Human Rights Monitor
Endangered female migration
K N M Hossainul Haque
If twenty-first century is the age of migration, feminisation of migration is the current trend of this age. It is evident from the fact that 48 percent or around 185 million of the international migrants are women. Some women-centric niches like ready made garments, nursing, housework, childcare, elderly care etc. have emerged in global labour market. Women from least developed countries like Bangladesh have comparative advantage in the last three of the above-mentioned sectors. These types of jobs require less of formal training and more of psychological, social and cultural orientations. Most women of Bangladesh and other developing countries lack skills for formal sector employment. But they are at home in housework, childcare and elderly care due to their traditional gender roles. That is why in Asia, where women have traditionally enjoyed restricted mobility, they now constitute half of the migrant worker population. Furthermore, in some Asian countries, women dominate labour migration. In as late as 2000, women were 69 percent, 70 percent and 67 percent of labour migration respectively from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Although Bangladesh is also a major labour sending country like them, our state of female migration is the stark opposite, thanks to our gender biased migration policy.
Female labour migration: Evolving policy
According to government estimates, women are less than 1 percent of the total labour migration from Bangladesh. This has largely increased over the last half decade. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Jordan are currently the major destinations of Bangladeshi women migrant workers.
Initially, when the labour migration began, no specific policy attention was given to female labour migration. Rather, our public policy on migration soon became a manifestation of gender discrimination at state level. In 1981, a presidential order was issued that approved labour migration of professional and skilled women but banned that of semi-skilled and unskilled women. In 1988, the ban was eased and it was provided that a woman can migrate for semi-skilled and unskilled jobs if she is accompanied by a male guardian. But in 1997, again a rigorous ban was slapped on female migration. This was a near complete ban since many of the skilled jobs like nurse, typist, secretarial assistant and garment or factory worker were also included in the ban.
Policy shift and rise in female labour migration
By the year 2003, government considerably revised its policy on female labour migration. Previously banned skilled jobs were off the hook by now. Moreover, unlike any other time before, labour migration of semi-skilled women were allowed. Although subject to numerous conditions, allowing female migration for jobs like housework is indeed a great policy shift.
The new policy has set conditions for all the stakeholders of female labour migration: women, employers and recruiters. A woman has to be 35 years of age or more, physically fit and in good health to take up housework abroad. Besides, she will have to submit a 'No Objection Certificate' from her legal guardian. Moreover, she will have to undergo minimum 30 days of training in handling and operation of all kinds of household equipment and electronic apparatus.
Before recruiting women, a labour recruiting agency will have to set up a training centre for housework training approved by the expatriates' welfare and overseas employment ministry. This should have a minimum floorspace of 10,000 square feet, dormitory/hostel facilities and be located in a city centre. The trainer-trainee ratio will have to be 1:30. Married women accompanied by husbands will be preferred for recruitment as house workers. The recruiting agencies must deposit an amount of US$550 against each worker as security money. The minimum salary of women workers will be pre-fixed, depending upon the country of employment. Free health care, social security and insurance will have to be provided in addition. The employer will provide free air ticket after completion of the tenure.
Recruiting agencies cannot claim any service charge from female workers except government prescribed fees, taxes and training expenses, which shall not exceed 10,000 taka per person. They have to ensure that the workers are paid their salary on monthly basis. This cannot be delayed by more than two months under any circumstance. The contract must not be of less than two years. Any violation of the conditions determined will be treated as a punishable offence and licence of the recruiting agency concerned will be revoked as per Emigration Ordinance of 1982.
Policy of giving preference to married women in recruitment has apparently pushed up women's labour migration. Because now a wife's migration necessarily means husband's migration as well. That is why female labour migration shot up +93 percent from 1,217 in 2002 to 2,353 in 2003. In 2004, Bangladesh witnessed the greatest annual growth of female labour migration: 9,350 or about 400 percent. A total of 11,703 women migrated in 2004. This number further grew to 14,063 in 2005.
Post policy-shift scenario: continuous challenges
What migration statistics of the preceding years tell us, majority of our labour migration take place in semi-skilled and unskilled jobs. Like their male counterparts, our females also have advantage in such jobs. As discussed in the beginning, emergence of some women-specific niches in global labour market have further broadened this advantage. The primary beneficiaries of unskilled and semi-skilled labour migration are the country's poor. Because due to their lower educational and skill level, it is only through such jobs that they can participate in labour migration and reap its benefits for getting out of poverty. Like in other parts of the world, poverty has a gender face in Bangladesh. While about a fifth of the population lives below poverty line, incidence of poverty is highest among the women. In every respect, ranging from health and education to nutrition and income, women are the poorest of the poor. Semi-skilled and unskilled migration is a prospective livelihood option for the poor women as it is with the poor men. In this circumstance, policy restriction on female labour migration will not be able to curb it. Rather it will exacerbate unsafe female migration that might result in harmful consequences (i.e. trafficking) for the migrating women.
Although greatest increase in female migration has been witnessed in recent years, it is still nothing compared to male migration. Female migration was little over 5.5 percent of total migration flow in 2005. It is a great leap indeed from 2002 when the ratio was 0.5 percent. But it is meager if we take into account the huge demand for semi-skilled and unskilled female labour for jobs like housework, childcare and elderly care. Bangladesh is well placed to supply that labour as we have an ever growing surplus labour market where many poor women are desperately looking for better livelihood options who are traditionally capable in the aforementioned jobs. To suit their needs, migration policy will have to ensure their greater but safe international mobility. In this circumstance, government's policy shift about female migration can be praised as the initial step towards a gender-sensitive migration policy. But some further changes are yet to be made to free the migration policy of gender bias.
Seven agencies (now approved by government) are not sufficient for facilitating the rising tide of women migration for housework and other such low-skilled and unskilled jobs. Government lacks appropriate monitoring mechanism to ensure whether women are over-charged by the recruiting agencies and employers are paying salaries timely. The minimum age of 35 years is also problematic. Challenges of being a house-worker abroad include multidimensional nature of the job, new socio-cultural setting and different weather. Women younger than 35 years are much more capable to adapt to these changes than the older ones.
The author is Programme and Communications Manager, Management and Resources Development Initiative (MRDI). The author acknowledges cooperation of Tasneem Jahan, Lecturer, HLSS, Bangladesh Open University in preparing this writeup.
