*************************************************************************** The electronic version of this document has been prepared at the Fourth World Conference on Women by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in collaboration with the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women Secretariat. *************************************************************************** AS WRITTEN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION (IOM) Telephone: 717 91 11, Cable Address: Promigrant Geneva Telex: 415722 Telefax: 7986150 17, route des Morillons, P.O. Box 71, CH-1211 GENEVA 19, SWITZERLAND STATEMENT BY MRS. NARCISAL. ESCALER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR GENERAL, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION (IOM), at the FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN, Beijing, 4 to 15 September 1995 On behalf of the International Organization for Migration, let me begin by congratulating you, Madam Chairman, on your election, and by saying how honoured I am to address this important gathering. Madam Chairman, IOM is committed to ensuring that the particular needs of migrant women -- regardless of category or legal status -- are identified, taken into consideration and addressed in IOM's projects and services. In the draft Beijing Platform for Action, it is stated that an estimated 125 million people are migrants, refugees and displaced persons, half of whom live in the developing world. Of this number, at least 50 million women are international migrants. However, despite their large numbers, migrant women historically have been marginalized as members of the societies in which they live and as beneficiaries of programmes designed for migrants. This marginalization has caused the international community to overlook the unique experiences specific to women which require special consideration. In 1985 in Nairobi, at the Third World Conference on Women, IOM stressed that migrants in general are exposed to a number of exceptional conditions during their movement and the period of insertion in a receiving country. The women among them are more likely to suffer deprivation, hardship, isolation, loss of status and discrimination. Women more frequently bear the burden of the family's daily life and are more vulnerable than migrant men. This remains as true today as when it was said in Nairobi in 1985. During the decade since the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies were adopted, the world has undergone fundamental changes not only in the economic and political spheres but also in the social and cultural realms. These changes have had both positive and negative impacts on women and have, indelibly, touched upon the lives of migrant women. This has, in turn, tasked the international community, and inter-governmental organizations such as the one I represent, to rise to the challenges presented by this ever-changing and complex world. These challenges are multi-faceted and whereas much progress has already been made toward meeting them, there is still a long way to go. Today, for example, more data then ever before is available on female migrant flows, the economic role of migrant women, and gender-specific adaptation problems. Yet, much of the research still remains outside the mainstream and the findings have rarely been translated into new policy approaches. Fortunately, this is changing. A recently published INSTRAW (UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women) study entitled, "The Migration of Women", carried out with the support of IOM, explores the methodological issues in the measurement and analysis of internal and international migration. The ultimate aim of this research is to assist policy makers in devising instruments that will improve the status of women migrants and their families. This study and others, such as the recently completed IOM Tracer Study on Filipino Domestic Helpers Abroad, will help the international community, and hereby policy makers, to focus more clearly on incorporating the realities of migrant women into projects and services. Indeed, research has shown that the realities lived by women migrants are often particular to their gender or are more prevalent in the experiences of migrant women than those of migrant men. These experiences touch all facets of everyday life and impact on a migrant woman's ability to secure her future. For example, migrant women face particular problems in the economic realm: traditionally, women have had limited access to employment and social welfare programmes, a consequence of their status as a "dependant" or having been "sponsored" for admission to the host country. This limited access is exacerbated by a double discrimination which is faced by many women migrants in the labour markets: double in the sense of being both female and foreign. In addition, finding ways to reconcile the demands of public and private spheres is particularly challenging for migrant women who often confront the least flexible working conditions. In the social realm, migrant women frequently lose the ability to participate in decision making at the community level. Traditional participatory mechanisms may no longer exist in refugee camps or in host countries, leaving migrant women at the mercy of those who, legitimately or not, speak for them. Alternatively, they are often thrust into decision-making roles to which they are not accustomed and for which they may not be prepared. In addition, migrant women must often move back and forth between two cultures: the culture which they came from and the culture of their new country of residence. They must find ways to confront the conflicts arising among family members with different levels of acculturation. Legally, the residence of a woman migrant is often linked to a migrant woman's relationship with a citizen or a "primary" migrant. If that relationship comes to an end, the woman migrant is put in a very tenuous situation and may face expulsion. Finally, regarding health care, in many countries access is linked to legal status. Such policies leave migrant women vulnerable to poorer health outcomes. Migrant women are also particularly vulnerable to psycho-social stresses; divergent sets of cultural expectations, marginalization in the host society and in the labour market, and the double burden of family and work are but a few examples. In addition, migrant women are particularly susceptible to physical and sexual abuse during