THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION: WOMEN MIGRANT WORKERS

We can understand, how nowadays the flows of people going from some parts of the world toward others is increasing. This has ocurred mainly due to expanding differences between the developed and the developing worlds, evidenced primarly on the standard of living, and the well-being of the populations. This trend has created the need for an organization that can comprise the group of migrants in the world which is a big ammount (214 million estimates). The mission functions of that international organization that helps and supports that set of individuals whose life sometimes depends on it, as it´s the case of refugees, is detailed as follows...

- Assist in meeting the growing operational challenges of migration management.
- Advance understanding of migration issues.
- Encourage social and economic development through migration.
- Uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants.

The name of that institution is the INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION, an institution founded in 1951 which is headquartered in Geneve and actually has 125 member states. It is also very important to highlight the new wave of migration in today´s world, one that was not very often in the past, but nowadays has huge impact not only on governments but also on the people. It is the ENVIRONMENTAL MIGRATION, or the migration that is caused due to climate change, such as the one ocurring in Pakistan where the floods have reached record levels that were never registered before, harming crops and shelter and therefore people´s life. It is a matter of responsability because the global warming is basically caused by the poluting emissions from developed economies, but the atmosphere is shared by every individual, so the consequences of poluting the atmosphere are shared by every individual as well, can be that individual responsible or not responsible for the actions that caused damages into our natural resources.

THE CASE OF WOMEN

The previous without mentioning the hundreds of women that go abroad, leaving their countries of origin under the prospect of a better life, but actually end up in prostitution activities, or the people that work as slaves just because they do not know the rights they have as humans wherever they can be at any moment. I think this help us understand the importance of the IOM and the focus of its activities.

The OIM develops some projects to support migrant women such as the one carried out in Italy to engage West African women migrants in the development of their countries of origin through Investment and Business Creation. The projects will build on this by supporting West African women migrants interested in committing all or part of their remittances to establish small and medium enterprises through joint ventures with Italian partners and host communites, this with the idea of making a more effective use of remittances.

The Organization also combats the traficking of women and girls through networks for assisting women affected by migration and also through the prevention of such problems. The networks are among institutions of national scope as the Mexican National Women Institute, and supranational entities as the Inter-American Women´s commission of the Organization of American States. These programs are intended to prevent the case of traficking by pressuring local government legislation, and also by encouraging the internatinal cooperation to fight criminal groups of human traficking.

References

- International Organization for Migration. Retrieved on 05 of October of 2010, From International Organization for Migrantion Website. http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/lang/en/pid/1

- http://unheardnomore.blogspot.com/2008/08/ending-human-traficking-in-cnmi.html