In 2005, 190 million persons, representing 3 per cent of world population, lived outside their country of birth. The equivalent figure in 1968 was 75 million persons or 3.5 per cent of the world’s population. Almost one in every 10 persons living in more developed regions is a migrant compared to one in every 70 persons in developing regions. Six per cent of the world’s migrants reside in more developed regions. Most of the world’s migrants live in Europe (64 million), followed by Asia (53 million) and Northern America (45 million). Nearly half of the international migrants are female migrants who outnumber male migrants in developed countries. Three-quarters of all international migrants are concentrated in just 28 countries and one in every 5 international migrant lives in the U.S.A.
According to UN estimates the number of refugees in the world at the end of 2004 stood at 13.5 million, of whom 9.2 million are under the mandate of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) and 4.3 million under the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Around 2.7 million refugees are in developed countries and 10.8 million in developing countries. The largest number of refugees was found in Asia (7.7 million). Africa hosted the second largest refugee population in the world (3.0 million).
Migration takes different forms with different impacts on the economies of source and destination countries. Migrants differ in skill level. They may be temporary, seasonal or permanent. They leave their home countries for different reasons – for employment, for family reunification, as students or as part of the large group of political migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.
When people move they move for a reason. Migration is also caused by several factors: war, racial and ethnic hostilities, political instability, natural disasters, ecological degradation, and inequitable distribution of wealth and resources. The conflict in the Great Lakes in the 1990s forced millions of people to flee in search of a safe haven. The 1990s also saw an increase in the number of economic migrants, including women, documented and undocumented moving both from South to North and South to South, with the single aim of improving the quality of their own lives and those of the families they left behind. “Brain drain”, human trafficking and crossing borders without proper documents became global concerns as poor people started embarking on perilous journeys in hope of finding greener pastures.
The number of female migrant workers is undoubtedly increasing giving rise to the new phenomenon called the feminisation of labour. Almost 50% of those who work abroad are women, predominantly in the domestic and entertainment sectors. They are vulnerable to various forms of discrimination, exploitation and abuse. Although they normally receive lower salaries than men, female migrants contribute significantly to the economy of their countries of origin through their remittances. For instance in Sri Lanka, migrant women workers contributed more than 62% of the total of the 1 billion USD in private remittances in 1999, which represented 50% of the trade balance and 145% of foreign credits and loans.
Migrant workers particularly those who are working in the agri-business sector and other low-skill jobs frequently have to perform dirty, dangerous and demeaning (3D) jobs in return for paltry wages. They usually live in overcrowded, old and dilapidated trailers or barracks without proper access to water facilities and other basic necessities. In many countries, including the United States, undocumented workers have no access to government facilities such as health and education for their children. Furthermore, their rights as migrant workers are consistently violated making them one of the most vulnerable sectors in the globalised economy. For instance, in some host countries particularly in the Gulf region, migrant workers are not allowed to form trade unions or associations. The Human Rights Watch (Middle East and Asia) reports that some women workers that they interviewed were still traumatized from rape and sexual abuse at the hands of Saudi male employers, and could not narrate their accounts without anger or tears. Working from sixteen to eighteen hours per day is a common practice in many restaurants and other service sector.
Sources:
United Nations, International Migration 2006, Department of Economic and Social Affairs
The United Nations defines “trafficking in persons" as meaning the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. Report: Trafficking in human beings: Global Patterns (April 2006), Accessed at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/trafficking_human_beings.html October 29, 2006.
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