This week, CDM and our allies organized a historic delegation of internationally recruited women workers from México, the Philippines, and Ecuador. The group of amazing women traveled to D.C. this week to highlight their unique experiences as migrant worker women in the U.S. and during the recruitment process in their communities of origin. Never before have women come together in this way to urge policymakers to address the flaws in temporary work visa programs in the U.S. Today, the delegation will join the thousands of immigrants, advocates, and allies who are coming together for Camino Americano, the march in D.C. to call for immigration reform.
“Migrant women are commonly excluded and made invisible in debates about immigration,” said Adareli Ponce. She is a member of the Migrant Defense Committee (Comité de Defensa del Migrante), a group of Mexico-based migrant leaders that collaborates closely with CDM. “Even if women represent a minority, we also migrate to work.”
Adareli has traveled from Mexico to the United States on temporary visas nine times over the past ten years to work in the crab and chocolate industries. She has been defrauded three times by recruiters in Mexico who approached her with false promises of jobs in the U.S.
Internationally recruited women workers are often locked out of jobs due to gender discrimination in the recruitment process. Those who are hired are extremely vulnerable to exploitation with very few resources available to seek justice. Many face fraud, discrimination, severe economic coercion, retaliation, blacklisting, and, in some cases, debt bondage or other forms of human trafficking.
However, many, like Adareli, are speaking out and demanding critical reforms to increase transparency in international labor recruitment and to guarantee the labor rights of migrant workers in the U.S.