Gender and Displacement in Jaffna, Sri Lanka: Survey of Internally Displaced Persons

The aim of this report is to understand and analyse the living and working conditions of migrant domestic and care workers in Istanbul through several themes, such as drivers for migration, living/working experiences and practices, and migrant women’s spatial mobility in the city. Based on migrant women’s own narratives, this report also discusses the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the employment of domestic and care workers. It contributes to a better understanding of South-South migration for which there have still been relatively few studies of the dynamics and migration patterns. This report is based on the Gendered Dynamics of International Labour Migration project funded by the UKRI Gender, Justice and Security Hub. The report seeks to avoid a perspective that sees migrant women only as victims of the process of migration and therefore, has a perspective that highlights women’s agency and brings their voices to the fore. While women’s subject positions are understood within structural conditions (such as the labour market, national regulations on visas, work/residence permits, gendered drivers of migration that effect their decisions to leave their countries of origin and so on), their strategies to cope with the working and living conditions are taken into consideration. Its findings draw on 12 in-depth interviews conducted in Istanbul as well as two branches of IMECE, the union of domestic workers. Thus, based on original data gathered for the project and rich feminist literature on working conditions and experiences of migrant domestic/care workers (MDW)in Turkey, this report contributes to the existing literature on South-South migration, transformation of welfare states and care regime(s), stratification of the care market in Turkey based on gender and nationality, as well as migrant women’s agency from a feminist perspective. The report is composed of five main parts. The introduction gives a brief overview of the care regime and the welfare state as well as legal framework for MDWs in Turkey. This is followed by a section on the Methodology. The third part of the report concentrates on the act of migration and women’s work experiences and practices from a gender perspective. This part also includes women’s coping strategies in response to their experience and explores agency. The fourth part concentrates on their public access and spatial mobility before theCovid-19 outbreak. Finally, the report concludes with the main findings of the projects.
Eren-Benlisoy and Tuncer (2023) Gendered Dynamics of International Labour Migration: Migrant Domestic and Care Workers in Istanbul; Gender, Justice, and Security Hub, Migration & Displacement Stream.