How has the pre-existing gender division of labor and gendered state policies affected Saudi Arabia’s women workers in their demand for equal opportunities and fair treatment? What are some of the factors involved in disempowering migrant workers in host countries and what happens when these workers start asking for their rights?
Given the global economic restructuring and the shifting international division of labor, regions like the Middle East have become salient destination sites for many sub-Saharan African and South East Asian migrant workers. While past scholarship has focused on men-dominated migration patterns, current scholarship reports the increasing presence of women among migrant workers, particularly in the Gulf region (Martin Baldwin). In “Domestic Workers: Little Protection for the Underpaid,” Gloria Chammartin maintains that the number of migrant women have come to equal or outnumber men in recent years. Female migrant workers now constitute larger percentages of migrant workers in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. (470) For instance, data shows that more than 90 percent of Indonesian workers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates consisted of women workers in 1997-1998. In 2001, between 85 and 94 percent of Sri Lankan workers in Jordan, Kuwait, and Lebanon were women. The increase in international labor demand across this region is mostly attributed to the oil boom of the 1970s.
The oil boom of the 1970s created a demand for both skilled and unskilled labor in the Gulf region. In its early stages, demands for the labor construction sector were met mostly by male workers. (Munira Ismail) Later, as construction proj...
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Gender issues in labor migration governance: The Importance of considering Gender Issues in Migration. International migration branch.http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/migrant/areas/gender.htm
Martin Baldwin-Edwards. “Migration in the Middle East and Mediterranean.” http://mmo.gr/pdf/news/Migration_in_the_Middle_East_and_Mediterranean.pdf
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Christian-Filipino-migrants-forced-to-convert-to-Islam-17478.html
http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Saudi-Arabia-to-drive-out-all-Indonesian-migrants-21994.html
"The conditions of Overseas filipino workers in Saudi Arabia."http://www.scribd.com/doc/49819988/The-Conditions-of-Overseas-Filipino-Workers-in-Saudi-Arabia
http://www.booz.com/media/uploads/Womens_Employment_in_Saudi_Arabia.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/25/saudi-arabia-migrant-mistreatment
...e Do Females Stand In The Saudi Labour Market?" Ahfad Journal 25.2 (2008): 57-84. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
Mies, Maria. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. New York: Zed Books, 1998.
This United States of America is not fond of undocumented immigrants, especially women. Cruel anti-immigrant laws, policies, and practices have had especially dramatic impact on immigrant women and their families. These measures force immigrant women to choose between the threat of an abusive husband and the threat of deportation if they call the police. Immigration policies can also make women sit in detention, thus leaving their children. During this time, some of the women might be raped by officers. This is because detention lacks sexual abuse prevention policies. These women who are in the detention centers are not dangerous, instead they are placed behind bars because of small crimes such as driving without a license or they are charged the civil crime for violating immigration laws.Women are faced with the emotional burden of separation from their families.
One important question that needs to be asked is, “what is equal?” Equality between sexes and race has been stressed and made law in the late nineteenth century, but even though laws have been made to protect woman from this discrimination, it still occurs frequently. Equal is being treated the same way and having the same opportunities no matter who one is. Big business has not given women the chance to be equal with men. One does not normally see a woman as the owner, or even the manager of a major corporation, these jobs consistently go to men. Traditi...
Summary Since the introduction of the Kafala system, also known as sponsorship system, in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) along with Lebanon and Jordan in Mashriq region, some serious human rights violations have been alleged. The Kafala system is a sponsorship system designed to regulate and employ migrant workers in countries compromising GCC states (Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Kuwait, and Sultanate of Oman), Jordan, and Lebanon. Under the sponsorship system, a contract is signed between the worker and the recruitment agency for a minimum of 2 years, in which the sponsor assumes full legal and economic responsibility of the migrant, including visa status, residence, living conditions, wages, and health insurance. In other words, the Kafala system takes away workers’ rights and puts them in the hands of their sponsors. Additionally, the contract prohibits the migrant from changing employment or employer and/or leaving the country without the consent of the contractor.
Construction industries are classified largely which comprise of skillful employee and general workers. As opined by Cassidy (2006), these are intrinsically demanding, hazar...
Middle Eastern women need to stand up for their rights and get educated to reverse the notion that they are servants and properties of their men. Furthermore, they need to rise up to their potentials and prove beyond doubt that they are equal to men. This practice would lead the path for future generations to follow and protect the inalienable rights of women. Finally, these women need to break the cycle of oppression by addressing these deeply rooted beliefs, gaining the tools to fight back, and joining forces to make lifelong changes.
