Intimate Counter‐Spaces of Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon1

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 780-808 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amrita Pande
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Paradoxical Effects ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Politics Of Resistance ◽  
And Gender ◽  
State Restrictions ◽  
Female Migrant ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

This article examines new nodes of migrants' desire to disrupt the heteronormative focus on married mothers in the literature on migration and gender and the reification of normative notions of both gender and sexuality. It demonstrates that in the presence of intense raced and gendered surveillance of both private and public spaces in Lebanon, migrant domestic workers (MDWs) use public “counter‐spaces” to forge intimate and sexual ties. It offers the frame of intimate counter‐spaces to understand the wider politics of resistance mobilized by MDWs in their everyday lives. Intimate counter‐spaces complicate debates around public/private, sacred/sexual, and confront state restrictions on migrant workers' sexuality. Despite their subversive power, such spaces can also reinforce the hypersexualization of the female migrant and highlight the paradoxical effects of everyday subversive practices used by migrant workers, not just in Middle East and Asia, but also across the world.

scholarly journals THE ENDURING VULNERABILITY OF MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS IN EUROPE

2013 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clíodhna Murphy
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Employment Law ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Labour Standards ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Migration Law ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

AbstractWhile the rights of domestic workers are expanding in international law, including through the adoption of the ILO Domestic Workers Convention in 2011, migrant domestic workers remain particularly vulnerable to employment-related abuse and exploitation. This article explores the intersection of the employment law and migration law regimes applicable to migrant domestic workers in the United Kingdom, France and Ireland. The article suggests that the precarious immigration status of many migrant domestic workers renders employment protections, such as they exist in each jurisdiction, largely illusory in practice for this group of workers. The labour standards contained in the Domestic Workers Convention, together with the recommendations of the UN Committee on Migrant Workers on the features of an appropriate immigration regime for migrant domestic workers, are identified as providing an alternative normative model for national regulatory frameworks.

scholarly journals PERLINDUNGAN HUKUM PEKERJA MIGRAN PENATA LAKSANA RUMAH TANGGA (PLRT) DI LUAR NEGERI OLEH NEGARA DITINJAU DARI KONSEP TANGGUNG JAWAB NEGARA

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Koesrianti
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Domestic Work ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Vulnerable Group ◽  
Unfair Treatment ◽  
National Jurisdiction ◽  
The Government ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

<p align="center"><strong><em>Abstract</em></strong></p><p><em>This research discusses the legal protection of migrant workers, especially, women migrant domestic workers. Due to the nature and characteristic of domestic work, the migrant domestic workers are subject to violence, abuses, discrimination and unfair treatment when they are in destination countries. The most vulnerable group among migrant workers is women migrant domestic workers because they are women. Accordingly, the government and the stakeholders should give protection to the women migrant domestic workers regardless their status (legal or illegal) as they are stay beyond national jurisdiction of sending state.</em></p><p><strong><em>Keywords: </em></strong><em>legal protection, Migrant workers, domestic, state responsibility.</em></p><p align="center"><strong>Abstrak</strong></p><p>Penelitian ini mengkaji bentuk-bentuk perlindungan hukum yang diberikan kepada pekerja migran PLRT di luar negeri. Pekerja migran PLRT karena karakteristiknya merupakan kelompok yang sangat rentan terhadap perlakuan <em>abuse</em>, diskriminatif, dan ketidak-adilan ketika bekerja di luar negeri. Kelompok paling rentan diantara pekerja migrant adalah TKW PLRT karena keperempuannya. Konsep tanggung jawab Negara mengharuskan pemerintah memberikan perlindungan kepada TKI terlepas dari status mereka, baik legal atau illegal karena mereka berada diluar yurisdiksi Negara pengirim</p><p><strong>Kata Kunci: </strong>Perlindungan hukum, TKI, PLRT, Tanggung Jawab Negara.</p>

scholarly journals Facebook, Polymedia, Social Capital, and a Digital Family of Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers: A Case Study of The Voice of Singapore’s Invisible Hands

