Why don’t we help them?
Migrant women all over the world are being mistreated instead of helped by their receiving communities.
Created by Caroline Long| Martin | feli.carrique
Women trying to get to the U.S are getting raped in Mexico. Women trying to make a living in other countries are becoming slave sex-workers for human trafficking networks in South America. Middle-Eastern woman refugees are being abused in Europe. Why aren’t we helping them?
The way media represents endangered migrants differs from the way they treat successful immigrants. People do not discriminate against those who are known: celebrities are relatable and are looked up to in society. But not all migrants treated the same by the media and society.
We compared the language in articles about famous woman migrants to unfamiliar migrants. The larger the word is the more it appears in the media pieces. The word cloud on the left contains words found in celebrity articles and the one on the right contains words used to describe endangered migrants.
Words like smuggler, exploitation, violence and sex appear frequently in articles about woman migrating or seeking asylum. These stories show the issue of abuse and mistreatment upon women migrants during their journey and still, when they arrive to their destination countries.
According to UNHCR, the world today is going through the largest refugee crisis since World War II. One of the most prominent areas for migrants is Mexico and Central America. Hundreds of woman are fleeding to the United States from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and some areas of Mexico due to conflict and violations of human rights.
Maria is from El Salvador. She fled her country with a friend to try and get to the United States. She was captured by Mexican authorities who raped them for several months. Her friend coudn´t handle the situation and returned to El Salvador. She was killed the moment she got there.
Since 2008, the UNHCR has registered an increase of 500% the number of asylum seekers who arrive to the U.S from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. During the same period, the number of asylum applications has tripled in Central America and Mexico.
6 out of 10 women traveling through Mexico to get to the United States get raped. — Amnesty International
These victims are too afraid to come forward both because of the stigma that’s associated with rape and the fact that they fear being sent back home. This behavior is repeated in woman migrating all over the world.
Situation is no different for migrants travelling from Africa and The Middle East to Europe. Females travelling allone encounter themselves with risks, human trafficking networks and abuse through their whole journey.
Saron fleed Etiopia because she was being prosecuted by the government for reporting on violence on the media. She was detained there. She was abused by a police officer. She travelled to UK seeking asylum but she was detained by migration police. The officers there forced her to go to the toilet with her door opened and watched her every move.
Amnesty International interviewed 40 refugees traveling from Turkey to Greece and across the Balkans and discovered women feel threatened and unsafe. Many of the interviewed women revealed they had experienced physical abuse and financial exploitation in all the countries they passed through.
At the hotel in Turkey, one of the men working with the smuggler, a Syrian man, said if I sleep with him, I will not pay or pay less. Of course I said no, it was disgusting. The same happened in Jordan to all of us.
Hala, a 23-year-old woman from Aleppo. Amnesty International.
These women went through war and violence in their countries and instead of being taken care of they have been abused during their journey and still in their destination countries.
I never got the chance to sleep in settlements. I was too scared that anyone would touch me. The tents were all mixed and I witnessed violence… I felt safer in movements, especially on the bus, the only place I could shut my eyes and sleep. In the camps we are so prone to being touched, and women can’t really complain and they don’t want to cause issues to disrupt their trip.
Reem, a 20-year-old from Syria. Amnesty International.
Half of the migrants all over the world are women and, according to the International Organization for Migration, it is now understood that a person’s sex, gender identity and sexual orientation shape every stage of the migration experience.
“With few avenues for safe passage to seek asylum, refugees are exposed to exploitation and abuse, and their needs left without an adequate response”, said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi.
Migrants find themselves in vulnerable situations where they are not able to report crimes committed against them. Either because they feel ashamed of what happened or because they are afraid to be sent to their origin countries again.
For women, migration is much more complicated. Different NGO’s and Human Rights organizations agree that for those travelling without legal status the journey can become a nightmare. Remote areas or non-passenger trains are scenerarios for criminal gangs, people traffickers, other migrants and corrupt officials to take advantage of them.
Amnesty International even reports than “some smugglers may require women to have contraceptive injection prior to the journey as a precaution against pregnancy resulting from rape”.
Thousands of women migrants go through difficult experiences but when they are accepted and well treated by their receiving communities a lot can be achieved. Accepting an other, sharing their culture and bonding can do a long way. All migrants may not be famous people but we are all human.
*This personal narrative was written at the 2016 Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. It exists as part of a digital publication called MOVE which aims to educate readers on the social, political, and cultural impacts of global migration. All stories published in MOVE were created at the 2016 Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change by students and faculty from around the world.
