United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM): Working for Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality

Women Migrant Workers

Globalization has fostered the flow of migrant workers who travel from countries with limited economic opportunities to fill gaps in nations with a dwindling labour supply. Increasingly, these migrant workers are women — women constitute 50 per cent or more of migrant workers in Asia and Latin America, and in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, they significantly outstrip men. In addition, women increasingly migrate alone or as the primary income earners.

Migration opens opportunities for women's greater independence, self-confidence and status. Migrant remittances and investments, and newly acquired skills of returnees can potentially contribute to poverty reduction, thereby attracting growing interest among governments and development partners of labour migration as a means to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

However, in many places women migrant workers have limited legal protections or access to information about their rights, rendering them vulnerable to gender-specific discrimination, exploitation and abuse at different points throughout the migration process.

UNIFEM at Work

UNIFEM’s work with women migrants encompasses countries of origin and destination. UNIFEM promotes efforts to facilitate safe migration for women, eliminate trafficking in human beings, and help make migration an empowering experience. Programmes focus on establishing laws and practices that protect women migrants’ human rights, drawing connections to national poverty reduction strategies, strengthening women migrants’ organizations, and brokering exchanges between source and destination countries to advance labour rights.

For examples of UNIFEM's work with women migrants around the world, read the following briefs:

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