travel, in camp situations, or in countries of destination. In the face of such realities, the challenges which confront migrant women must also concern the world community and especially those of you gathered here today: first, to improve awareness and understanding of the conditions and needs specific to migrant women; second, to promote equal access to projects and services so that migrant women can fully participate in and benefit from them; and third, to design and implement migrant women - specific projects and services, where and when appropriate. IOM has embraced this three-pronged policy approach to ensure that the special needs of migrant women are both considered and addressed at every step in the process: from the moment they decide to migrated, through their social, economic and cultural integration into the host communities, to their reintegration when they return home. In one word - “empowerment”. IOM is committed to seeing that this empowerment is transferred on a daily basis to the women who benefit from the Organizations' programmes - whether she is a Mozambican receiving assistance through IOM's programme for the most vulnerable lDPs in her country or a Vietnamese refugee woman who participated in the IOM health education programme which contributed to a significant decrease in septic abortions in South East Asian refugee camps; whether she is a highly qualified Jamaican woman who is able to return to a priority job in her homeland thanks to an EU funded/IOM implemented return and reintegration programme or a Bangladeshi nurse who acquires language training and cultural orientation tools prior to her migration. Migrant women will also benefit from the newly established International Centre for Migration and Health which is a joint undertaking by IOM, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Geneva. This Centre grew out of a realisation that no one Organization was dedicated exclusively to the health of migrants. During the initial phase of the Centre's work, one topic which will constitute a primary area of research concerns the structure and formation of migrant households and its impact on the reproductive health of women and the general health of all family members. However, empowerment does not only imply the strengthening of the individual migrant woman or specific groups of migrant women. A more systematic and proactive approach also implies development of migration modalities which take into consideration the special problems faced by women migrants in general and the protection of their rights. IOM promotes this approach through its technical cooperation programmes. In Nairobi, governments, especially host governments, were called upon to give special attention to migrant women particularly with respect to the protection and maintenance of family units, employment opportunities and equal pay, equal conditions of work, health care, benefits to be provided in accordance with the existing social security rights in the host country, and racial and other forms of discrimination. Indeed, in Nairobi it was stated that the Programme for Action for the Second Half of the UN Decade for Women pertaining to migrant women should be implemented and expanded in view of the anticipated increase in the scope of the problem. That was in 1985. A decade later, despite this anticipated increase having become a reality, the subject of migrant women has not been given the prominence in the draft Platform for Action which it deserves. References to migrant women scattered throughout the Platform lose their focus and sense of urgency and importance. Granted, migration is a complex issue. The international community may, at times, even wish to shy away from it. But this cannot be allowed to happen, because the stakes are too high. Indeed we will all reap immediate and future benefits if the correct modalities -- national, regional and international -- are put in place today. In this light, IOM stands ready to support the development of national capacities to address the special needs of migrant women and migrant women worker. IOM, in its role as technical advisor to governments on migration issues, ensures that the concerns of migrant women and migrant women workers are not merely noted but rather are substantively addressed in capacity building exercises and training, where and when possible. This will empower women by mainstreaming them more fully into the migration process. Capacity building activities figure high on IOM's agenda in many parts of the developing world as well as in countries with economies in transition. Capacity building and its implications for securing the rights of women migrants and their access to services also appear prominently in the draft Platform for Action. Paragraph 215, for instance, goes to the heart of what capacity building initiatives should aim to achieve. It states, "Governments must not only refrain from violating the human rights of women, but must work actively to promote and protect these rights." Paragraph 127(d) further calls upon relevant authorities and concerned groups to take special measures to eliminate violence against women, particularly those in vulnerable situations, inter alia, women migrant workers. These measures should include enforcing any existing legislation and developing, as appropriate, new legislation for women migrant workers in both sending and receiving countries. Governments and concerned groups should, as noted in paragraph 60 of the draft Beijing Platform for Action, introduce measures for the empowerment of women migrants by easing stringent and restrictive migration policies, recognizing the qualifications and skills of documented immigrants, and ensuring their full integration into the labour force. Further, measures should be introduced to integrate or reintegrate women living in poverty and socially marginalized into productive employment and the economic mainstream, and to ensure that internally displaced women have full access to economic opportunities. Paragraph 150(b) exhorts Governments to "Protect women and children who migrate as family members from abuse or denial of their human rights by sponsors and consider extending their stay, should the family relationship dissolve, within the limits of national legislation". Underlying the above policy measures and legislative protection issues is the need for governments to provide gender-sensitive human rights education and training to public officials, including those dealing