The ManicaPost
Swema Laita and Tanyaradzwa Jonga
AFRICAN migration is being driven by a varied combination of push and pull factors in each country.
The primary push factors include conflict, repressive governance and limited economic opportunities.
Most African migration remains within the continent, around 21 million documented Africans have migrated to the next country within Africa.
Human rights are often violated in cases of labour migration, hence the need for policy recommendations for the betterment of Africa.
Gender is a primary means of social distinction that interacts with other categories such as age, class, ethnicity, nationality, race, handicap and sexual orientation.
The causes of migration have varied effects on men and women.
Whether travelling between rural and urban areas, intra-regionally, or worldwide, women and men are affected in different ways.
Labour markets are frequently highly segregated and gendered discourses, practices and legislation determining who has the right to migrate and how can limit or facilitate cross-border movement between men and women.
Migration may alter gender roles within families and the community, which may have an effect on gendered and sexual identities.
This article is solemnly designed to give policy recommendations on gender and migration.
The African Union Agenda 2030 outlines development goals and objectives related to migration and gender and it acknowledges that women’s migration is likely to increase.
Women’s rights and gender equality are central to African legislation and policies and they are well integrated into the development agenda in terms of socio-economic challenges and proposals.
The current migration system in Africa does not take gendered aspects of migration into account and thus fails to consider gender specific migration drivers, trends, and vulnerabilities.
The lack of gender-disaggregated data makes the specifics of migrant women’s labour-force participation difficult.
International organisations should assist through technical expects and capacity building like how the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has established programmes to help African countries avoid the pitfalls of migration.
They facilitated the demobilisation of child soldiers in Angola, allowing over 5 000 to return home.
In Rwanda, the IOM helped migrants who had been displaced in Italy during the conflict to reintegrate.
Several programmes were also established to assist women and children in Uganda who had been displaced by the Sudanese Resistance Army, as well as to provide them with protection and assistance against trafficking.
Africa must have migration governance where the international system should make efforts to deal with the cases of gender insensitivity during the processes of migration.
This then helps provide guidance on migration governance on different thematic areas and also complies with international standards and law securing migrant rights.
In this regard, states need to comply with international standards and law to secure migrants’ rights regardless of their migration status, nationality, gender, race or ethnic origin.
Africa must provide all migrants with access to justice and legal redress whilst identifying and assisting vulnerable migrants and displaced persons through child-oriented, gender-sensitive and culturally appropriate approaches.
Africa must also provide protection to forced migrants, be it men or women, in accordance with humanitarian law and human rights principles, whilst upholding the human right of every person to leave any country, including their own country, and to return to their own country at any time, in accordance with member States’ laws.
On labour migration and education, women , men , boys and girls migrate for labour and educational reasons but there are no gender sensitive policies at regional and national level.
Labour migration is a historical and contemporary fact in Africa that has a significant impact on the economics and society of African States.
For both the states of origin and destination, regular, transparent, all-encompassing, and gender-responsive labour migration policies, regulations, and institutions can have a positive impact.
According to Agenda 2063, among other things, investing in human resources’ productive potential can help end poverty and this concurs with the AU Free Movement of Persons Protocol.
The African passport also calls for the abolishment of visa requirements for all African citizens in all African countries whilst spurring students and labour mobility.
In this regard, states should ensure that national laws, including constitutional, administrative and civil law and labour codes, provide female migrant workers, in particular domestic workers, with the same rights and protection that are extended to all workers.
ln addition, states must also establish effective complaint mechanisms and ensure that migrants, especially migrant women, have recourse to enforce timely and affordable remedies.
They should also ensuring that migrant workers are able to make complaints against their employers or others, including on grounds of sexual harassment in the workplace, and have access to remedies for unpaid wages and compensation for violations of labour rights, without fear of reprisals and expulsion.
Policy recommendation is a great need on diaspora engagement. Migrants often maintain a web of connection with their homes, thereby creating beneficial feedback through transfer of remittances, knowledge skills, technology as well as joint business ventures.
ln this regard, states need to create a conducive environment for diaspora engagement.
In terms of gender, border management systems are coming under increasing pressure from large inflows of persons, including irregular and mixed flows.
Specific challenges to border management mechanisms and personnel include building capacities to distinguish between persons having legitimate versus non-legitimate reasons for entry and/or stay.
Women in the world have been subject to attacks linked with international terrorist networks and human trafficking.
It is important for states to meet their humanitarian obligations to refugees of both gender and others eligible for protection, and facilitate cross border trade and mobility, while maintaining the security of their borders.
There has to be implementation of rules and technical procedures relating to movement of goods and persons, protection of legal activities at the boarder whilst preventing the illegal activities and as well as human and national insecurities.
The trend towards the securitisation of migration and borders should not hamper integration efforts in Africa therefore member states need to cooperate in the delimitation and demarcation of borders, as well as in the development of crossborder procedures and initiatives which facilitate cross-border trade, mobility and development, in order to achieve Agenda 2063.
Lastly, states needs to provide adequate and gender-responsive information about the requirements, gender diverse challenges and opportunities of migration.
Both men and men tend to be victims of migrant smuggling and human trafficking.
A growing proportion of migrants are moving irregularly due to a number of factors, including the need for international protection and increased barriers to regular migration.
They end up having their rights violated.
Consequently, Government responses and policies to smuggling should at all stages take account of migrants’ human rights, and to the extent possible, seek to respond to the motivations behind this form of irregular migration.
We would recommend that states should strengthen the legal framework by ratifying the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000 and incorporate its provisions into domestic law.
In the case of refugees and asylum seekers, there is need for refugee protection.
The policy recommendation would be that states should establish effective and fair procedures for individualised refugee status determination, including granting refugees meaningful access to such procedures, which should entail accessible, gender-responsive and culturally appropriate services and informatio.
They should also safeguard the human security and gender-differentiated needs of refugees (physical, material, legal and health), especially in the context of refugee camps and with particular attention to the needs of vulnerable groups (women, children, disabled, and older people), while at the same time ensuring that refugees are aware of national laws, regulations and their obligations to abide by these.
In conclusion, migration is gendered and therefore there is a need for African states to pay attention on the gender issues and how human rights are being violated and protected when issues of migration come in discussion.
Displacement of populations within a country may occur as a result of terrorism, conflict, natural disasters or climatic conditions, and may require transnational cooperation to prevent or address them.
The recommendation is for governments to prevent conditions that may lead to displacement, including through protecting human rights and international humanitarian law, as well as developing early warning and rapid response mechanisms to protect populations under threat.
The writers are students at Africa University’s International Relations Unit.
