Migrant Women: Issues of Equity and Justice

In the contemporary world of global order where a significant number of population, around 244 million people (2015), resides in a country other than where they were born, it is not only the issues of organization of the emigrants but also the issue of integration of immigrants of ethnic diversity in the receiving/host country that gain significance. It has been observed that the administrative and registration systems are unable to cope up with the extensive population movements and the attendant implications on the Global socio-economic and legal and political order. The migration of women has always been an important component of international migration. Women often migrate officially as dependent family members of other migrants or to marry someone in another country. Female migrants are, however, increasingly part of flows of migrant workers, moving on their own to become the principal wage earners for their families. Most migrant women move voluntarily, but women and girls are also forced migrants leaving their countries in order to flee conflict, persecution, environmental degradation, natural disasters or other situations that affect their security, livelihood or habitat. Conventions, laws and practices governing the rights of women and migrants in receiving countries affect migrant women. Migrant women confront legal, direct and indirect discriminations according to their class position, nationality, sexualization and racialization. The present paper will focus its attention on the complexity of migrant women’s multiple marginalities and the social structural contingencies including state’s legal policy and the power of migrant women’ struggle to survive.