Today, women represent nearly half of the world's international migrants.
There are 95 million female migrants. These women leave their country for different reasons: to join their husband, to flee political or religious persecutions, to seek a more favourable economic situation, etc.
“Women and girls, especially when forced to migrate or when in an irregular situation, are disproportionately affected by the risks of migration because of their vulnerability to exploitation and violence”, said International Office of Migrations (OIM) Deputy Director General, Ndioro Ndiaye, on the occasion of International Woman's Day.
Recent European studies reveal that the lack of legal status (e.g. in cases of undocumented aliens) keeps these women from accessing prenatal care and raises the risk of physical and sexual abuse against them. This phenomenon is all the more disturbing since these women are more prone to unwanted pregnancies, because they are subjected to sexual abuse, and have no access to family planning or education.
Sources: International Organisation for Migration (IOM)
At least 12.3 million people around the world are trapped in forced labour. Forced labour takes different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery. It targets the most vulnerable victims – women and girls forced into prostitution, migrants trapped in debt bondage, and sweatshop or farm workers kept there by clearly illegal tactics (e.g. confiscated ID papers) and paid little or nothing.
Source: adapted from ILO http://www.ilo.org/global/Themes/Forced_Labour/lang--en/index.htm
Modern slavery may for instance take the form of domestic bondage.
Women, men and children who work as domestic workers may be subjected to degrading living and working conditions, equivalent to the conditions experienced by victims of slavery. Because this target group works in the privacy of the home, the abuse is usually “invisible”, and often difficult to detect and tackle.
Victims are recruited in their home country directly by employers who promise a well-paid job, or schooling in Europe in the case of minors. Some are recruited via employment agencies, in particular as domestic staff workers for diplomats, in which case the employer is protected by diplomatic immunity and court actions often prove to be virtually impossible.
Source: adapted and/or translated from Victims of trafficking http://victimsoftrafficking.esclavagemoderne.org/UK/index.html
Sexual violence is a pervasive global health and human rights problem. In some countries approximately one in four women may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner. Sexual violence has profound immediate and long-term consequences on women's physical and mental health.
Source: WHO http://www.who.int/gender/violence/sexual_violence/en/index.html
The following may be qualified as sexual violence:
- Rape or attempted rape
- Sexual assaults
- Incest
- Sexual harassment
- Paedophilia
- Female genital mutilation
- and any other forms of non-consensual sexual physical abuse