Establishing a Voice for Migrant and Refugee Women
Speech by Zita Antonios, Race Discrimination Commissioner, Ethnic Communities Council Victoria, 19 March 1997
Non-English speaking background women have played a key role in the development and operation of the migrant and refugee rights movement in Australia over the last three decades. They have marched to support migrant and refugee rights, established organisations, organised meetings, developed the ethnic voluntary sector policies, provided direct services, written the submissions, serviced the committees, organised fundraising and much much more.
But where are our voices in the key decision making bodies of not only mainstream Anglo- Australian organisations including women’s organisations but especially within our own "mainstream" migrant organisations? What are the barriers that operate to exclude us so persistently from participation at these levels? There are always of course, in all these organisations token representation of migrant and refugee women. This is not what we are talking about - we want and demand equal participation of migrant and refugee women in all decision making structures in society including our own migrant and refugee organisations.
Women of non-English speaking background have a right to a voice (not a token one) and to equal participation in decision-making at all levels.
Anti-discrimination legislation in this country over the last two decades has recognised that Australians face barriers relating to a number of different types of discrimination. The major forms of discrimination have been seen to be on the grounds of race or ethnicity; sex or sexual preference; and disability. Recognition has also been given in some quarters to discrimination on the basis of age, religious beliefs and other grounds.
Despite legislation and the standards that legislation set, there remains a deplorable lack of participation of non-English speaking background women in the decision making mechanisms of mainstream organisations including "mainstream" migrant and refugee organisations. What we know is that despite the ongoing battles of migrant women since the 1970's to have a voice and to participate in decision making, still they are faced with discrimination on the basis of their race in the case of mainstream women’s organisations or Anglo-Australian organisations and sexism in relation to their participation at decision making levels in mainstream migrant and refugee organisations. This double discrimination for women of non-English speaking background occurs too in relation to access to services and to employment.
Some migrant women face a third discrimination around their sexuality - an issue that the community, including migrant and refugee community tend to shun and not address or even acknowledge.
For many migrant and refugee women their low socio-economic status (or in another ‘speak’ their class status), also presents barriers to their participation given the problems of long working hours, child care, low income levels and so on. The operation of the decision making mechanisms within organisations do not take account of women’s particular organisational needs with respect to child care and domestic responsibilities given they still take major responsibility for the domestic sphere.
Sexism in mainstream migrant organisations manifests itself in a number of ways. The above mentioned operational mode is an obvious way of excluding migrant and refugee women from equal and meaningful participation. However other factors also operate such as constitutional impediments where constitutions favour membership from organisations whose representatives will inevitably be men and in some instances can only be men. Constitutions however can be developed to ensure equal participation for women if in the process of developing or changing the constitution there is the political will and a genuine desire to include women and others who might be excluded as equal members in all facets of the organisation. What is most needed is the political will. Given that the migrant rights movement fought so hard against discrimination, the continual failure of our mainstream organisations to now redress the discrimination against migrant and refugee women’s equal participation in their ranks is incomprehensible.
Racial discrimination and sex discrimination are two areas recognised in federal legislation in 1975 and 1984 respectively. Both were landmark pieces of legislation, putting into effect here the substance of international declarations carried by the United Nations. Under these Acts, which I will refer to in brief as the RDA and the SDA, some great strides have been made. The RDA was the springboard from which the Mabo case was fought and won. The SDA was the means by which women won equality in the workplace.
The discrimination faced by migrant and refugee women is very often located at the intersection of sex and race and sometimes disability and sexuality. For example, a Somali woman might be critical of the inability of a picture theatre to accommodate her child who happens to use a wheelchair. We might ask are the difficulties she faces due to the disability of her child or the fact that she is black, or both? Take the case of Ekaterina Djokic a couple of years ago: did she have such a battle with the men at the Rockhampton Meatworks because she was a woman or because she was Macedonian, or, as the hearing commissioner found, it was impossible to sort out the grounds on which the men made her life so difficult - they hated her sex and her ethnicity, as well as the fact that she worked twice as hard as any of them.
Discrimination based on race and gender is complex and even more so if economic status and sexuality are part of the complexity. It is incontrovertible however, that women of non-English speaking background have a more difficult time realising their potential and participating fully in Australian society than either Anglo-Australian women or men of non-English speaking background.
I think it is important to place the struggle of migrant and refugee women for a voice and equal participation in a historical and political context in order that we can together devise strategies that take account of that history and the political realities in which we are currently operating.
In the late 1960's and early 1970's along with the civil rights and feminist movements, migrants began to organise together to demand recognition of their rights and the issues facing them. These included the right to: a migrant and refugee voice; free interpreters; ethnic schools; ethno-specific services; English language classes; occupational health and safety; the recognition of tenosynovitis as a an occupational disease largely affecting migrant process workers; health care that recognised language and cultural issues as well as endemic racism by service providers; multi-lingual voting procedures; maintain their cultures and languages; bring their families to Australia and so on.
