Book Discussion: Vietnamese Women Migrating for Work Overseas: The Untold Stories

September 29, 2022
CSO Event in Thailand

SEA Junction and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) are organizing a knowledge sharing and evidence-based advocacy for socio-economic inclusion of migrant and trafficked women from Southeast Asia to Europe: both those who currently live in Europe and those who have returned to their home countries. To achieve the objective of promoting rights-affirming labor migration policies and anti-trafficking measures on these migration routes, we are holding a series of six-monthly webinars with the title “Towards Safe Southeast Asia-Europe Migration Corridors”, which will look at current and emerging challenges and possible policy solutions.

In the first event, Maruja M.B. Asis, Director of Research and Publications at the Scalabrini Migration Center gave an overview of migration from Southeast Asia and with this second event we shift to the national level, by focusing on Vietnam. In this webinar, Khuat Thu Hong and Nguyen Song Bao Anh respectively Founding Director and Senior Researcher of the Institute for Social Development Studies (ISDS) in Hanoi will discuss a recently published book on Vietnamese women migration overseas.

The volume collects the stories of the lives of Vietnamese women while working abroad, told by members of a network of women who migrated for work overseas in Ha Tinh. The stories are arranged according to key issues such as journey abroad, language differences, working conditions, gender-based violence, pregnancy and healthcare abroad, encounters with the police and days in prison, or difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and return day, rebuilding life at home. This thematic approach helps bridge together the multitude of experiences of migrant women into a journey from the time they leave until they return – each stage is a colorful picture assembled from many pieces of life that are common among migrant women, yet at the same time unique.

The book discussion will be aired on 29 September 2022 at 4:00 on Zoom (Link: http://bit.ly/SEA-EUROPE-MIGRATION) and Facebook Live: SEA-Junction and GAATW page. After the presentation, a Q & A session will follow moderated by Rosalia Sciortino, Founding Director of SEA Junction.

The book can be downloaded at https://isds.org.vn/en/an-pham/journey-of-vietnamese-women-migrating-for-work-overseas-the-untold-stories/.