There’s No Stopping the Russian Baby Boom in Miami

2018/12/18 Leave a comment

Very up market birth tourism services:

Matryoshka was bustling as usual, selling blinis, caviar and borscht. Not all of the customers were pregnant. Just, it seemed, most of them.

The deli store in Sunny Isles Beach, a little city on a barrier island north of downtown Miami, has long been a gathering place for Russian-speaking foreigners who stay in the area as they wait to give birth. They come for the hospitals, the doctors, the weather, the beach — not, they will tell you with some exasperation, to score citizenship for their offspring.

The perk of a U.S. passport was “the last thing on my agenda, literally,” said Viktoriia Solomentseva, 23, a former Matryoshka regular who had a daughter seven weeks ago and recently flew home to Moscow with little Emily, a newly-minted U.S. citizen. “Why does Trump think everyone is dying to have one?”

It’s a somewhat sensitive topic for the women like Solomentseva who are driving a baby boom in south Florida. They’ve been swept up in the birthright citizenship debate, reignited when President Donald Trump recently vowed to end it for children of foreigners. While his target was undocumented immigrants, he also complained that the privilege granted in the 14th Amendment has “created an entire industry of birth tourism.”

That, in fact, it has. Data are scarce, but the Center for Immigration Studies has estimated more than 30,000 women tap it every year. Some nationalities prefer certain metropolitan areas, with the Chinese, for instance, favoring Los Angeles, while Nigerians tend to choose cities in the Northeast and Texas. For women with roots in the former Soviet Union, it’s Miami; if they’re affluent, it’s Sunny Isles Beach, called Little Russia because so many of its 22,000 residents hail from that part of the world.

And these women’s numbers, by all accounts, are growing. The weakness of the ruble, the tense relations between Russia and the U.S., the hurdles that have to be scaled to get a visa — none of that is slowing down the flow.

On every flight to Miami from Moscow there’s at least one pregnant woman, said Konstantin Lubnevskiy, the owner of an agency called Miami-mama, whose logo is the silhouette of an expectant mother in front of a big American flag. On some, there are more than five, he said. “What they’re doing is perfectly legal.”

True enough. But honestly, is it for the passports?

Absolutely not, Solomentseva said from the marble-laden lobby of one of the Trump Towers in Sunny Isles Beach, where she’d rented a 39th-floor unit for a few months. “I wanted to give birth in the place that has the best medical service and is comfortable and relaxing,” she said, as her husband, who owns a business in Russia, looked after the baby upstairs. Not incidentally, the weather is a lot more pleasant in Miami than Moscow in the winter. “But I can’t wait to get back to Russia.”

Like everyone else, she did, of course, fill out the necessary paperwork for Emily. It’s not as if citizenship isn’t viewed as something that might one day come in handy. Maybe it could help a kid get into a U.S. college, or set up a business in New York, or buy a house in Sunny Isles Beach, said Moscow resident Anna Bessolnova, 42, who had a girl in Miami in 2014, days before Russia’s annexation of Crimea triggered waves of international sanctions.

“I don’t know whether my daughter will end up using the passport or not, but it’s good to have different options,” she said.

Maria Khromova, whose son was born last month in Miami, has the same attitude. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen 20 years from now.”

Like all the rest, though, Khromova said she chose to have her baby in the U.S. mainly because of the superior medical care. She pointed to two C-section scars under her shirt, one from the birth of a daughter in Russia and another from the same procedure for her son. The first one is so ugly she can’t look at it without crying, she said.

Khromova, 36,  also stayed in the Trump-branded condo complex. She was there for three months, assisted by a nanny, an interpreter, a driver, a yoga tutor and a massage therapist. A native of Siberia, she lives with her husband in Phuket, Thailand, where they run a company that helps foreigners buy property.

“I came here with a lot of money to spend,” she said. “I don’t cost the U.S. taxpayers a thing.”

Being a birth tourist in Sunny Isles Beach isn’t cheap, with agencies charging as much as $50,000 to set up housing, hire interpreters, find doctors and deal with paperwork. Those who can’t afford that level of service buy smaller packages and rent apartments in far-flung suburbs, sometimes teaming up to share lodgings and expenses.

The phenomenon has, over the years, attracted bad actors. Federal agents have raided so-called maternity hotels in California catering to women from China and Taiwan; some were coached to disguise their pregnancies when they arrived in the U.S. and lied about why they were in the country, according to federal officials. Miami-mama was raided once, too, and a notary public was indicted for making a false statement in a passport application and conspiring to commit an offense against the U.S. (That employee was immediately terminated, Lubnevskiy said.)