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-83
Author(s):  
Adriana Rahajeng Mintarsih
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Data Gathering ◽  
Transnational Migration ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Dominant Negative ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

Rarely do female migrant domestic workers (MDWs) get a chance to narrate their own migration experience. Voice of Singapore’s Invisible Hands (or The Voice), which started as a literary community on Facebook, aims to reshape the dominant—negative—discourse on migrant workers, especially Indonesian MDWs, by providing access to their literary work. In a transnational migration setting, Facebook has been used as a tool to maintain people’s relations with their families and friends back home, as well as for making new friends. Connections gained between individuals become a form of social capital where people build social networks and establish norms of reciprocity and a sense of trustworthiness. In the early establishment of The Voice, Facebook helped its initiator gain social capital. Ultimately, this social capital benefts the community and its members. Over the course of The Voice’s development, other social media platforms, namely WhatsApp, Skype, and email, have been used in addition to Facebook because they offer a different set of features and affordances of privacy and frequency. This practice of switching from one media to another is an illustration of polymedia, in which all media operate as an integrated structure and each is defned in relation to other media. This study, which focused on the relation of Facebook, polymedia, and social capital in the context of The Voice, used integrated online and offine qualitative data-gathering methodologies. The study found that Facebook initially helped both the community, which began as a learning space for Indonesian MDWs who wanted to narrate their stories about their home and family, and its members in their efforts to reshape the negative dominant discourse on migrant workers. It was the affordances of polymedia, however, that paved the way for the formation later on of a digital family in which the members provide emotional support for each other, similar to what family and close friends do.

scholarly journals Women and their Journey to Self-Empowerment: A Case Study of Six Indonesian Female Migrant Domestic Workers

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Safira Prabawidya Pusparani ◽  
Ani Widyani Soetjipto
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Migration Process ◽  
Migration Decisions ◽  
Female Migrant ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

<p>In Indonesia, female migrant domestic workers’ representations tend to contain negative meanings. Although they are named as “heroes of development”, but their position is nothing more than a commodity for the country. Such treatment makes female migrant domestic workers becomes vulnerable to violence and exploitation by employers, agents, andgovernment staff. Nevertheless, there is an alternative narrative that is rarely highlighted in literature or media, namely the representation of female migrant domestic workers as powerful actors. This paper seeks to fill in that alternative narrative by highlighting the agencies did by these six female migrant domestic workers. The author believes that by using the standpoint feminism perspective to analyze the struggle of these six female migrant domestic workers in empowering themselves after the oppression, it can be seen that agency has been manifested by female migrant domestic workers during the migration process. This study reveals the efforts of female migrant domestic workers to manifest their empowerment through migration decisions in the middle of patriarchal structures, their ability to resist structures with activism, and become agents of development and change for their communities.</p>

Islam and Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Qatar

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Jawad Syed
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Islamic Ethics ◽  
Intersectionality Theory ◽  
Multiple Identity ◽  
Female Migrants ◽  
Analyse Power ◽  
Female Migrant ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

This paper offers an Islamic perspective on the issues of female migrants, mainly in domestic work, and the Islamic ethics that pertain to their contemporary circumstances in Qatar. It uses intersectionality theory to argue that multiple identity categories of migration, ethnicity and class are important along with gender to better analyse power relations and discrimination facing female migrant domestic workers. It refers to Islamic egalitarian and humanitarian teachings as an ethical framework for legislative and cultural reforms. The paper also offers some real-life examples to illustrate the issues and challenges facing migrant domestic workers in Qatar. In the end, some recommendations and implications are offered.

scholarly journals The Case of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe: Human Rights Violations and Forward Looking Strategies

2017 ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Veronica Pavlou
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Life Issues ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Female Migrant ◽  
Forward Looking ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

