Gendered migration infrastructure and socio-spatial rupture: Indian women’s migration experiences to the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT

Increasing cross-border mobilities for employment and livelihood opportunities has resulted in greater institutional and regulatory controls over migration. In this paper, through an analysis of the migration infrastructure for women between India and the United Arab Emirates, socio-spatial ruptures are discerned. The paper asserts that in addition to economic and political frameworks, social and cultural mores have been significant in shaping differentiated migration pathways for Indian women, which are conceptualised as, “gendered migration infrastructure”. Gendered migration infrastructure for Indian women is founded on normative understandings of domesticity and femininity and consequently, has made migration for women restrictive, circuitous and cumbersome. The failure and interruptions of migration infrastructure has occurred across borders and the differentiated migration pathways thus created lie at the intersection of formal regulations and actors (migration laws, recruitment and skilling organisations, state agents, border controls, civil society and bureaucracy) and informal intermediaries and practices (subagents, bypassing emigration procedures, irregular channels and corruption). By drawing on the narratives of Indian migrant women, the paper highlights the negotiations undertaken by migrant women and the impact of gendered migration infrastructure on their (im)mobilities, migratory experiences, and outcomes. Further, socio-spatial ruptures due to the COVID-19 pandemic created cracks in the migration infrastructure, deepening the precarities faced by migrant women. Overall, the paper aims to contribute to the literature on gendered migration and transnationalism in addition to shedding light on the migration of Indian women across income and legal categories, an under-researched topic currently.

KEYWORDS:

• Gendered migration
• transnationalism
• mobilities
• Indian women
• migration infrastructure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I used the income thresholds of visa categories to create the income brackets. To qualify for family reunification, migrants must earn a minimum of AED 4,000 or 3,000 plus accommodation per month. Therefore, this was the cutoff for the low-income category. For the middle-income category, I took the family sponsorship rules for women as the criteria. A woman earning AED 8,000 plus accommodation or AED 10,000 per month can sponsor their family. However, I found that most women in this category did not receive accommodation and therefore, due to the additional accommodation costs I kept AED 15,000 as the cut-off. This was supported by my fieldwork data. All respondents earning over AED 15,000 per month were categorised as high-income.

2. Those below matriculation but over 50 years of age, have completed three years overseas or are tax assessed have ECNR passports.

3. Afghanistan, Bahrain, Indonesia, Iraq (restricted emigration for all), Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand, UAE, and Yemen.

4. Order No.OI-11016/33/2007-EP/Emig. Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India (2007).

5. Order NoZ-11025/126/2015-Emig(Part File). Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2016).

6. Licensed RAs in India have requested a change in nomenclature to Human Resource Agents (HRAs) because they believe that cases of recruitment frauds and exploitation of vulnerable migrants have tarnished the reputation of the recruitment industry. It is claimed that due to this poor perception, RAs are often equated with dalals or pimps in India. However, official communications and government documents still refer to private, licensed agents as RAs, and therefore, I have used this nomenclature in the paper.

7. For example, Order no. Z-11025/43/2020-OE-II. Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2020). While this presents a big business opportunity for Indian RAs due to the significant demand for domestic workers in ECR countries, several RAs interviewed remain skeptical due to strict conditionalities, particularly accountability post-deployment.

8. Given the gendered focus of the research, I endeavoured to find and interview women RAs and subagents. While through literature and anecdotally I am aware of the presence of women RAs and subagents, they were difficult to locate through fieldwork. The websites of most RAs interviewed showed a male-dominated top management. Emails to women RAs for interviews remain unanswered.

9. This is the average of the two research periods. The minimum amount paid was INR 5,000, but the maximum amount was as high as INR 1,60,000.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National University of Singapore [Research Scholarship - PhD].