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Incongruous objectives? Endeavouring to realise women migrant workers’ rights through the global development agenda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2020

Jenna Holliday
Jenna Holliday*
Affiliation:
Independent Gender and Migration Specialist; Member of the Expert Working Group on addressing women's rights in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, UK
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Recent decades have seen improvements in our understanding of the gendered dynamics of migration and how they affect women migrant workers. Whilst characterised by precarity, women's labour migration is recognised as contributing to positive developmental outcomes. The full dimensions of these contributions are not yet well understood, but the need to improve the situation of women migrant workers is. Through analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), this paper examines the global development agenda to assess the extent to which it recognises the gendered dimensions of migration and seeks to realise the rights of women migrant workers as development actors. Drawing on content analysis of the SDGs and a review of the GCM, the paper finds that, while their content provides potential for states to strengthen their evidence base and establish progressive policy agendas and practice interventions to realise women migrant workers’ rights, the measures for implementation and monitoring of these frameworks reduce the likelihood of this potential being realised.

Keywords

international lawgendermigrationdevelopmentGlobal Compact for SafeOrderly and Regular MigrationSustainable Development Goals
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 16 , Special Issue 3: Migrants' Rights Finally Front and Centre of the International Agenda? Exploring the Perils and Possibilities of the SDGs and the GCM , September 2020 , pp. 269 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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