Women migrate to meet the needs of their children, flee from domestic violence or guarantee economic independence

SANTO DOMINGO. The Center for Gender Studies of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (CEG-INTEC) and the Migration's national institute (INM RD) inaugurated the Diploma "Gender, migration and public policies", with the aim of contributing to the initial and continuous about the inequalities and differences between migrant men and women given the need for reflection and learning about the migratory phenomenon and the impact of gender on migrations.

This educational program also seeks to characterize migration in the national and international context and to recognize its main changing properties. At the same time, its purpose is to identify the elements that define the Dominican migratory profile and the main theoretical approaches involved in migratory processes, as well as the characteristics and governance for the strengthening of the rule of law and sustainable and comprehensive human development.

The opening event featured the keynote speech of the sociologist Marina Ariza, who spoke about the evolution of the migratory processes prompted by economic crisis. Referring to the factors that drive female migration, she assured that they do so “[…] to meet the needs of their children, flee domestic violence o guarantee their economic independence ". Likewise, he emphasized that between gender and migration there is an interrelation in which one affects the other. In addition, she highlighted that migration affects. inequality that women live in the world of work, family, society, their community, access to rights, their identity and their emotions.

He specified that the largest migration is of non-professionally qualified people, who go to lower sectors of the economy, such as, for example, the migratory waves of Dominican women to Spain, mainly dedicated to the care of infants and the elderly, or the case of women from India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines, who migrate to Saudi Arabia to be employed in housework. She also pointed out that the migration of women from impoverished countries in Africa and Asia to Europe is based on prostitution, trafficking and trafficking.

The diploma course, which began last Monday August 10st, 2020, It will last two months and will be taught at virtual modality with flexible synchronous and asynchronous shifts. During the working sessions, the public policies that, from the consideration of gender mainstreaming, adopt the States for the protection of migrants will be analyzed. Likewise, the recognition of the approaches to the migratory phenomenon and its characterization in the Dominican context as a sending and receiving country of regular and irregular migrants will be promoted among the participants.

In the presentation of the program, Fatima Lorenzo, coordinator of CEG-INTEC, pointed out that the phenomenon of migration plays a very important role not only at the level of economy, because of the contribution of remittances to the reduction of poverty and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but because of the impact it has on the emotional affect and on family and community life. "As migration has the characteristic of being eminently feminine, it is necessary to give it a sensitive gender perspective that considers the different implications for men and women and the impacts on the personal and family."

For her part, the doctor Florinda rojas, executive director of INM RD, pointed out that this is a much desired achievement, as it is essential to address gender issues in the migration issue and to focus on public policies. “We know what are the realities that characterize the participation of Dominican women in migratory flows, we know the precariousness that determines female migration in the country, for this reason, we consider of great relevance the training of key actors who can acquire theoretical knowledge and tools to work in a practical way and intervene in the formulation or implementation of public policies, ”said Rojas.

The presentation of the diploma course was moderated by Desiree del Rosario, coordinator of CEG-INTEC. The content of the course includes the modules "Migratory processes in the context of globalization", "Perspectives in the approach to migration", "Gender and migration in the context of development" and Gender and migration ", by Dr. Marina Ariza and Camila Belliard Quiroga and Jeannette del Carmen Tineo Durán and Paola Pelletier.