Global migration and global trade policies may seem very far from the experiences of migrant women around the globe, yet they directly impact migrant women’s lives. In the era of globalised economies, nations and corporations depend on a mobile labour force to meet labour demands while migration policies increasingly pose barriers to mobility that criminalize migrants.

States have pushed for free trade of goods, services and capital while excluding dignified mobility for women and their families. Extractive industries and austerity programs push women from their home, while centres of low-wage industry, as well as low wage service and agricultural jobs, pull women to other countries, often working in hyper-exploitative situations.  Given the role women are often assigned as caregivers (both paid and unpaid) in the global economy, migration and migrant women’s work is gendered and racialized.

See an overview on the intersection of gender, trade and migration.

At this critical juncture in the COVID pandemic, we explore how the pandemic, which made visible deep structural inequalities, offer the opportunity for a bottom-up, women-centric approach to international trade and labour architecture.