EU-IOM Joint Initiative

for Migrant Protection and Reintegration

On the Eastern Route encompassing migration movements between the Horn of Africa to the Middle East, men outnumber women in irregular movements, as many women utilise the safer option of travelling as regular, documented migrants with the help of recruitment agencies.

Yet women migrate to Saudi Arabia for similar reasons as men, with the most commonly reported drivers being economic motivations (86%), the desire to achieve a higher social status (23%), fleeing conflict or persecution (25%),  and  natural disasters and environmental conditions (20%).

Nonetheless, migration is a gendered phenomenon, especially in Ethiopia where gender norms, roles and expectations are deeply rooted in society and the result of gendered socialization from an early age.

“I am going there for my family. I am going there because I need to earn money. It does not benefit me personally, I may even catch a disease or I may lose my mind,” said one migrant. “I believe if I can stand these challenges and reach Saudi, I will help my family out by getting my brother a job, good clothing for my child and enough food for my family.”

The main factor driving the movement of women was a strong demand for domestic work in the Gulf countries. In 2016 the Gulf countries hosted 30 percent of the international migrant domestic workers in the world: around 3.77 million individual, according to estimates by the International Labour Organisation.

In recent years, the proportion of women and girls travelling irregularly on the Eastern Route has risen, not least due to policies by both the Ethiopian and Saudi authorities that limited opportunities for regular labour migration. Of the nearly 325,000 movements of Ethiopian migrants tracked by IOM in 2019 along the Eastern Route to and from Yemen (a transit country to the Gulf States), around 30 percent were women.

During the first half of 2020, a total of 108,688 movements were observed, of which over 66 percent originated in Ethiopia, and more than 84 percent were headed towards Saudi Arabia. Of these movements, 21 percent were women and 79 percent men.

The most recent briefing paper by IOM’s Regional Data Hub (RDH), ‘Gendered Patterns of Women and Girls’ Migration Along the Eastern Corridor’, explores gendered migration dynamics along the Eastern Route, drawing on findings from its Young Ethiopian Eastern Corridor Research.  This research focused on risk perceptions, decision-making and the experiences of young Ethiopian migrants surveyed in Bossaso, Puntland and Obock, Djibouti.

The study found that among the main factors driving women and girls’ irregular migration to the Gulf is youth unemployment in Ethiopia which is almost twice as high for females as it is for males (4.5% versus 2.6% for males). Furthermore, the share of female youth that is not in the labour force, education or training is almost three times higher than the share of males (15.1% versus 5.7% for males).

Compared to their counterparts living in Ethiopia, female migrants are very young (44% are between 15 and 19 years versus 38% at country level), single (62% versus 42%) or separated/divorced/widowed (11% versus 7%) and much less likely to have children (29% versus 47%). Female migrants also appear to be far better educated than their counterparts in Ethiopia.

More than 40 percent of young women migrating have completed either lower or upper secondary education (versus 17% at country level).  This finding confirms evidence from recent research that points to education as one of the main correlates of migration, especially rural–urban migration, and migration aspirations in Ethiopia. Moreover, education also seems to drive migration aspirations.

In comparison to men and boys, the study found that women and girls could count on more support from family members and relatives during their migration. The result is that they reported slightly shorter journeys than men and boys, although this does not mean these journeys were necessarily safer. In fact, Ethiopian labour migration towards the Gulf countries is now considered a social problem, due to the increasingly negative narrative of exploitation, abuse and risk surrounding this migration corridor.

The RDH also released a second briefing paper, a ‘Comparative Eastern Corridor Route Analysis’, comparing the two main migratory routes (through Djibouti and Somalia) along the Eastern Corridor and the migration dynamics along each. Findings further indicate that instances of SGBV (Sexual and Gender-based Violence) seem to be fairly prevalent along the route, with most female respondents reporting sexual harassment and that violence including rape had been perpetrated against themselves or other women in their group.   

Interestingly, the Southern Corridor is far more male-dominated than the Eastern Corridor, due to the nature of the labour market in the respective countries. While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a strong, structural demand for domestic labour, female migration to the Republic of South Africa is mainly characterized by marriage migration of the Ethiopian diaspora living there.

The RDH found that migrating along the Eastern Route to the Gulf states through Bossaso takes longer (23 days) and is more expensive ($900) compared to the route through Obock (12 days, $800). The vast majority of re-migrating individuals use the same broker and route as on previous attempts, regardless of whether they were successful.

About the Regional Data Hub

The EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration in the Horn of Africa is the main funder of the Nairobi-based IOM Regional Data Hub for the East and Horn of Africa (RDH) which has grown into the largest IOM data hub in Africa since its establishment in 2018. It operates 65 flow monitoring points across the region and has a collection of regular publications that are disseminated on a monthly basis.

For more information please contact the IOM Regional Office in Nairobi: Julia Hartlieb, email: jhartlieb@iom.int; Laura Nistri, email: lnistri@iom.int, or Wilson Johwa, email: wjohwa@iom.int.