This section will demonstrate how economic migrants can navigate their marginalised circumstances using a case study example of domestic workers. There are currently at least 53 million domestic workers globally, 83 percent of whom are women (ILO, 2013:19, 21) and many of whom are migrants (HRW, 2014). A discussion on domestic workers is necessary not only because of the gender dimension and for the fact that domestic work is closely interlinked with migration and the global politico-economic structures outlined above (ILO, 2013), but due to Filipinas’ overrepresentation in the domestic work sphere. In the Philippines twelve percent of the female working population are domestic workers and those employed locally in the Philippines are ‘younger, come from poorer areas, have lower levels of education and have less work experience than domestic workers who take placements overseas’ (ILO, 2013:29). Domestic workers are among the most exploited and abused workers in the world and children and migrant domestic workers are often the most vulnerable (HRW, 2014). This vulnerability can lead domestic workers to become trafficked, an example of which will be shown in a case study presented in Chapter Four. This section will now outline some of the complexities around domestic workers’ vulnerability and agency, beginning with a discussion on the global care-chain.
The global care-chain is created when a migrant domestic worker leaves her poor country to look after the children of a woman in a rich country who has entered the workforce. The migrant then outsources the care of her own children to a poorer woman in her home country who in turn leaves her children in the care of her eldest daughter or a relative. Through these transferences the traditional role of motherhood is subverted (Raijman et al., 2003) and motherly love is commoditised (Hochschild, 2000). Women’s migration can have severe emotional consequences on families left behind which are barely offset by the economic benefits gained through migration (Jingzhong and Lu, 2011). Piper (2008) for example argues that ‘transnationally split families’ incur gender-based social consequences, such as the effects on a husband who takes over his migrant wife’s domestic duties. In some cases left behind husbands can turn to extramarital affairs, excessive drinking, and/or avoiding work to compensate for a perceived lack of masculinity as his wife takes over the breadwinner role (Piper,
2008:1289). Migrant mothers can experience contradicting emotions where they feel like a “bad mother” for leaving their children, while simultaneously feeling obliged to provide a better education through migration (Doyle and Timonen, 2010; Hochschild, 2000). Filipina migrants have even been accused of causing ‘the Filipino family to deteriorate, children to be abandoned, and a crisis of care to take root in the Philippines’ (Parrenas, 2003:40). For the children left behind by migrant women, the provision of an education and improved living conditions does not necessarily put them at an advantage, as the emotional costs of separation can affect their grades and reduce motivation to attain higher schooling. Separation has also been connected to psychosocial problems in left behind children including violence, self-enclosure and depression; and such resentment of the migrant mother that estrangement is common (Jingzhong and Lu, 2011:361; Parrenas, 2003). Therefore, while migration can improve living conditions for a family in financial terms, the emotional trauma and social consequences inflicted on migrant women and their families left behind, can supersede the advantages of migration (Raijman et al., 2003), as will also be illustrated in another case study in Chapter Four. Despite these many challenges migrant women can use their position strategically to benefit their dual lives: at home and abroad.
Rao (2011) describes the complexity involved as migrant domestic workers seek to transcend conflicting emotions and oppressive class structures and obtain dual respectability in their home and destination cities/countries. Economic agency and a sense of responsibility can give a migrant domestic worker esteem in her home community; whereas at the workplace submissiveness and politeness are seen as respectable traits by her employer. This respect between employer and employee, however, is not mutual due to unequal relations inherent in the ‘culture of servitude’, and ‘given its association with reproduction rather than skills, domestic work continues to be socially and ideologically devalued’ (Rao, 2011:770). However, the respect migrant women strive for, both in their home communities and with their employers, is less associated with the domestic work itself but the self-dignity and increases in social mobility it affords. As such, vulnerable female migrants should not be viewed homogenously as victims. Scalar dimensions create diverse situations for migration and individuals can express agency even under exploitative circumstances (Rogaly, 2008). For example, Rao (2011) argues
that through migration women can have the chance to find a foreign husband even though they might be deemed ‘too old’ in their own country, or have access to greater authority and decision making power in their household back home (Boyd and Grieco, 2003). Where women migrate independently they can often accumulate savings, language skills and adventure (Doyle and Timonen, 2010) by which they can secure a life free of menial labour where they can eventually care for their own family rather than someone else’s (Rao, 2011). In this way, even migration which is forced due to complex circumstances has the potential to be an empowering transition for women who are able to find independence they would not have in their own countries, alternatives for marriage, and economic and career advancement; strengthening their agency where they usually have few opportunities (Omelaniuk, 2005; Piper, 2008).
This agency can be exerted within the structural restrictions of the oppressive global political economy, traversing the notions of migrants as either victims or agents. However, Briones (2009:4) notes that ‘agency requires capability to successfully mediate victimization; agency itself is insufficient’. When women migrants are perceived solely as victims of oppressive structures, laws to protect their human rights can deny their chance of making a livelihood (Briones, 2009; Piper, 2004; Busza, 2004). The ‘choice’ between protecting migrants’ human rights or their right to a livelihood is decided by governments, with little attention to the needs and desires of the women themselves. This is highly problematic as migrants become vulnerable to restrictive immigration policies, marginalisation and exploitation (Parrenas, 2011; Raijman et al., 2003). It is this enhanced vulnerability which increases the likelihood of migrant women becoming victims of human trafficking. Therefore rights-based policies must be integrated into labour and immigration laws to provide the capacity for female and male migrants to exert agency within situations of economic and forced migration.