Source: IPUMS Egypt Argentina Nepal Mexico Armenia Brazil Ghana Costa Rica South Africa Malaysia Colombia Senegal Ecuador Thailand Chile Peru Bolivia Vietnam Cambodia Malawi
Migrants defined as those who moved across provinces or the equivalent in the past 5 years.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
PERCENTAGE MiGrAnt Adolescent Girls: An iMportAnt
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Girls on the Move: Adolescent Girls & MiGrAtion in the developinG World
of adjustment faced by later migrants from the same area—might also reduce the risks of long-distance migration. The recency of a girl’s move, her age, her degree of agency in the decision to move, and whether she moves alone or with someone else all affect how much social disruption she experiences.
1.1.2 origins and destinations: urban and rural
As Figure 1.4 shows, the majority of urban in-migrant girls come from other cities and towns rather than from rural villages.5 This is evident not only in Latin
American and other highly urbanized countries, but also in a number of countries with relatively low levels of urbanization. Yet, as mentioned above, the literature on migrants in general has not yet recognized these apparent demographic realities, instead concentrating on rural-to-urban migration. It is reasonable to think that girls who move from rural villages to cities and towns are likely to experience greater social disruption and adjustment difficulties than urban-to-urban mov- ers, but nothing definitive can be said without more evidence. Whether a girl migrates near or far, to a rural or an urban area, maintaining and building social networks remains a crucial factor shaping her ability to successfully interact with her new community.
1.2 A highly diverse Group
With the quantitative background in place, the chap- ter now examines the diversity of migrant girls. Gra- dations of risk, vulnerability, and fortune mark migrant adolescent girls’ experiences. Some girls arrive in their new urban homes already disadvantaged for rea- sons such as curtailed schooling or poverty. Some of them are able to marshal their meager resources and do better in their new communities than they would have done had they not moved. Others fall victim to risks in transit and fail to connect to the resources in their new neighborhoods, becoming socially margin- alized. Some risks and disadvantages stem from the move itself or its immediate aftermath, whereas the difficulties of poverty and social marginalization can be experienced by non-migrants as well as migrants. Clearly, not all migrant adolescent girls are vulnerable. To illustrate this, Figure 1.5 puts the demographic features of urban migration in a larger context. The figure gives a stylized indication of the size of the migrant adolescent girl population relative to other adolescent girls, as Figure 1.3 described. All highly
vulnerable adolescent girls are depicted in the figure, with the overlap between the groups suggesting the percentage of migrant girls who are highly vulnerable. The figure also gives an indication of the types of policy and program responses girls’ diversity requires: broadly based social policies and systems such as those for child protection, education, social protec- tion, and health, which benefit both migrant and non- migrant girls, and service delivery targeting migrant adolescent girls or other population groups. The section below considers a number of impor- tant dimensions along which migrant girls differ: the recency of the move; the girl’s age at which it took place; and whether the move was voluntary or resulted from crisis, conflict, or trafficking.
The timing of the move matters
Demographic snapshots from surveys and censuses show that many recently arrived migrant girls are disadvantaged relative to others in their destination communities. Although a number of careful studies of migrant adults find that migrant disadvantage is largely confined to an adjustment period of two or three years, the literature on adolescent migrants does not shed light on the duration of move-related risks. Migrant girls may be particularly vulnerable during the first few years following their arrival. Even temporarily heightened risks can have lifelong con- sequences for adolescent girls because of the critical formative nature of this period of their development. For example, if an unplanned pregnancy occurs while a migrant girl is seeking to adjust to her new circumstances, her plans to continue her school- ing or secure a productive livelihood are likely to be disrupted. Large-scale longitudinal studies need to be designed to follow migrant girls throughout their life course. The results of such studies will make it possible to understand and respond to the long-term implications of migration for adolescent girls and the women they become.
Age at migration may also influence a migrant girl’s ability to adjust to her new circumstances. However, little is known about the experiences of girls who migrated as young adolescents aged 10 to 14. Most demographic surveys do not interview females under age 15, leaving a gap in knowledge about the risks and benefits facing young migrants. It is reasonable to assume that girls aged 10 to 14 who migrate alone
5
This finding is based on DHS surveys. Population censuses rarely collect information on the urban– rural status of migrant-origin areas.
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to work face much higher risks of falling into abusive and exploitative circumstances than older adoles- cent labor migrants. This is an evidence gap in need of urgent attention. A few studies find that girls who moved as young children (under age 10) appear to be on par with urban-born girls as they develop, possibly because they are more likely than older migrant girls to have moved with their parents (McDonald et al. 2010).
Migrants fleeing crises
In many cities, groups of migrant girls include some who were forced to move by humanitarian
emergencies. Urban internally displaced persons (IDPs)—people who have migrated within their coun- try’s borders to a city as a result of conflict or natural disaster—are of increasing interest to national governments and international agencies (Davies and Jacobsen 2010). Estimates of the total number of urban IDPs are uncertain, and no credible estimate of the number of displaced adolescent girls is avail- able.6 Internally displaced adolescent girls have
much in common with girls who move in response to personal or family crises such as the death of a family member, since these girls tend to change