<p>Female migrant domestic workers constitute one of the most vulnerable groups of workers in the international labour market as they are frequently found working and living in conditions that put their human rights at stake. They can be subjected to multiple and intersecting discriminations deriving from their gender, their status as migrants and their occupation. The aim of this article is to explore the issue of female migrant domestic workers through its human rights dimension. It first analyses the phenomenon by discussing aspects such as gender, ethnicity and migration. Secondly, it provides for an account of the International and European framework for the human rights protection of this group of migrant women. Then, some of the most important human rights concerns that the issue of female migrant domestic workers entails, such as the exploitative terms of work, the problematic living conditions and private life issues, are discussed. Finally, the article, examines suggestions that could improve the living and working conditions and the general status of female migrant domestic workers. The forward looking strategies presented are grouped in three core categories; how to prepare female migrant domestic workers for their entry to the destination country, how to protect them through migration policies and labour regulations and finally, how to empower them allowing them to develop skills and capacities for better civic participation.</p><p><strong>Published online</strong>: 11 December 2017</p>

scholarly journals Improving the Life of Former Female Migrant Domestic Workers

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 42-50
Author(s):  
Rosita Tandos
Keyword(s):  
Economic Condition ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Female Migrant ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

Some studies exploring the life of migrant domestic workers found that the main factor that push Indonesian migrant domestic workers is experiencing severe economic condition (Raharto, 2000; Silvey, 2004; Pitoyo, 2007). The poor economic condition forces women and girls to be domestic workers. Additionally, cultural value of patriarchy puts a responsibility for women at domestic area influencing the women’s ability to fill the demand of the domestic workers in overseas. This paper addresses the main topic of enhancing protection and empowerment for Indonesian female migrant domestic workers by specifically exploring the issues after working in overseas. The study exploring the life of former migrant domestic workers from Bondan village of Indramayu district using qualitative method. The informants of the study were the workers who just finished their work contract, staying at the moment in the village waiting for the next call or deciding to stop working in overseas. The number of participants was 40 women (n=40), joining focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews. The theoretical frameworks used in the study consist of human capabilities approach, feminist perspective, and social work theories of empowering individual, family, and community. Then, the discussion covers three main points: first, discussion of the theories applied in the study; second, the life of transnational domestic workers of examining abusive conditions; third, developing future practices to empowering the workers; and fourth, a part of the paper provides conclusion to whole points discussed.

Translating People and Policy: The Role of Maid Agents in Brokering between Employers and Migrant Domestic Workers in Singapore’s Migration Industry

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 992-1015
Author(s):  
Kellynn Wee ◽  
Charmian Goh ◽  
Brenda S.A. Yeoh
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Migrant Worker ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Labor Migrants ◽  
Labor Market Intermediaries ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Language Brokers ◽  
Working And Living Conditions ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

There has been a surge of recent interest in the migration industries that facilitate the movement of migrants, particularly that of low-waged laborers engaged in temporary contracts abroad. This article extends this research to include migration brokers working in destination contexts, thus drawing analytical attention to the arrival infrastructures that incorporate migrants into host societies. Based on ethnographic research involving the employment agents who recruit women migrating from Indonesia to work as migrant domestic workers in Singapore, we use the concept of “translation” as a broad theoretical metaphor to understand how brokers actively fashion knowledge between various actors, scales, interfaces, and entities. First, we argue that through the interpretation of language, brokers continually modulate meaning in the encounters between potential employers and employees at the agency shopfront, reproducing particular dynamics of power between employers and workers while coperforming the hirability of the migrant worker. Second, we show how brokers operate within the discretionary space between multiple sets of regulations in order to selectively inscribe the text of policy into migrant workers’ lives. By interrogating the process of translation and clarifying the latitude migration brokers have in shaping the working and living conditions of international labor migrants, the article contributes to the growing conceptual literature on how labor-market intermediaries contour migration markets.

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