Chapter 7 - Migration drivers
7.3 Domestic violence, poverty and food insecurity
Gender-based violence is cited as a driving force behind migration by both NGO workers and migrant testimonials. This study considers it the second factor, over poverty and food insecurity, which are also closely related. Female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child marriage, and other physical and psychological abuse by family members or intimate partners are the main types of gender-based violence detected as migration drivers. According to the NGO staff members working primarily with migrant women, most women escape due to GBV. For instance, the 12th NGO worker affirmed:
“Each of them has their own story, but most women left due to violence. It is because of what they suffered and had to bear: forced marriage, for example, and the violence that follows from their husband. However, it is not always the partner perpetrating violence.
Within the household, the family sometimes does not want to provide for you, and women do not always recognize family violence. There is so much violence that people are often unaware of experiencing or executing it.”
Awareness of the violence suffered is highlight by this NGO employee, with a particular focus on the violence perpetrated by partners or family members. A Guinean woman revealed that female genital mutilation is still a widespread practice in her country and she expressed her desire to protect their daughters from the same procedure she underwent:
“I was forced to leave my country for the safety of my first daughter. My husband's family decided to excise my daughter as soon as she turned two years old, against the will of my husband and me. When I discovered I was pregnant with another girl, my husband helped me to leave with the kids.” (Guinean, 4th interviewee)
Forced marriage is a significant contributor to migration as well. Women who were married in arranged marriages as teenagers after some time they want to divorce their husbands, and in order to leave them, they left the country. The 18th respondent explains her wish to divorce from a forced marriage. Her being the fourth wife at the age of 15:
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“I left because I wanted to divorce my husband. I left alone; I didn’t say anything to anyone.” (Guinean, 18th interviewee)
In other instances, young women flee the nation before getting married because if they stay, family members compel them to wed someone they do not love:
“I left because I wanted to feel the money. In Conakry, it is tough to earn money. My aunt wanted me to marry at 17. I am now 18, and I decided to leave because I wanted to find another way but marriage to survive”. (5th woman, Guinea)
She notes that while forced marriage is one of the causes, it is also closely related to the widespread hardship in her nation and the fact that there are more job opportunities abroad. Often, the predominant motivation for marrying daughters is financial, combined with tradition. The 8th interviewee’s biography is an example of arranged marriage, family violence, poverty, and food insecurity. She lived a childhood with a violent father who decided to remarry and leave his family. Consequently, she started to suffer poverty and food insecurity:
“When my siblings and I went to school, our classmates shared a little bit of their food with us because we didn’t have anything.” (Guinean, 8th interviewee)
At 25, her mother forced her to marry, but she refused, and to escape from the marriage, she decided to migrate:
“The main reason was because I didn’t want to marry, but it is also due to the general suffering of the country knowing that outside there are more jobs.” (Guinean, 8th interviewee)
This testimony illustrates how poverty and food insecurity can be related to family violence and forced marriage. Other types of family violence, both physical and psychological, were prevalent when asked about the motivation to migrate. Many respondents migrate to escape from the violence perpetrated by the head of the household, such as the step-father:
“My mom’s husband was not nice to me. He tried to rape me. It was an ordeal. He beat my mom. He was kicking us out of the house. At the time, I was in my junior year of high
48 school. I started to live with my neighbor because my father had kicked me out, and I had no place to go. I stayed in Douala until I got my high school diploma, and then I left.”
(Cameroonian, 14th interviewee)
Domestic violence is related to power dynamics between the household's primary breadwinner and the other family members. In many cases, violent actions can be influenced by insecurity due to poverty and food insecurity. To conclude, the key findings will be summarized in the following chapter.
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Conclusion of results section
The research findings show how women respondents perceive and understand climate change impact and gender-based violence. On the one hand, weather variations between seasons and locations are the definition of climate change that is most widely used. In many cases, the lack of national interest explains why many people have never heard of this concept. Despite their little information, some perceive climate change effects as higher temperatures and extreme weather conditions like floods and droughts. Others describe how overexploitation of natural resources contributes to environmental degradation, forcing farmers to relocate to cities. On the other hand, there were variations in the interviewees' responses about their awareness of domestic abuse. They usually identify violent behavior from family members as violence but normalize it because of accepted cultural norms. Education is considered critical in both climate change impact and domestic violence to have the correct information to recognize and be aware of these issues.
Moreover, these two themes are examined within the framework of migratory drivers.
Poverty and food insecurity is added to put the two topics in relation. Each of them is directly tied to it. According to the results, women migrate mainly due to economic opportunities, particularly in severe poverty and food insecurity. Gender-based violence, especially domestic abuse, is the second reason given. The violence expressed was intimate-partner violence, family violence, female genital mutilation, and forced marriage. The testimonies illustrate the apparent influence of these topics in the decision to migrate. The climate change effect is not often considered a migration cause, and it is less evident how much of an impact it has on people's decision to leave their country.
However, for some respondents, there is a strong connection with poverty and food insecurity, especially for those whose family earns their living through agriculture, and for some NGO workers, it is a clear indirect cause of migration.
This chapter describes how women from the Sahel region lack awareness of climate change and sometimes domestic abuse. It also shows the impact of both themes on their life, particularly in their decision to migrate. The issue that both topics share is the
50 influence of the family's economic situation leading to poverty and food insecurity, which is the base of the following discussion. The next chapter discusses the findings described here, comparing them with the current literature and showing and valuing this study's limitations to open future research avenues.
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