Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The UNFPA last week launched its report State of world population 2006, a matter of some interest to a number of us in the chamber—in particular, Senator Moore. The report is entitled A passage to hope: women and international migration. I was very pleased to be involved in a very minor way with the launch and the associated seminar held in this building last week by the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development. I congratulate the leadership of the group, its members and the staff of the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance on their assistance in bringing that event about.

Although it is not often acknowledged, over half of all international migrants are women and children. That seems like a fairly obvious statistic but it does not often make up part of the popular debate on the question. And often immigration policy and debate ignores the specific rights and needs of those two groups in particular—ironic, given that, in so many cases, they are the most vulnerable parties in the migration process. Their concerns will be specifically taken into account when governments come together for the first-ever UN meeting on international migration and development in New York later this week.

The number of people living outside their country of birth has almost doubled during the last 50 years, reaching 191 million in 2005. And today, as I said, nearly half of all international migrants—over 94 million individuals—are women. They remain largely invisible in debate and policy, yet they outnumber male migrants in most regions of the world, and that includes the major destinations of Europe, North America and Oceania.

Well-managed migration, on any analysis, can be a win-win situation and more so, I think, when the contributions of women and children are maximised. Migrant women and children can be responsible for energising the economies of both their destinations and their countries of origin. It is interesting to note that female migrant workers contribute substantially to the more than $US230 billion in official remittances world wide as of 2005. Those are the funds that they send back to their countries of origin. This money can lift families and communities out of poverty, raise standards of living, improve education and health care for children and provide for impoverished ageing parents. Even much more fundamentally, it can serve as an investment to start up businesses, build houses and build community infrastructure.

It is true to say, without exploring this too far, that men and women spend very differently. When women control the use of remittances, they usually spend the money on their children before they spend it on themselves. They send a higher share of their earnings home than their male counterparts. But they still face discrimination. They face limited power when it comes to making financial decisions, or accessing credit and banking services, or even owning property and land. And that, consequently, limits their possibilities for investing in productive, income- and employment-generating activities.

Female migrants also contribute to the quality of life and productivity of what are known as ‘receiving countries’. They make payments into the tax collection and pension systems. For example, you might find that nurses—overwhelmingly, female nurses—migrate to fill critical health shortages in wealthier countries, many of which have ageing populations that further fuel the demand for their services.

It is fair to say, though, in any analysis of this very compelling report, that migrant women face double discrimination across the world, both as women and as migrants. Many, especially those who are low skilled, are subject to violence, are the victims of sexual exploitation, and are subject to poor working conditions and low pay. They often suffer from poor reproductive health and heightened exposure to HIV-AIDS.

Through the focus on women, this UNFPA report has paid particular attention also to the impact of trafficking upon women and their global movements. The realities and needs of migrant women highlight the persistence of poverty and gender inequality and the very dark side of this aspect of globalisation. Women may be desperate to find work, to look after their families and to maintain themselves, even if it means relocating to another country, and they end up being very easy prey for traffickers. Many trafficking victims are often very young women in search of employment, and they may also have children to provide for.

Trafficked women, it is clear from the evidence, are usually forced into sex work, hard domestic work or even sweatshop labour. Sadly, human trafficking is the world’s third most profitable criminal business after traffic in arms and drugs, and is a major source of organised-crime revenue. It is estimated that $US7 billion to $US12 billion annually is generated, which only reflects profits from the initial sale of persons. Once victims are in a destination country, traffickers are reported to net an additional $US32 billion a year, according to the assessments of the International Labour Organisation.

Between 600,000 and 800,000 women, men and children are trafficked across international borders each year, mostly for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. Of these, the majority—up to 80 per cent—are women and girls; in fact, up to 50 per cent are children.

These are the very heavy human costs of the dark side or the downside of migration, but they can be averted. It will take stronger measures which will empower migrant women and protect their rights, and many migrant women are completely unaware of their rights. They need access to information in their own languages to understand their legal entitlements and where they can seek support or protection or recourse to justice. Often, migrant women refrain from using health services or reporting abuse. Culturally sensitive community outreach programs and services, especially those targeted to reproductive health and rights, HIV and gender-based violence, are able to encourage and support them in making use of available resources that are critical to their safety and wellbeing.

Married women, whose visa status might even depend on, perhaps, an abusive husband, may be caught in what is known as the ‘dependency trap’. They fear that reporting an abuser in that situation can result in losing their visa sponsorship, or their custodial rights where children are concerned, and they can be unfairly forced to choose between their own safety and the risk of deportation and losing their children.

Migration is an extraordinarily complex issue. But one thing is clear, from this report and from so many other experiences: gender does play a key role in shaping the migration experience. In that story, though, women’s concerns and rights have remained mostly outside the purview of public laws and policies because so many abuses can be hidden in private homes, in workplaces and so on. What the report makes clear is that it is really time to make visible the invisible and recognise the very significant role that women play in international migration.

At last week’s launch of the report and the following seminar, Amanda Vanstone, as Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, made some remarks. It is important that her observations in relation to the women at risk visa which Australia provides be reported and reproduced in the Senate. That was a visa which Australia introduced in 1989 in recognition of the priority given by UNHCR to the protection of refugee women. It is a visa specifically for female applicants who are subject to persecution or are registered as being of concern to the UNHCR. To qualify, an applicant needs to be outside their home country, to not have the protection of a male relative, and to be in danger of victimisation, harassment or serious abuse because of their sex. In my own office, I have explored this as a result of representations made to me on behalf of women in various parts of the world.

These women are granted permanent resettlement in Australia. They are eligible to receive a range of settlement services on arrival. They are given priority access to torture and trauma counselling services to help them rebuild their lives. That reflects some of the areas of challenge which I identified in my earlier remarks about the difficulties faced by many migrant women, particularly those who come from circumstances of crisis.

In 2005-06, a total of 995 visas—or almost 17 per cent of the total number of refugee visas in Australia—were granted to women at risk. That brings to over 7,000 the number of women at risk that the program has helped since its inception. I think that is a very important aspect of our humanitarian program.

I want to finish with some remarks about a visit I made some two years ago to Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya with two colleagues from the lower house. It is an extraordinary place where men, women and children every day face remarkable challenges. Meeting with the chairladies of the Kakuma refugee camp, who have taken upon themselves the coordination and leadership for the women in that area, showed me what can be done by the strength of women in most extraordinarily adverse circumstances. They were women of which to be proud.