Migration opens opportunities for higher income, independence and better quality of life. However, many women migrant workers continue to face direct and indirect discrimination in accessing safe migration pathways, decent work, services and social protection. Factors which continue to inhibit progress towards gender equality and empowerment of women migrant workers, and which were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, include gendered division of labor; lower wages in feminized sectors; exclusions to full labor and social protection; a lack of gender-responsive information and training.

These conditions and their intersecting with multiple forms of discrimination and stigmatization accentuates the risks of women migrants to various forms of violence in countries of origin, transit, destination, and return, at any stage of the migration process. Changes to tackle violence against women migrants is slowly occurring, but too often protection is insufficient or simply lacking. A lot still needs to be done to establish preventive mechanisms to halt violence against women migrants and provide the necessary services for women subjected to violence in the migration cycle. This panel just one day after the end of the Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (25 November – 10 December) signifies our commitment to this urgent cause that needs to continue every normal day.

The panel and short documentary screening at SEA Junction on 11 December 2024 at 5.30 – 7 pm highlighted this issue, focusing particularly on strategies to prevent and tackle all forms of violence against women migrant workers. Before the panel, the short film “Women’s Voices” by Sreyashi Ghosh was screened to set the context of violence against women by listening to the voices of women from backgrounds and experiences, yet all facing instances of gender and other forms of violence, including domestic violence and trafficking, in their lives.

Speakers and Moderator

Sreyashi Ghosh is an American writer, documentary filmmaker, and social activist. Sreyashi worked at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva and field experiences across Asia and Africa inspired the documentary Women’s Voices. Sreyashi has worked with children of sex workers and women prisoners. She studied at the University of Warwick, UK and Rutgers, USA before starting her own project PEACEmode 365 of promoting social issues through art.

Hsu Nandar Aung is a humanitarian worker who worked with MedAcross Nonprofit Organization along the Kawthuang-Ranong border, providing sexual and reproductive health services to internal and cross-border migrants. Later with Médecins Sans Frontières-Holland focused on internal migrants and female sex workers in the border regions of Rakhine, Shan, and Kachin States. Currently, she is studying at IPSR.

Rebecca Napier-Moore is serving as Technical Officer, TRIANGLE in ASEAN and Migrant Advocacy for Rights, ILO Country Office for Thailand, Cambodia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Formerly, she was an independent researcher, specializing in migration, gender equality, and labour practices.

Sara Piazzano, is a development executive specializing in anti-human trafficking, migration, and gender-related initiatives across Asia, notably in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Currently, she leads a regional counter-trafficking program at Winrock International, coordinating USAID projects across Asia, offering guidance, fostering networks, and identifying best practices.

Moderator

Rosalia Sciortino is an associate professor at IPSR, Mahidol University; Visiting Professor at the International Development Studies program, Chulalongkorn University; and Director of SEA Junction (seajunction.org). She has served as IDRC Regional Director for Southeast and East Asia (2010–2014), Senior Adviser to AusAID in Indonesia (2009–2010), Asia Regional Director of the Rockefeller Foundation (2000–2007) and program officer at the Indonesia and Philippines offices of the Ford Foundation (1993–2000).

Photographer: Chawin Chantalikit, Vinissa Kattiya-aree