–from climate, economic, finance and investment policy to war and political repression. Domestic policies in countries of origin are often constrained by unequal post-colonial global power dynamics. Migrant women and their families are also impacted by policies in transit, at borders and in countries of destination that may deny rights, intensify violence and even cause loss of life. Gender-based violence is a reality for women at all stages of migration and in the world of work.
While there are multiple factors throughout the arc of migration that impact migrants, WIMN has focused on three “throughlines” that are at the core of all of our organizing and advocacy work.
Climate change and environmental degradation cause loss of livelihoods and displacement within nations and across borders. Climate change is the overriding issue of our time, and needs to be understood from an intersectional gender and migration perspective.
Labor Rights are a central issue of migration. According to the Migration Policy Institute, in 2022, “close to 70 percent of all migrants of working age (15 and older) are workers. Women represented 70 million (almost 42 percent) of all international migrant workers.” For WIMN, labor rights are a critical factor in the women in migration story.
Regularization of undocumented migrants must be at the center of all migration policy. Regularization would go a long way to end abuse, exploitation and loss of life for those migrating and for undocumented migrants in destination countries.
WIMN Policy Positions
As WIMN grows and adapts to the current needs, our policy positions evolve.