Women migrants, women organizers at the PGA, leading the struggle for justice & human rights

By Laura Rivas

This is Day 3 of the fifth People´s Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights in Mexico City.

This morning, we heard from Ana Avendaño [who works for the AFL] and William Gois [from Migrant Forum Asia] among others who spoke about the challenges we face to link issues across social justice movements and to create opportunities to work together to continue pushing for changes in policies affecting migrants and immigrants around the world.

So far, the highlight of the PGA for me has been participating in the workshop on Gender and Migration, held last night at the Ex Convent of San Hipólito, among the ghosts of women who have walked these hallways and traversed these corridors.

Women and men from communities around the world including the Philippines, Mexico, Korea, India, Africa, and the U.S. shared stories of women migrants impacted severely by inhumane repressive migration policies, and violence across the spectrum of family, work, community, the state and its agencies, and in transit from their home countries to the country of destination.

Quite literally, "from the womb to the workplace," women migrants experience human rights abuses and rights violations on a personal, physical, political, cultural, religious, and legal/constitutional level.

But as one of the sisters shared, we have a big task ahead of us, not only to ensure that a strong gender lens is cast over the broader discussions on migration, development, and human rights but also that as organizers, human rights defenders, advocates, activists, and community members, we make a commitment to work together to raise the voices of migrant women across the globe for justice and human rights.

| Laura Rivas co-coordinates the NNIRR's HURRICANE initiative (Human Rights Community Action Network) and organizes with community groups to document human rights violations and abuses. Photographs by Arnoldo García. |