RESEARCH AND ORIENTATION WORKSHOP ON FORCED MIGRATION
The Orientation Course on Forced Migration 2013
Modules Notes - Module B
Gender Dimensions of Migration: Vulnerabilities, and Issues of Social Justice
(Concept Note, and Suggested Readings)
Concept Note
This module is meant to portray that migration and asylum is a gendered experience. At least in the context of South Asia it results from and is related to the marginalization of women by the South Asian states. These states at best patronize women and at worse infantilize, disenfranchise and de-politicize them. It is in the person of a migrant that a women’s marginality reaches its height. One way of marginalizing women from the body politic is done by targeting them and displacing them in times of state-versus-community conflict. As a migrant, a woman loses her individuality, subjectivity, citizenship and her ability to make political choices. As political non-subjects, women emerge as the symbol of difference between us/citizens and its other/refugees/non-citizens/migrants.
Seen from another perspective, resource crunch the world over is creating large groups of pauperized people who are unable to access national resources. These groups include in the context of South Asia, ethnic, religious and caste minorities. When certain groups get poorer, the impact of pauperization is the greatest on the women of such a group. Therefore, everywhere women are swelling the ranks of migrant labour. They are the least paid as often they are the least organized. Their vulnerabilities are making them attractive recruits to labour cartels and traffickers. Also their visibility in the labour markets is making them competitors in the scramble for the paltry resources existing for unskilled labour. In this competition they are becoming targets of violence. In fact, violence itself is getting more sexualized and feminized. Sexual and structural violence is rampant as the infrastructure is yet to be created which could accommodate or facilitate the lives of labouring women. Faced with this dual violence, poor women are getting more and more exploited— so much so that traditional forms of income generation through bar dancing, sex work, employment in overseas sex industries and mail-order brides are becoming preferred options for many. But even these options come with no insurance and can put women at greater risks.
There is another aspect to women’s migration and this has to do with women’s employment in the informal sector. Often poverty, war, hunger, persecution is driving women away from South Asia into the swelling domestic labour market of rich countries. With increasing number of women entering white-collar or professional job markets, they are dependent on poor women for domestic labour. These women from the global South are becoming nurses, wet nurses and maids the world over. Even this industry is low paying and thoroughly exploitative. Many of these women fall prey to traffickers. Sexual harassment seems to dog their steps. Away from family or informal networks of support, these women become extremely vulnerable. The state seldom steps in to save these women because they cannot even exercise their right of complaint knowing one such complaint will close all doors of opportunities. Therefore with the increase in the number of women migrants, their vulnerabilities also multiply, thereby making them the most exploited section among the migrants.
The theme paper in this module will address the issue of a feminist research methodology in forced migration studies.
Suggested Readings
Books: (CRG publications in bold)
1. Paula Banerjee and Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury, Women in Indian Borderlands, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2011.
2. Paula Banerjee, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury and Samir Das, Internal Displacement in South Asia, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2005.
3. B.S. Chimni, International Refugee Law – A Reader, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2003.
4. Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition, New Delhi, 1998.
5. Urvashi Bhutalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India , Delhi : 1998.
6. Ritu Menon (ed.), No Women’s Land: Women from Pakistan, India and Bamgladesh write on the Partition of India, Women Unlimited, New Delhi , 2004.
7. Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Refugees and the State, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2003.
8. Ranabir Samaddar, The Marginal Nation, Sage Publications, New Delhi , 1999.
9. Jasodhara Bagchi and Subhoranjan Dasgupta, eds., The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, Vol.1, Stree, Kolkata, 2003.
10. ——————-, The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, Vol.11, Stree, Kolkata, 2009.
Web-based References
A. Selected Articles from REFUGEE WATCH, a South Asian Journal Published by CRG
1. Gladston Xavier and Florina Benoit, “Security among the Refugees and Quality of Life – Case of the Sri Lanka Tamil Refugees Living in Camps in Tamil Nadu”, Refugee Watch, No.37, June 2011, pp.1-15.