...ese deeds may be, the women of these two great nations will always be treated like second class citizens. Progress has been made to change this mindset, but change is slow in the Middle East, and when it comes to changing women’s rights, this will always be the slowest of changes to occur.
In 2007, as written on The Washington Post, Bill Gates said that Women are the key to Saudi Arabia’s Economy. Gates was speaking in a business seminar that was held in Saudi Arabia at the time, Gates, was asked by one of the members of the seminar if he thought that Saudi Arabia could meet its goals of becoming one of the worlds leading economies by 2010. Bill Gates replied by saying: “Well if you’re not fully utilizing half the talent in the country, you’re not going to get too close to the top.” What is Discrimination? Discrimination is the degradation or exclusion of a minority group within the society. There are many different grounds to discrimination such as race, color, gender, citizenship, age, disability and so much more. This essay will focus on gender-based discrimination that are most common in the MENA Labor market discussing possible causes and remedies for this problem.
population in the country and because of no fixed salary, some women who can actually obtain a job are only paid a third of what male employees are paid monthly. Much of the gender discr...
This research will begin by evaluating the economic factors of migration, it will then proceed to investigate the social factors. In the process it will be highlighted that the impacts of migration are (im)balanced. Body Paragraph 1 - "The Body" There are a lot of women’s human rights violations in Syria. According to the SNHR, the percentage of women deaths has dramatically increased in 2013, reaching nearly 9% of the total number of victims on April 30, 2013, and at this date, at least 7543 women including 2454 girls and 257 female infants under the age of 3 have been killed, including 155 women who remain unidentified at this date. The SNHR documented the killing of 55 foreign women.
Class this semester was widely based on the ideas and problematic events in which revolve around the idea of globalization. This term, idea, or concept poses many negativities to the gender of women. Despite the media and the common portrayal that the idea of globalization is a positive thing for the world, in many instances it is causing great negativity for people, specifically women. Globalization can be applied to many aspects of culture but many times it is applied in terms of economics. In the patriarchal world in which exists when speaking about economics it is typically a male centered conversation due to the males typically being in lead roles of the work force despite many women in this country and well across borders in other countries being very highly educated and capable of carrying out such jobs. Many of these women who seek to be educated and successful in the workforce do not achieve their goals and fall back into their gender roles which goes against their personal goals. This was demonstrated very well by the case study of “Clashing Dreams: Highly Educated Overseas Brides and Low-Wage U.S. Husbands” written by Hung Cam Thai. Not only are these brides in which are talked about in this essay failing at their personal goals they are also failing at the goals in which Estelle B. Freedman discusses in her book No Turning Back. In this work she speaks much about transnational feminism and the objectives in which much be met to obtain equality rights for women transnational. The link between Freedman’s work and the study of Vietnamese brides marrying transnational is undeniable not for positive outcomes but for negative. By linking these two works not only will it show what needs to be done for women to obtain equal ri...
Many women have protested against the poor compensation, and have been fired from their jobs; being placed on a blacklist preventing them from ever getting work again. The country’s ports are lined with the factories of high-profile companies, all of which are available to wealthy corporations at low cost.
bank, W. (2010). Migration and Skills: The Experience of Migrant Workers from Albania, Egypt, Moldova, and Tunisia. World Bank Publications.
Women in today’s society face many adversities. In this essay I will discuss fact versus stereotypical perceptions about the various social and economic problems women must face everyday. I grew up on the Upper East Side in Manhattan mostly comprised of wealthy, socialite families. I attended The Convent of Sacred Heart, also one of the top, private, all girl schools in Manhattan. The majority of the students come from very privileged families and are, more often than not, very spoiled and naïve to the world around them. While I was attending High School, I found it very hard to make friends with some of the students that went to Sacred Heart. I hated the way “rich kids” thought. They always spoke about Welfare and made absurd comments about how it should not exist because the people feeding of their tax dollars were nothing but the bottom-feeders in the world. The people I was surrounded by could never move past the fallacies their parents would talk about. They never realized that many people on welfare struggled. These unfortunate people were not lazy; they weren’t all drug dealers and prostitutes that just kept getting pregnant so that the city would write them a check every month. The only thing they were guilty of was being born a minority and from birth, growing up in some of the worst conditions imaginable.