[STATEMENT] Women migrants and refugees: Unite with all oppressed women and peoples for a world free from war, exploitation, and displacement!
IMA Global Statement for International Working Women’s Day
8th March, 2025
The International Migrants Alliance (IMA) issues this statement to commemorate International Working Women’s Day on this day, 8th of March 2025. We stand in unity with women who continue to be victims of forced migration, war, militarism and imperialist aggression.
The global capitalist system remains mired in economic and financial crises. It continues to be marked by economic slowdowns, widespread unemployment, and growing threats of stagflation and recessions. The inability of capitalists to profit from goods due to overproduction, and the growing implementation of neoliberal policies have led to a widespread dependence on overseas remittances generated by migrant workers, especially women. Inflation, wage stagnation and job insecurity are also forcing more and more women to work abroad, away from their families. The climate crisis has increased the frequency of natural disasters and loss of land, affecting the overwhelming majority of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that remain backwards and agrarian due to imperialist dominance. This further pushes women to work abroad and become cheap sources of labour.
Once abroad, women migrants face stronger discrimination with persisting unequal access to resources, education and protection. Women migrants often tend to work in informal, low-paid and unregulated sectors, such as domestic and care work, and are more affected by the ‘de-skilling’ process. 40.7% of migrant women are likely to be overqualified for their job, compared to 21.1% among local women in the host countries.
Women also continue to be disproportionately affected by economic protectionism, war and fascism perpetrated by imperialist countries. Women and children account for more than 75% of the refugees and displaced persons at risk from war, famine, persecution, and natural disaster. Women migrants are vulnerable targets of scapegoating by governments and host peoples. They are blamed and attacked for the economic crises in their host countries. Anti-migrant policies and practices propagate national chauvinism, xenophobia, and fascist violence against women migrants, refugees, and women of colour.
Forced migration driven by conflict, economic crises, and neoliberal exploitation is frequently framed as an “opportunity” by mere virtue of its accommodation of more women in the labour export industry. This is not the spirit of gender equality and feminism that we ought to celebrate. Amidst the multiple economic crises and escalating wars, all women migrant and refugee workers must unite and fight to take down imperialism and its propagators. With Israel’s flagrant genocide of the Palestinians and the return of the Trump administration, we see now the imperialists are quickly revealing their true fascist nature.
Women migrants and refugees are part of the militant women’s movement fighting for their rights and justice. On this year’s International Working Women’s Day, the IMA reaffirms our commitment to fight alongside all working women for a just world where no woman is forced to leave her home, no woman is treated as an object of physical and sexual violence, and no woman is forced to endure oppression and exploitation. ##
