Women have very little to gain when it comes to migration matters compared to men. First of all, women are known to be home makers and take care of most activities in the house. When a case of migration comes up, women are the most affected. The occupations that women have and their economic status are always affected greatly because for them to get well-paying jobs becomes so difficult.
At times, the immigration policies in some countries which women go to always tend to warrant more favorable rights and work opportunities to men. Most of the jobs that are meant for men seem to attract better remunerations.These countries are used to receiving men as opposed to women and therefore tend to set better ground rules for men. The female sectors have always tend to be riddled with poor working conditions, problems to do with insecurity, low pay, and there is always a very high potential of them being exposed to sexual abuse.
Most women can be easily subjected to sexual or any other kind of abuse like physical violence from male transporters, or better yet, fellow males whom they are travelling with. In some instances, they get abused or mistreated by border guards. The most vulnerable ones are trafficked women. This lot is especially at a very high risk because they are as they are normally completely dependent or even at times heavily rely on their traffickers who unfortunately give them with fake passports and promise them work which never materializes. The traffickers always threaten those women and in the process hurting their immediate family members back at home. By doing that to them, they always not just make them to endure those abusive situations but also to lose sorts of freedoms.
Women can at times feel very much isolated because of the restrictions that are normally imposed on them by their social norms and relations or even relatives in the spirit of persevering to some of their cultural identity in those new countries that they are visiting.
Women in most cases are particularly not just subjected but exposed to dangerous and infectious diseases yet they are never informed well about sexually transmitted diseases, like AIDS. Women are at risk particularly when they are subjected to sexual violence and also when they are lured into joining the sex industry. Another way in which these women get exposed to danger is when their migrant husbands get back home. There have been so many cases of such incidents. The spread of such deadly diseases exclusively among migrants’ communities seem to be on the rise. This is very common in both countries where these people originate from and where they go. And while we are at it, in continents like Africa, regional migration has increasingly become one of the very dominant channels of transmitting HIV/AIDs.
To ensure that there is gender equality and proper empowerment of this whole concept of migration, policies surrounding women issues have to be looked into properly. By so doing, the whole idea of migration will definitely have a serious positive impact as far as development is concerned. Such a move will make things better in many other related sectors like peace, unity, security, rights of all citizens and integration. Another easier way to ensure that women intending to migrate have better lives, concerned authorities should provide a greater access to information concerning the specific dangers that come with migration. Last but not least, I think it is necessary to tap the potential of women by making it easier for them to migrate easily and integrate.