Migration is a movement of people from one place to anotherplace either with in a country or from one country to another country for differentreasons such as movement of refugees, economic migrants, and displaced people (InternationalOrganization for Migration, 2011). Accordingto United Nation (2015), the number of international migrants has continuedincreasing from time to time.173 million in 2000, 191 million in 20005, 222million in 2010, and 244 million in 2015.Almost half of the migrants in the world today are women. The share of femalemigrants were 48 per cent in 2015(United Nation,2015 andInternational Labour Organization,2015).
The Hornof Africa became the internationally known for refugee sending region inAfrica. Ethiopia has experienced migratory flows throughout its history and wasknows as one of the largest producers of migrants in Africa (Fransen &Kuschminder, 2009).During the 1970s and 1980s, there were largest flow ofrefugees and migrants from Ethiopia especially after 1974 revolution. This ismainly due to war, political repression and persecution (Alkarib 2016 and Fransen& Kuschminder, 2009). Since the 1990sincreasing number of Ethiopian women domestic workers have been migrating toMiddle East and Gulf States.
Over the past two decades, the large source ofwomen domestic worker for GCC Countries is Ethiopia (Alkarib 2016).In the countries of Gulf Cooperation Council; including ,Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates , itis estimated that world population of migrant workers to be between 53 and 100million where the total population is 35 million and half of them are migrantworkers who are involved in domestic work (ILO,2012). According to FaizOmar Mohammad & Anwar Hassan 2015, interms of magnitude Bahrain and Oman have the lowest inflow of migrants, whereasSaudi Arabia and the UAE have the highest migration inflow (Thimothy andSasikumar,2012).Accordingly, GCC countries become the destination ofEthiopian women labour migrants as well as women migrants from Asian and otherAfrican countries such as Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt (Faiz Omar Mohammad &Anwar Hassan 2015, and Fernandez 2013). In 2008 and 2009, Saudi Arabia andKuwait has become the top countries receiving 61 %and 33% respectively of Ethiopianwomen domestic workers (Fernandez, 2010). Later on, Bahrainand the United Arab Emirates followed astop destination countries (Ministry of labour and social Affairs, 2013 as citedin Sintayehu Hunde,2016). Moreover, According to MOLSA, 2013,it is estimated that 380,076of women migrants work in Saudi Arabia. Reports from MOLSA, 2013 indicated that93 percent of Ethiopian women migrants to the Middle East were female between20-30 years of age and involved in domestic work such as cleaning, cooking andcaring for the children and elderly.
Ethiopianmen and women migrants use both the regular and irregular ways to enter in tothe Gulf States. According to reports from Office toMonitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2014, more than 1500 Ethiopiansmigrated daily through legal ways. However this likely represents only 30 to 40percent of those migrated. About 60 to 70 percent are trafficked or smuggled byillegal brokers.
(Fernandez, 2013 and Office to Monitor and Combat Traffickingin Persons, 2017). According to reports from IOM cited in Fransen and Kuschminder,( 2009),one of the reason behind traffickingof Ethiopian women is mis- information given by the illegal brokers.Additionally the report estimated that even though the number of traffickedwomen are unknown but it is estimated that 130,000 Ethiopian women and childrenin the Gulf States. On the other hand, the rights ofmigrant women are violated during travel and also in the country of destination(Martin, 2014). Due to the natureof the work they undertake, migrant women domestic workers experiencesdifferent problems.
Especially those women work as housemaids in private homesare vulnerable to problems such as sexual harassement, physical abuse, rape,and underpayment of wages (Oishi,2002). Despitenumerous reports of abuses on Ethiopian women migrants in Gulf States and theban of Ethiopian government migration to the gulf state as domestic workers in2013, Ethiopians have continued to migrate to the Gulf States in irregular way(Fernandez, 2017). However, the factors behind the migration of women to thegulf state have not been given enough attention. Therefore, studying Factors ofwomen migration to the Gulf States is important because there are littleactions around the subject. Hence this study was aimed at exploring the factorsof Ethiopian women migration to the gulf state. Statement of the problemTheEthiopian women migrate to the gulf state due to different factors. Thepatriarchal nature of Ethiopian society leads women to limited access to formaleconomy employment opportunity and access to education. On the other hand earlymarriage, sexual harassment, gender based violence and teenage pregnancy areamong the factors leads to schooldroup-out of girls as they move up to higher grades.