By the mid 1970's, most importantly we had won many of these battles including the right to our own migrant/refugee voice - our right to represent ourselves and to be consulted on all matters affecting us. The manifestation of this right was in the establishment of the ethnic communities councils. We achieved these gains through a united struggle - that is the left and the right, men and women, migrants and refugees - all of us - united at a particular point in history to achieve common goals. Without unity at that point little would have been gained.
We had won too, the battle to have the "good neighbour councils" dismantled. These were run by white Anglo well-meaning but very often patronising people specifically to speak on behalf of migrants and refugees and to ‘help’ them settle and assimilate. The resources that were earmarked for this organisation were redistributed to ECC’s.
By the end of the second half of the 1970's, having won some basic rights, divisions based on the inevitable differences between ethnic groups, within ethnic groups and between men and women within the migrant rights movement were beginning to surface. We are after all not a homogenous group. Recognition and expression was sought for these differences. For example an attempt was made to set up the Federation of Migrant Organisations (FOMO) as a progressive alternative to what was perceived to be a right wing NSW based ECC. Migrant and refugee women were tired of not having our voice heard within the ranks of mainstream migrant organisations and accordingly our concerns addressed. We were relegated to women’s committees and direct service provision but did not have an equal say in the general running and strategic direction of these organisations.
Migrant women began to separately organise. We met in small groups such as the Migrant Women’s Issues Group in Sydney who made contact with what was then the Italian Women’s Refuge in Melbourne and the Migrant Women Workers’ Caucus of the Migrant Workers’ Conference and then to migrant and refugee women in other states. With the support of the Australian Council of Churches - ironically an Anglo-based organisation, a national Migrant Women’s Speak Out was held in Sydney in March 1982. Hundreds of women attended from all over Australian including migrant women factory workers, grant-in-aid workers, migrant women refuge workers, migrant women from ECC Women’s Committees, women from ethno-specific migrant women’s groups, and so on. They spoke out loud raising their concerns about the issues that most affected them at the time - child care, occupational health and safety, health care, education for their children, immigration issues, etc.
From there, separate migrant and refugee women’s organisations began to develop more robustly. The Immigrant Women’s Speak Out was established in 1985 in NSW with funding from that state government and five years later a national association of non-English speaking background women was established. Ethno-specific women’s groups have sprung up every where as well as the immigrant women’s domestic violence services , immigrant women’s refuges etc.
This form of separate gender specific, migrant and refugee specific organisation was necessary and remains absolutely necessary to progress the concerns we have about issues that affect us as women and to project our women’s perspective on issues that affect all of us - men and women.
I need here to make the distinction between separate organising and separatist organising.
Separate organisation for migrant and refugee women occurs because we recognise our disadvantage in being able to participate equally in mainstream structures. We need a space to develop our voice, our confidence, our strategies and to advocate our concerns as migrant and refugee women.
In the so-called "mainstream" women’s movement we also fought very hard for women’s caucuses and organisations as necessary to support women’s participation, develop our agendas and advocate on our own behalf as women. Many migrant and refugee women felt excluded from this process because of endemic racism.
Separate organising did not mean that we didn’t participate in the wider political and social structures of society. We did and we continue to do so.
In the migrant rights movement of the 70's and 80's we fought very hard for separate migrant workers’ caucuses within trade unions and political parties to support the equal participation of migrants in these structures. Political parties and trade unions at the time opposed this not seeing the parallels with the organisation of women’s caucuses which they more readily accepted. This was a manifestation of endemic racism.
This form of separate organising does not mean that we as migrants and refugees did not participate or want to participate in all the social and political structures of society. We did and we do. Separate organisation I believe is a necessary form of organisation, it is a strategy to progress specific interests in a particular political moment - that moment can extend for a very long time as is necessary - I think it is still necessary since we have not achieved equal participation almost 30 years after the beginning of the migrant rights and women’s movement.
Separatist organising I see as different. It is a choice that some women may make because they believe that the primary source of women’s inequality is men or the patriarchy and thus will not engage at all with men or their organisations.
I believe, however, as I suspect most of you do too, that racism and economic status are equally powerful forms of oppression and inequality and that strategically it is critical for migrant and refugee women to participate in both mainstream and separate structures to fight sexism, racism, economic and other forms of discrimination. It is especially important given the current threats to so much of what had been earlier achieved through the struggle of many migrants and refugees both men and women.
A strategy that allows us to work on all fronts does not mean that all of us have to work in all of the organisations. That is simply humanly impossible. It simply means we need to decide how we will use our individual energies and stay connected to each as migrant and refugee women so that information, resources and support can be given wherever it is needed (probably through our separate migrant and refugee women’s organisations).
All of this is done however within an overall migrant and refugee women’s strategy. I do believe we have to work in the mainstream migrant organisations in the current political climate but also in separate migrant and refugee women’s organisations and for some it will include being involved in Anglo-based mainstream and Anglo-women organisations.
I certainly do not have answers but am eager to talk with you about how we can effectively progress migrant and refugees women’s participation at this critical point in our history.
I wish to congratulate the organisers and the participants for your work so far on these issues and for you constructive willingness to dialogue with each other and others. Good luck.
Last updated 1 December 2001
