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Ethiopian Migrant Domestic Workers pp 25–51Cite as

‘We Are Like Oil to Our Government’

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Part of the book series: Mobility & Politics ((MPP))

Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which the unequally gendered structures of opportunity in Ethiopia drive and sustain the migration of women to the Middle East. The chapter begins by situating the migration trajectory of Ethiopian women in the context of broader trends of migration within and from Ethiopia, analysing how migration patterns are gendered in terms of legality, direction, and duration. I go on to argue that the gender differentiation in demographic changes, unemployment, and education cumulatively produce structural conditions in Ethiopia that are drivers of young women’s migration. The chapter then assesses the Ethiopian government’s policies towards migration, which seek to regulate and restrict migration. The central paradox that the chapter exposes is that, on the one hand, structural conditions in Ethiopia propel the migration of women, which is critical to the survival of the women and their families. On the other hand, the Ethiopian government’s legislation to regulate migration seeks to restrict and control the mobility of women without adequately supporting or protecting those who do migrate. The chapter ends with an outline of the regular and irregular pathways through which women migrate.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Villagisation in Ethiopia was a socialist programme begun during the Derg regime in the 1980s to forcibly relocate large segments of the rural population into new village settlements that were re-organised spatially into grid-patterns, and politically and economically into agricultural collectives.

  2. 2.

    As reported in Al Jazeera, see https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/saudi-arabia-release-1000-ethiopian-prisoners-180520053522987.html.

  3. 3.

    From 15.7 years for women aged 45–49 to 18.1 years for women between 20 and 24 (Teller et al. 2011: 51).

  4. 4.

    Data from http://uis.unesco.org/country/ET, accessed 20 December 2018.

  5. 5.

    Young Lives is a major international longitudinal research project on child poverty which follows the lives of children growing up in four countries. In Ethiopia, the study focussed on a cohort of children born in 1994. See https://www.younglives.org.uk.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia

    Bina Fernandez

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  1. Bina Fernandez
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Correspondence to Bina Fernandez .

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Fernandez, B. (2020). ‘We Are Like Oil to Our Government’. In: Ethiopian Migrant Domestic Workers. Mobility & Politics. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24055-4_2

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