Women Migrants Advocacy in Latin America: IDRC migration, gender and social justice project

The seminar aims to present the research project Women Migrants Advocacy in Latin America and its advances in relation to the case study on Mexico. The project seeks to contribute to knowledge of the processes that both inhibit or encourage social and economic integration of migrant women in their places of destination, and to identify specific forms of protection and promotion of rights of migrants. In particular, the project analyses the conditions of Guatemalan women migrants that arrive in Mexico for various reasons, and who are directly linked to the labour market throughout participation or exclusion from its possibilities. To date, knowledge on these migrants’ socio-demographic characteristics, needs as human beings, social and economic conditions, and possibilities of integration and social inclusion in the places of arrival in Mexico is still fragmented.

Based on these women own testimonies, the research findings confirm problems of social and economic integration they face in Mexico. In particular, it is noted that these women have faced different degrees of access to economic and social rights depending on: their immigration status (with or without immigration documents), their social class and ethnicity (being indigenous or not), the place they inhabit and the type of migration flow in which they are involved. These women face multiple types of discrimination and economic hardship, but there is a general  problem of access to accurate information, social networks and access to social organizations, which could support them in finding options for reporting abuse, achieve justice, associate with others without fear, or just to have chats to find guidance.

This is an issue of prime relevance in Mexico after the enactment of an immigration law that for the first time explicitly guarantee social and civil rights to migrants regardless of their immigration status.

Martha Luz Rojas Wiesner is a PhD in Sociology from El Colegio de Mexico. She works as a researcher in the Area Society, Culture and Health of El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) since 1998 in the city of Tapachula, Chiapas, where she conducts research on female migration in the southern border of Mexico. In particular, she is interested in documenting the lives and work of women, children and adolescents who come from Guatemala, investigating the migrant’s problems to access their rights.

Martha Rojas is coming as visiting researcher in ISS, as part of the activities of the project on “Migration, Gender and Social Justice” financed by IDRC.  More information about the project available in: http://www.iss.nl/research/research_programmes/international_migration_and_human_security/projects/idrc/

Further info:

For more information contact Roy Huijsmans