Gaye Yilmaz

Women Migrating to London, Berlin and Istanbul: A Research Study

This chapter gives information about the demographic, cultural, religious and marital backgrounds of 120 migrant female domestic workers found in three cities: London, Berlin and Istanbul. The women belonged to 28 different nationalities and had affiliations with 10 different religious sects, either under Islam or Christianity or defined themselves as atheists. This chapter presents the biographical data about the women. The chapter also discusses the complexities of carrying out research in three countries, each with a different first language, among what are usually seen as ‘hard to reach’ migrant workers. The epistemological and political positionality of the two authors is also set out.

Migrant Women, Collectivism and Trade Unions

This chapter examines the possibility of organising of migrant women domestic workers in Labour Unions in the three countries in the research: the UK, Germany and Turkey by demonstrating barriers to organising migrant women within Unions. These include religious and patriarchal codes which discourage these women to join trade unions. Beyond the structural inabilities of trade unions to approach and recruit domestic workers, the study also looks at how women themselves perceive trade unions, why they do or do not join and whether or not they take part in May Day and other celebrations.

Migrating Women and Domestic Work: Starting Our Exploration

This chapter as the introductory part of a comparative research study attempts to enter into multiple worlds of migrant women who work as domestic workers in three cities: London, Berlin and Istanbul. Focusing specifically on female forms of migration is required to address the issue of domestic work which is the largest employer of migrant women. Although there is a substantial literature on migration and gender, migrating women’s agency or the factors which may have impacts on the agency of migrating women is under-researched. As female domestic workers mostly work for private households, often without clear terms of employment, unregistered, and excluded from the scope of labour legislation, this study especially maps out the inter-relations between migration, domestic work, gender, patriarchy and religions by synthesising different theoretical approaches.

Identity, Belonging, Discrimination, Racism, Sexism and Exclusion

The main focus of this chapter is the multiple and complex identities of migrant women domestic workers in London, Berlin and Istanbul. Being women of colour, being women of ethnic struggle or diaspora politics or being immigrant and lastly being domestic workers are at the same time the different faces of discrimination and determinants of the difficulties faced by these women were in their everyday lives. The chapter also discusses how the social construction of identity involves all of these categories in a range of forms of discrimination.

Prospects for Women Migrant Domestic Workers

In this concluding chapter the authors consider key aspects of their comparative study of women migrant domestic workers in the three cities of London, Berlin and Istanbul. Ways in which regimes of gender and migration intersect to shape the lives and work of migrant women are seen as critical in their analysis. Through these and using intersectional analysis, they further identify and explore gender power relations in regimes of family and religion, considering especially the interplay with patriarchal codes which subordinate women. Contrary to studies which locate migrant women domestic workers as victims, the authors foreground how the women’s agency, both individual and collective, may make a difference.

Gender, Family and Religion

In this chapter, we focus on how religious and gendered familial codes themselves migrate, when women who have moved away as far as Britain and Germany continue to subscribe to these beliefs and practices, and in some cases being reinforced through familial pressure. Through the narratives of 120 women in three countries, we trace the trajectories as they moved, resettled themselves and their families and found work in the face of all the problems that migration brings. We see evidence of their agency with a special focus on a key factor, the level of religious belief.

Migrating Women’s Working Lives, Rights and Social Protections

In this chapter, we compare the regimes of migration and social protections provided for migrant domestic workers in the UK, Germany and Turkey. The findings here show the difficulties of the working lives of the 120 women in three cities, with a special focus on undocumented migrant women in Istanbul. However, regimes in host countries were not the sole culprit, especially in the face of patriarchal, religious and gendered codes that impacted on the women’s lives. Their narratives also show how the women were squeezed within a triangle of private agencies, employers/house owners and State funding (in the UK and Germany).

Family and Gender: Religion and Work

In this chapter we enter into dual lives of migrant women both at home and as paid workers in domestic and care work. We try to discover how much marital status and religious belief, patriarchal and religious cultural codes shaped the identities of women in marriage, in the family and home, when doing housework, in prioritising male promotion and job prospects. We also discuss whether such codes spill over to the unmarried and the atheists. The chapter also exposes the perceptions of women of ‘male superiority’ via their narratives of their gendered roles in these dual lives.

Dreams Dashed but Not Forgotten

In this chapter the motivations and dreams of female migrant domestic workers in London, Berlin and Istanbul are identified through their own narratives. Although the reasons for their migrations ranged from war, political conflict to family unification or for a better future, education and learning a respectable language or because of fear of sexual oppression, they had all ended up working as domestic carers. The interviewee’s trajectories were overwhelmingly marked by downward mobility and ending up in poorly paid low-status work, namely domestic works.

Migrant Women’s Collectivism: The Diaspora and Community Organising

Despite domestic workers fighting for better working conditions for more than a century, this has not changed the informal and precarious nature of domestic jobs in many countries. In this chapter we discuss domestic workers’ mobilisation including communities of coping and social movement models. By accepting that this is not easy, our findings also point out obstacles such as patriarchal relations where kinsmen wield their gender power to prevent women’s participation, and religious codes can preclude women’s solidarity. It also discusses the problems which include solidarities based on diaspora, identity, race and ethnicity, politics and religion, which become exclusive, ignoring or shutting out gender or class-based organising.