with migration and refugee issues (paragraph 232). Complementary to this training for officials, paragraph 233 states that governments should take appropriate measures to ensure that refugee and displaced women, migrant women and women migrant workers are made aware of their human rights and of the recourse mechanisms available to them. We see an important role for IOM to play in this process. IOM can assist governments, concerned agencies and NGOs -- whether they be on the receiving or sending end -- to set in place the necessary modalities to empower women migrants through capacity building and technical cooperation activities. These activities can take many shapes and forms -- from language training and cultural orientation services combined with training of trainers exercises, which build up the capacity of both the migrant and the sending and receiving government, to reviewing, overhauling or developing policies and structures in sending, transiting and receiving countries. An ongoing activity in the Southern Cone of Latin America is a good example of IOM's approach to these issues. At the request of the Government of Argentina, IOM has been providing technical cooperation on the issue of women and migration since May. Developed jointly by IOM, the Government of Argentina and CAREF (the Ecumenical Services for the Support and Orientation of Migrants and Refugees), the project so far has focused on research concerning female immigrants in border areas. An IOM survey to investigate what causes women to migrate and what they expect to achieve through their migration is currently being conducted and evaluated. The results will assist the Government of Argentina to better understand and extend assistance to women migrants. IOM is also assisting the Government and CAREF to design a project which will facilitate migrant women's integration process. The creation of a "home for migrant women" which will provide labour, psychological, social and legal assistance has been foreseen. The need to foster training of migrant women to increase their ability to assess the labour market has been recognised and will be addressed as will the necessity to sensitize the Argentinean public to the needs of women migrants through lectures and inter-institutional workshops. IOM hopes that Argentina's enthusiasm and willingness to explore issues surrounding women and migration, will provide impetus for more and better activities specifically aimed at the empowerment of migrant women and migrant women workers. Madam Chairman, The Beijing Platform rightly emphasizes that some groups of women are particularly vulnerable to violence. These include migrant women workers and trafficked women and children who are trafficked for sex and other exploitative purposes. IOM will do everything possible within its mandate to help address violence against women, especially as it relates to the Platform's strategic objectives D.1 - D.3. In this field, IOM has already made a start. Our strategy is two-fold: firstly, prevention before victimisation occurs through information campaigns in areas of origin, training and capacity building, and secondly, assistance to those who have suffered the consequences. Strategic Objective D. 1 of the Platform implores those of us gathered here today "to take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women". Especially with regard to migrant women and migrant women workers, the actions to be taken include establishing linguistically and culturally accessible services for migrant women and girls, including women migrant workers who are victims of gender-based violence". IOM certainly agrees. But we believe that this process should be more comprehensive and begin even before a women becomes a migrant and a possible victim. Two examples from the Asian region demonstrate how IOM has moved toward this comprehensive approach. In the context of IOM's language training and cultural orientation programmes for labour migrants in Asia and Oceania, IOM has just completed Phase I of an English language training programme in Dhaka for 360 Bangladeshi female nurses seeking employment abroad. Phase II of this programme will train 640 skilled and semi-skilled contract workers on communication in an overseas working environment as well as provide information on workers rights and obligations in the host countries to guard against exploitation by the employer. Teacher training workshops will be included in this phase to enable the project to continue with Bangladeshi instructors. Farther to the East, IOM's office in Manila is assisting the Philippine Department of Labour and Employment Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) in the field of skills upgrading, language training and cultural orientation. The focus of this project is the Female Overseas Contract Workers. Also in the Philippines IOM is sponsoring and assisting SENTRO (the Policy Research and Resource Centre for Filipino Women Workers), in its plans to prepare a Survival Guidebook for Filipino Women Migrant Workers on Rights and Realities of Migrant Labour for release in Autumn. This survival guidebook will include information on basic rights, job contracts, legal provisions as required under Philippine Law, migration realities including the most commonly reported illegal and abusive practices and violation of rights, and a section on self-empowerment including how and when to file complaints. The Guidebook will also include sections on handling communication and language problems and cultural differences. As you can see, IOM has already taken important strides forward in implementing actions to attain the Beijing objectives. The above outlined projects, and others like them, will help give women the tools they need to cope better with a new culture and to fight against victimisation at the most pivotal point in the process - before a women becomes a victim. This is empowerment. Nowhere is this empowerment more needed than in the face of one of the most horrific modern forms of migration: trafficking. IOM is committed to helping to bring this issue to the forefront of international attention and to assist governments to combat trafficking in women migrants -- an inhumane form of migration which impinges on the most basic of human rights. Strategic objectives D.2 and D.3, dealing respectively with actions to study the causes of violence against women and devise effective methods of prevention strategies on the one hand, and eliminating trafficking in women