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The first Dialogue, “Gender, Migration and Development: Towards a participatory research framework,” was attended by over 90 academics and researchers from universities, think tanks, and international organizations. It aimed to encourage debate around women's participation in migratory flows and women’s contribution to development, and also to enrich UN-INSTRAW's research and public policy advocacy with new perspectives, ideas and priorities.

Over 220 participants from government, academia, international and non-governmental organizations from over 40 countries took part in the second discussion “Gender, Migration and Development: Creating gender-sensitive migration policy. ” It aimed to identify migration policy challenges and priorities, collect experiences worldwide and strengthen existing networks among experts in the field.
One of the outcomes of the two virtual dialogues was the creation of a virtual community of experts on the issues of gender, migration and development. In 2009, this network will be established as a more permanent community through regular interaction, reflection, evaluation, dialogue and exchange of information about the gender dimensions of migration and its impact on development.

During the dialogues, participants agreed that researchers, policy-makers and NGOs must take gender into account when looking at international and internal migrations. Aside from a lack of political will to address migration issues, participants also highlighted the lack of migration policies that consider gender perspectives or the often unique situation of women migrants.
In both discussions, experts stressed the need to ‘centre on the migrant,’ including asking why people migrate in the first place. Nandita Sharma of the University of Hawaii noted the absurdity of the relationship between State policies that “on the one hand, lead to people’s displacement and subsequent migration and, on the other hand, limit their opportunities to do so with any semblance of rights and entitlements in the places to which they migrate.”

Centring on the migrant also means addressing the immigration policies of destination countries, which often make migrants more vulnerable, as well as addressing how differential access to resources and global capitalist relations are gendered.

In 2003, UN-INSTRAW established its programme Gender, Migration and Development, in order to analyze:
- What contribution women migrants have made to the development of their home countries and the fight against poverty.
- How strategies in managing remittances can be adjusted to reduce gender inequalities.

Thus far, studies on 5 migratory flows have been published:
1. Philippines to Italy
2. Dominican Republic to Spain
3. Columbia to Spain
4. Guatemala to U.S.A
5. SADC to South Africa.

Read the results of “Towards a Participatory Research Framework ”
Download the main outcomes of “Creating Gender Sensitive Migration Policy ”.

It also means recognizing that migrants themselves best know their situations and are best able to identify their needs, and thus should be active participants in consultations on migration policies in both countries of origin and destination.
Participants further remarked that the lack of political will to create migration policies that care about migrants “could at least be partially met by a renewed commitment on the part of civil society to uphold human, economic and social rights standards and the development of networking strategies to build capacity to work in this area,” said Don Flynn of Migrants’ Rights Network.

As Joshi Shrestha of UNIFEM Nepal stated, media are also a crucial actors in influencing public opinion on the issue of women’s migration and migrants’ rights: “Media was very negative on the issue of women migrant workers but after a series of interventions, training, creating space to interface with returnees, the media has become one of the key stakeholders to lobby for women migrant workers' rights.”
Greater co-operation and co-ordination between all actors involved in migration is needed: between the governments of countries of origin and destination, between levels and ministries of governments and between researchers and policy-makers.
Finally, more research is crucial. Only when women’s migration issues are studied can “we start to think about migration policies that concern them,” said Elisabeth Roberts, Expert in Gender, Migration and Development at UN-INSTRAW.

Visit the discussions’ website
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For more information please contact Laura Olsen
Press contact: Valeria Vilardo, Communication Associate
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Gender is essential to understanding migration. It shapes migrations’ causes, patterns, processes, impacts and the subjective personal experience of migrants

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