2. Anita Ghimire, “Rethinking Women in Forced Migration”, Refugee Watch, No.37, June 2011, pp.30-43.
3. Paula Banerjee, “Agonies and Ironies of War,” Refugee Watch, No. 2, April, 1998.
4. Paula Banerjee, “Women and Forced Migration”, Refugee Watch, No. 10, 2000
5. Mekno Kaapanda and Sherene Fenn, “Dislocated Subjects: The Story of Refugee Women”, Refugee Watch, 10 & 11, 2000.
6. Kate de Rivero, “War and Its Impact on Women in Sri Lanka”, Refugee Watch, 10 & 11, 2000.
7. Arpita Basu Roy, “Afghan Women In Iran”, Refugee Watch, 10 & 11, 2000.
8. Jagat Achariya,, “Refugee Women of Bhutan”, Refugee Watch, 10 & 11, 2000.
9. “Rohingya Women – Stateless and Oppressed in Burma”, Refugee Watch, 10 & 11, 2000.
10. Manju Chattopadhyay, “Widows of Brindaban: Memories of Partition”, Refugee Watch, 10 & 11, 2000.
11. Syed Sikander Mehdi, “Chronicles of Suffering – Refugee Women of South Asia”, Refugee Watch, 10 & 11, 2000.
12. Paula banerjee, “Dislocating the Women and Making the Nation”, Refugee Watch 14, 2001.
13. Soma Ghosal, “An Endless Journey: The Plight of Afghan Refugee Women”, Refugee Watch, 5& 6, 1999.
14. Letters from a Palestinian Refugee Camp, Refugee Women”, Refugee Watch 19, 2003.
15. Kaushikee, “Common and Specific Features of Displaced Women”, Refugee Watch 21, 2004.
16. Oishik Sircar, “Women’s Rights, Asylum Jurisprudence and the Crises of International Human Rights Interventions”, Refugee Watch 28, 2006.
17. Asha Hans, “Gender, Camps and International Norms”, Refugee Watch 32, 2008.
18. Elizabeth Snyder, “Build Back Better – Hurricane Katrina in Socio-Gender Context”, Refugee Watch, 31, 2008.
19. Report of Rapid Assessment Survey on Displaced Bhutanese Refugees from the Camps, Discussion paper, Refugee Watch 31, 2008.
To Acess and Download the above Articles (Except First Two) Please Visit our Website www.mcrg.ac.in
B. Selected References from Policies and Practices (CRG publications)
1. Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury and Ishita Dey “Citizens, Non- citizens and the Camp Lives”, Policies and Practices 21, 2009.
2. Nilanjan Dutta, Dulali Nag and Biswajit Roy, “Unequal Communication: Health and Disasters as issues of Public Sphere”, Policies and Practices 5, 2005.
To Acess and Download the above Articles Please Visit our Website www.mcrg.ac.in
C. Selected Report Published by CRG
1. A report on Voices of Internally Displaced Persons in South Asia, CRG, Kolkata, 2006, http://www.mcrg.ac.in/Voices.pdf.
D. Other Relevant Articles and Websites
1. Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury, “Violence, Victim hood and Minority Women: The Gujarat Violence of 2002”, Lipi Ghosh (ed.), Political Governance and Minority Rights: The South and Southeast Asian Scenario, Routledge, New Delhi, 2009, PP.44-64.
2. ______________, “Women after Partition: Remembering the Lost World in a Life without Future” in Navnita Chadha Behera (ed.), Gender, Conflict and Migration, Sage, New Delhi, 2006, pp. 155-174.
3. Cassandra Balchin, “United against the UN: The UN Gender Mission Attitude towards Afghan Women Refugees Within its Own Rank is Glaringly Hypocritical,” Newsline,April, 1998.
4. Denise Militzer, Disaster and Gender: The Indian Ocean Tsunami and the Sri Lankan Women, April 2008,
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/10364/1/Disaster%20and%20Gender.pdf
5. UNHCR Policy on Refugee Women, http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_92.htm
6. Select UNICEF Policy Recommendation on the Gender Dimensions of Internal Displacement,
http://www.safhr.org/refugee_watch10&11_92.htm
7. CEDAW: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
8. http://www.unifemantitrafficking.org/main.html