and assisting female victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking on the other, parallel IOM's objectives in this field. In October 1994, IOM sponsored a seminar on the International Response to Trafficking in Migrants and the Safeguarding of Migrant Rights. This seminar, attended by 230 representatives from 70 sending, transit and receiving countries and 40 intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, provided a forum to discuss this issue of ever-growing concern. During the seminar, women were clearly identified as a specially vulnerable sub-group victimized by trafficking. Consequently, it was strongly recommended that the processes of trafficking and the prevailing regime of control, prevention and return should be examined in depth in relation to the needs and rights of women migrants. This recommendation gave rise to an IOM report entitled "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe" published in May 1995. The report acknowledges that trafficking of women from East to West is increasing rapidly; that women are being trafficked to Western Europe from all over the world; and, that the number of known victims may represent only the tip of the iceberg. The report further acknowledges that trafficking in women receives considerable media coverage - not always out of concern for the welfare of victims but because sex and prostitution attract attention. IOM’s report is also meant to attract attention, but for a different reason. Its aim is to sensitize the international community - a community composed of persons like yourselves who are truly concerned with the problems of trafficking and its implications for the women who become its victims -- and, more importantly, to lay a foundation on which to develop concrete initiatives and programmes both to prevent victimisation and to assist victims. IOM is currently elaborating programmes in accordance with the study's recommendations. These programmes will assist victims at every stage of this vicious continuum -- from helping those who have already suffered from the trafficking trade -- the visible tip of this formidable iceberg -- through facilitating their return and reintegration processes. Programmes will also be developed to combat trafficking beneath the surface -before a women is lured by the influence of a trafficker -- by providing reliable information in countries of origin and assisting countries and regions to develop the capacity and co-operative mechanisms to deal more effectively with this issue - this includes, of course, sharing of information. In the interest of time, I will not go into any more detail on these issues, but I should add that the study I just mentioned - containing fuller recommendations - is available here from the IOM delegation for interested delegates. The Beijing Platform calls upon governments and concerned organizations alike to adopt special measures to eliminate trafficking in women and to assist female victims of violence due to prostitution and trafficking. Concomitantly, the IOM study concludes that trafficking in women is an international problem which cannot be dealt with adequately at the national level alone. IOM is providing the international fora to bring concerned governments together to discuss policy and to assist in harmonising strategies and to further the international community's knowledge of the extent of the problem. Indeed, in early autumn IOM will hold the first of its sub-regional seminars on migrant trafficking. This seminar, to be held in Panama, will focus on the issues surrounding trafficking in migrants in Central America. The purpose of the seminar is to strengthen affected governments' understanding of the issue and assist their efforts at finding practical and cooperative solutions for the problems identified. The seminar will enable participants to exchange views and information on the subject, explore options for migration authorities to develop effective policies and procedures and strengthen regional co-operation to combat migrant trafficking. Other sub-regional seminars are planned for 1996. Meanwhile, IOM continues to publish its Quarterly Bulletin on Trafficking in Migrants which provides a compendium of information from around the globe on incidents, trends, policies and meetings related to migrant trafficking. In addition to encouraging governments to make fundamental changes in their policies towards migrant women, IOM is also developing new internal gender balance policies. IOM's staff policy on gender balance states equality of opportunity and treatment of men and women as a basic principle in recruitment and career development. The achievement of this policy is interlinked with the objectives of IOM's gender-neutral human resource package. In IOM, as in most international administrative structures, women remain underrepresented in decision making positions. Nonetheless, some progress gas been make. The number of women professionals in IOM has increased overall from 19.6% to 25.2% over the last three years. Over that same timespan, the comparable figures for Headquarters increased from 23.8% to 36.3%. However, my Organization has recognised that this is not good enough. Milestones for the next 10 years have been established to ensure gender balance in IOM - the proportion of women in the professional categories will increase overall to at least 35% within two years and the proportion of women staff members at all levels will reach at least 40% within five years. Following upon this schedule, gender balance in IOM will be achieved by the year 2005. In conclusion, Madam Chairman, I would like to thank our partners - governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental - who have contributed to making IOM's work on behalf of migrants possible. We have come a long way in the 10 years since the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies were embraced. Here in Beijing, we have been able to take stock of both the achievements and the shortcomings -- and to map out the path ahead of us. I speak for all employees of IOM when I say that I go away with a renewed sense of commitment to move forward on this path of equality and empowerment which will lead us from Beijing towards the 21st century. I will close, as my colleague did ten years ago in Nairobi, by calling on the concerned countries of the world to help us to continue in our effort, to the benefit not only of women but of all peoples of this world. Thank you, Madam President.