As a result, women in Ethiopiahave less opportunity to education and employment than do men. (Faiz Omar &Anwar Hassan, 2015 and UNESCO 2012). Furthermore, according to Mahtsente Yohannes andMerit Maqazi, 1998 as cited in Emebet Kebede (2002), only 28% of women in thecountry are civil servants, while 72% are men. Most of these women works injobs traditionally considered as women’s roles such as nursing, foodpreparation, office cleaning, secretaries and telefon- operators. Therefore allthese factors leave women economically weak. Similarly, study conducted byMeskerem Mulatu (2011), found that economic problem due to unemployment and lowincome as the major pushing factors for women migration.In addition to the factors outlined above, Accordingto study conducted by Girmay Tadele (2015), political and legal, socio culturaland gender issues become the major pushing factors behind the migration of thewomen domestic workers.
Migrantwomen face several challenges and affected by migration differently than men.Similarly, according to Martin, (2014),migrant women face discrimination because of their status both asmigrants and women. They are vulnerable to abuse, physical assault, hardshipand also earn lessthan men and native- born women (Martin, 2014). Furthermore, study conducted by Yemisrach Feraw (2015), on experience of eight deported women Ethiopianswho returned from kingdom of Saudi Arabia shows that migrant women domesticworkers face physical, sexual, and emotional abuses by employers orfamily members and friends of the employers. Studyconducted by Meseret Ayalewi and AbabaMinaye (2017), was on mental health status of returnee Ethiopian women from theMiddle East and Women in the Process of Migration indicated that 81 per cent ofthe returnees of the study participants’ shows neurotic syptoms and 63% ofthese participants have experienced psychotic symptoms. Regarding those in theprocess of migration, 39% of the participants are shows neurotic symptoms andonly 21% of these participants have experienced psychotic symptoms.Ethiopian migrants who use irregular route transitthrough Somalia, Djibouti, and Yemen to travel Saudi Arabia ( Office ToMonitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons,2017).Although the majority of irregular Ethiopian migrant to Saudi Arabia are men,women do travel through irregular route over land and sea.
(Fernandez, 2017, Office ToMonitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons,2014). Study conducted by GirmayTadele(2015),on the violations ofrights of girls during irregular migrat?on indicated that Ethiopiangirls travel through irregular rout became victims of sexual abuse includingrape by more than two men to one girl at once, and physical violence sucha asbeating, punching and slapping. Even though Ethiopian government banned allmigration to the Gulf States and Middle East since 2013, the flow of irregularmigrants from the Horn of Africa to Yemen to reach Saudi Arabia was increasedby 40% in 2014 and around 80% (72,000)of these migrants were Ethiopian and most of themare those who are returning after being deported (Fernandez, 2017). Beside, Despite aware of lowwages, physical abuse and sexual harassment young Ethiopian women continuedmigrating to the Gulf States. They still choose to take risks and migrate tothese countries (Martini, 2015). This indicates that there are serious factorsbehind migration of these women which needed to be researched in detail. However, the factors of Ethiopian womenmigration to the Gulf States and the challenges they faced during their stay isa little studied area.
The few existing studies on these areas are specific toa town, region and mostly used case studies which focus on the cases of fewindividuals. These gaps in research basically inspired this study in order toidentify the pushing and pulling factors of Ethiopian women migration to thegulf state. Moreover, this study interprets the challenges they face in theirday to day life and how they cope with those challenges.