Family, Migration and Dignity

Abstract The paper draws from the experiences of the City of Johannesburg, South Africa, to examine the way an emerging democracy can on one hand respond to the challenges faced by the families of its own citizens and on the other hand those faced by the migrant community. It further looks at the costs of not prioritising the needs of the migrant families and the manner in which community integration strategies can ass Read More

Abstract Article 16.3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “[t]he family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” This task has become a lot more challenging in the age of migration, particularly under a migration regime wherein only workers are allowed admission to another country under specific terms while their family members are l Read More

Abstract Civil society, international organizations and governments have invested much in looking at issues of feminization of migration (i.e., women migrants), child migrants, migrant workers, etc. While absolutely proper subjects for urgent attention and change, too much of the discussion of immigration has become atomized, neglecting the further reality that these men, women and children are also members o Read More

A Story On one of my trips abroad I found myself in transit at Amsterdam airport. It is not an enjoyable experience (to say the least) on the best of flights, but this one experience will be one I continue to remember with a mixed sense of pain and disillusionment. Airport security controls are not something unfamiliar to me, and again, I braced myself as I carefully unpacked the dubious objects from my handbag—a clear plastic b Read More

Abstract The issue of highly skilled and trained migrants not being able to practice or find employment in their chosen profession has become an increasingly relevant and public issue in recent years. In many major immigrant destination countries, unemployment and underemployment rates for immigrants have continued to creep upwards and immigrant outcomes have declined in comparison to native-born workers. This is Read More

Abstract As is now acknowledged by many, the migration of women is far from being a new phenomenon. As early as the 1960s’, women have constituted approximately 47% of migrants. However, those women were often invisible in the eyes of academics and policy-makers, first because data was not disaggregated by sex and second because most of those migrant women were not considered as workers but as dependa Read More

Abstract Around the world, millions of children are migrating, both within and between countries—a significant number with their families, others alone. They are part of large-scale population movements currently taking place in many parts of the world. These broader population movements include an estimated 214 million international migrants (Zukang, 2009) and 740 million internal migrants (UNDP, 2009). In the coming y Read More

Abstract This paper addresses some factors influencing migrants’ social and labor market outcomes in host countries, focusing particularly on the case of Paraguayan migration to Argentina. In the first decades of the 20th century, Latin America and the Caribbean received 15% of total migrant flows1. In Argentina, in 1919, migrants represented 30% of the population, although this proportion diminished in the following Read More

Abstract This paper explores the importance of the family and the role it plays in migration, especially from considering the influence and the impact these dynamics have on the overall well being of the child. In doing so, the paper also takes an opportunistic approach to discussing some untested views about migration, families and children and cautions utilizing them as the basis of policy formulation and programmatic in Read More

Transcript of lecture given 28 March 2012 To begin, it is no coincidence that this week a meeting of the Regional Conference on Migration—which brings together countries from Central and North America—is being held in San Jose, Costa Rica. This meeting is specifically titled “Children and adolescents, migration and refugees,” and central to this topic are child trafficking, child-migrant smuggling, the migration of unaccomp Read More