World: More Women Migrants, More at Risk

from IPS News:

More women than ever, about 90 million, are living outside their countries of origin, where most of them are at risk of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation, says the United Nations in a report marking International Migrants Day.

''Whether they are labour migrants, family migrants, trafficked persons or refugees, they face the triple burden of being female, foreign and, often, working in dangerous occupations,'' says the 89-page 'World Survey on the Role of Women in Development'.
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Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) says women and girls dominate in many of these migrant labour flows, going into domestic service, low-paid sweatshop industries, street begging and commercial sex work.
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The study says migrant women boost economic development in both their country of destination and at home, through financial contributions from remittances, improving their own skills or helping to improve the education skills of the next generation.

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