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Gendering Migration Management

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The International Organization for Migration

Part of the book series: International Political Economy Series ((IPES))

Abstract

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) formally adopted the principle of gender mainstreaming in 1995, at the same time as it embraced its new mandate in Toward the 21st Century. This chapter examines the process of ‘gendering’ the IOM, with particular attention to its understanding of transnational care chains. It argues that, in many ways, the IOM’s gender discourse has been shaped to fit the IOM’s migration management discourse, a discourse that forms part of the broader international migration narrative. On the issue of transnational care chains, however, the IOM has commissioned a set of important studies that break with the gendered subset of these narratives. The IOM’s closer relationship with the UN also holds the promise of increasing the impact of the more critical discourse on its field operations.

Research for this chapter was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada through the partnership grant on Gender Migration and the Work of Care. I benefited from research assistance of Masaya Llavaneras-Blanco and Sara Rose Taylor. Any errors or misunderstandings however are mine alone.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term ‘femocrat’ originated in Australia during the 1970s when numerous feminists were recruited into middle- and senior-level positions of government to advance women’s equality (Sawer 1990, 22). The term is now used to refer to those recruited into official positions because of their expertise on gender equality issues.

  2. 2.

    I am not claiming that the migration of women is a new phenomenon (see Schrover 2013 on earlier movements). Rather, I am referring to the ‘discovery’ of women as migrant workers that began in the 1990s (Mahon 2018).

  3. 3.

    See Mahon and Michel (2017) on the ILO and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Mahon (2018) on the OECD and the World Bank.

  4. 4.

    See, for instance, Mahon and Michel (2017) and Mahon (2018) on the way these narratives appear in the discourse of the ILO, the World Bank and the OECD.

  5. 5.

    For this study, I have drawn on documentary evidence from the IOM. In addition to the annual reports for the IOM’s Council, these include the 1998 document on gender mainstreaming, the 2006 Evaluation of Gender Mainstreaming in the IOM, the IOM Gender Equality Policy 2015–2019, several key research reports commissioned by the Gender Unit, annual World Migration Reports and other Council documents.

  6. 6.

    The report also noted that ‘the former Deputy-Director (1994–1999) [Natalia Escala] already played a leading role in the development and implementation of IOM’s new gender policy strategy’ (10).

  7. 7.

    On gender strategies within the UN, see Hannan (2013).

  8. 8.

    This is not meant to suggest that all women migrant workers are employed in care work or that all women migrants leave behind young children or ageing parents. In areas like the Asia-Pacific, however, migrant domestic workers make up nearly one in five of all migrant workers in the region (ILO 2015, 16). The majority of these are women.

  9. 9.

    For instance, this is the dominant view within the World Bank and the OECD’s Development Centre (Mahon 2018).

  10. 10.

    Along with the 2003 and 2005 reports, this was one of the better reports with regard to incorporating gender into its analysis.

  11. 11.

    The IOM Gender Coordinating Unit is an active member of the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality as well as the informal network of Geneva-based UN gender advisors (IOM CRP/36 2011, 3).

  12. 12.

    Some examples are its 2009 participation in a day of general discussion of migrant domestic workers, the 2011 support documentation on domestic workers for the regional (Jamaican) Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) meeting with UN Women and participation in the joint UN Women-EU dialogue on domestic workers on International Women’s day that same year.

  13. 13.

    The IOM was appointed to service the negotiations, along with the UN Secretariat. It has also been given responsibility for coordinating the regional consultations with civil society groups.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Balsillie School of International Affairs and Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Rianne Mahon

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  1. Rianne Mahon
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

    Martin Geiger

  2. University of Sorbonne Paris Nord, Paris, France

    Antoine Pécoud

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Mahon, R. (2020). Gendering Migration Management. In: Geiger, M., Pécoud, A. (eds) The International Organization for Migration. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32976-1_3

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