'Gender-responsive' is Not Enough

Over the last decade, there have been many good intentions and some significant policy gains when it comes to addressing gender and migration. However, in much UN member state discourse, good intentions consistently conflate women and children in one phrase and see migrant women primarily as victims. Migrant women are instrumentalized as assets for development–through their labor and remittances–without recognizing their human rights. Women are infantilized, seen as needing 'protection' through restrictive migration laws that actually make their journeys more dangerous. The concerns of women in migration, in all their diversity, are viewed as an add-on, a box to check, as if merely mentioning them is sufficient to address their needs. The policy gains are reflected in the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). Women in Migration Network (WIMN) played an active role in the Compact negotiations, working with civil society colleagues and member states to push gender as a cross-cutting principle also reflected in Compact objectives. At the approval of the Compact in 2018, WIMN and Oxfam International unveiled the Marrakech Women’s Manifesto, celebrating these gains while recognizing the ongoing limitations. However, at the first UN International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) in 2022, the Progress Declaration only mentioned women and children here and there, failing to bring a holistic approach impacting every aspect of the Compact, migration and national policy. 

Advocating for Gender as a Cross-cutting Principle

As an international network addressing gender and migration, we began thinking about the hard-won gains and the welcome commitment of a growing number of member states to explore both gender-responsive migration policy and Feminist Foreign Policy. These are much-needed steps in the right direction, and we salute these government commitments. At the same time, 'gender-responsive migration policy' has itself become a catch phrase.  Real policy changes are needed to ensure women’s rights. For many women in migration, things are worse.

• When people from Central America disappear on the migrant journey north, women are at the forefront of the struggle to find them. Cooperation to identify missing migrants is a feminist issue and requires regional policy responses that put women's concerns and leadership first.
• When women lose livelihoods due to climate change–from drought to flooding, loss of fishing shoals, to rising waters or storms–they move to urban settings to seek work, or become heads of households when partners migrate, or migrate across borders. Their need for regular migration and work status is a feminist issue. Women’s particular roles in an economy and their added burdens as family caregivers all pose additional challenges. 
• When women migrate to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries through temporary work permits as domestic workers, they often face intense exploitation and abuse, isolated in private homes with visas tied to their employers. They have limited or no right to socialize, organize or seek redress. Those who return home are often stigmatized and face difficulty finding decent work. Migrant workers’ rights are a feminist issue. 

Towards an Intersectional Feminist Migration Policy

We need a bottom-up, intersectional feminist migration agenda shaped by women in migration. That is a mouthful. What does it even mean? 

• By feminist, we aim to address the systemic nature of patriarchy in all institutions, through intersectional practice. This is about understanding power dynamics and challenging power inequalities at all levels. Feminism must address the systems that create inequality–not only between women and men, but also among nations.
• By intersectional, we recognize that women experience multiple forms of oppression, particularly but not limited to race, class, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and migratory status. These are not add-ons in an identity check list, but intersecting realities that shape women’s lives.
• By 'women in migration', we include migrant women, girls, and transgender migrants; those who have migrant families; who have missing relatives; who seek to avoid displacement from their communities, and those who have returned to their country of origin, among others. The voices and leadership of those directly affected by specific concerns must shape national and global agendas; their leadership is essential.