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NEW DELHI, SEPT 6: The young are on the move across borders like never before. Every third emigrant is between the age of 15 and 30 years. Majority of them are from developing countries and countries in transition, according to a UNFPA supplementary report. The report ‘Moving Young’, chronicles the lives of 10 young migrants from around the world.
Earlier, the young used to migrate as part of the family unit, but are now increasingly charting their own destinies. Besides, females are migrating as much as men, the report said. Released on Wednesday, it said, while there is limited data on international emigration of young people, their growing numbers calls for policy initiatives, both nationally and internationally. Young migrants often fill jobs at the lowest end of the labour market, or jobs that nationals are unwilling to do,” it said. As a result, many migrant adolescents, mainly women, land up being abused. Hence, what started as a journey for a better life, ends up in a trap.
For instance, in India, cases of fraudulent marriages or ‘mail order and internet brides’ have been reported where women are lured into marriage migration, at times willingly, to gain entry into a country. They are also taken abroad for ‘entertainment’ jobs like modelling, dancing, and domestic work, and then sexually exploited. These ‘informal’ jobs mostly do not have labour laws.
“The National Commission of Women (NCW) has come across such cases. Hence, there is need for a support system for women, nationally and internationally,” said Malini Bhattacharya, a NCW member, at the release.
Admitting that migration was empowering women, Bhattacharya said the imbalance between ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ migration needed to be removed. Since most of the times these women leave their legal papers with the ‘employer’ or ‘groom’, they end up stranded in a foreign country.
Both the sending and receiving countries benefit from emigration.
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