Framing migrant domestic workers inside transnational businesses : a case study of Bangladeshi women travelling to Hong Kong, and their Hong Kong-based employment agencies
Abstrakt
This is mainly an epistemological chapter. It uses the case study of Bangladeshi women in Hong Kong to speak about the stereotypical image of a female migrant worker, which is created and reproduced in the context of the migration industry, international organisations, and national governments.
I argue that disregarding their actual conditions, Bangladeshi women are thought to be weak and vulnerable while in their home country but are required to become empowered once they cross the borders of their destination country. I further argue that migrant women, while being put on the pedestal of empowerment by the migration industry, find themselves between two binaries-they are either weak and unable to withstand the challenges of the new country and new employment or they become the new 'heroines' of a predefined form of empowerment.
I want to demonstrate, with the case study of Bangladeshis travelling to Hong Kong for domestic work, that seeing migrant women in these two extreme positions as a side effect risks obscuring their own decision-making process and leads to the feminisation of responsibility.