The focus of Trump’s criticism hasn’t been the abuse of the system but the fact that it exists. One of his arguments against birthright citizenship is that when the babies born on U.S. soil become adults, they can petition for their parents to live permanently in the country.

But to many of the Russians in Sunny Isles, at least, this idea sounded unappealing. The biggest deterrent: They’d have to start paying personal income taxes that are more than double what they are in Russia. “There’s this feeling among some that it’s cool to be a U.S. citizen,” said Victoria Parshkova, who had a son in September. “It’s not cool at all.”

Source: There’s No Stopping the Russian Baby Boom in Miami

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Public diplomacy critical for multicultural Korea

2018/12/18 Leave a comment

Grappling with immigration and integration:

The latest hazing death of a biracial teenager in Incheon and anti-immigration protests against asylum seekers from Yemen show the challenges Korea faces as it becomes a multicultural society.

To tackle such challenges, the Korea Foundation (KF), a nonprofit organization that has been promoting public diplomacy under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is stepping up efforts to help people develop a global mindset, according to KF President Lee Si-hyung.

He deemed two projects — a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with district offices in Busan and the first “Public Diplomacy Week” — were especially helpful to achieve the goal.

The MOU was signed by ASEAN Culture House, an institution in Busan aimed at nurturing cultures of 10 ASEAN countries, and each district office in Busan to enhance cooperation for supporting multicultural families, many from Southeast Asia.

The first Public Diplomacy Week from Nov. 1 to 3 at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul was to assess Korea’s public diplomacy and how it can be developed to help Koreans and foreigners understand each other better.

“Protests against the asylum seekers from Yemen are only beginning of the problems already faced by the European countries,” Lee told The Korea Times. “And having a global mindset should be the starting point to tackle the issues.”

He suggested a two-step approach — raising public awareness toward diversity in the short term and getting ready to accept refugees in the long term.

“In that regard, the ASEAN Culture House’s project is right on target for our goal in the short term,” he said. “And although not intended, Public Diplomacy Week is believed to help Koreans understand the people from outside.”

Established in 1991, the KF aims to promote understanding of Korea and strengthen partnerships with institutions and opinion leaders around the world.

It has been responsible for public diplomacy-related projects in accordance with a public diplomacy act enacted in August 2017.

The first Public Diplomacy Week featured presentations by embassies in Seoul on their respective public diplomacy programs, a conference on the role of social media in public diplomacy and an introduction to jobs in the public diplomacy sector.

The KF plans to host Public Diplomacy Week every year.

ASEAN Culture House opened in September 2017, in line with the government’s plan to relocate government bodies and public organizations outside Seoul for balanced societal development.

The KF moved its headquarters to Seogwipo, Jeju Island, in July, while leaving its global affairs bureau in Seoul.

It enables the foundation to operate in three cities in Korea, along with seven offices abroad.

“I believe our presence in Busan and Jeju Island can help their campaign to go global,” Lee said, referring to Jeju’s campaign for international investment and conferences.

He pointed out that Busan and outer South Gyeongsang Province were home for many multicultural families.

The foundation’s overseas projects include Korea Chair and Korea Center to enhance collaboration with scholars, researchers, politicians and journalists on security policies.

Korea Chairs have been established at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, led by scholar and policy wonk Victor Cha; the Brookings Institution, led by academic Jung Pak; and Free University of Brussels, headed by Ramon Pacheco Pardo. A Korea Chair at Rand Corp. is being expanded. All the institutions except the Free University of Brussels (Belgium) are in the United States.

Korea Centers have been set up at the Woodrow Wilson Center (U.S.) and the Institute for Security and Development Policy (Sweden).

Source: [INTERVIEW] Public diplomacy critical for multicultural Korea

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Brexit: EU immigration to UK ‘to be slashed by 80%’ after we leave bloc

2018/12/18 Leave a comment

A taste of what is coming under Brexit. Noteworthy that EU migrants pay more into the public purse than British born residents:

The home secretary is said to have plans to cut European immigration by 80 per cent under stricter entry conditions after Brexit.

Sajid Javid is expected to publish plans to end free movement and preferential access for EU migrants after December 2020 – which will see net immigration from Europe reduced to as little as 10,000 a year, according to the The Sunday Times.

Official figures published last month revealed EU net migration has hit a six-year low at 74,000 in the year to June 2018 – 60 per cent lower than in June 2016 and the lowest level since 2012.

The government’s immigration white paper, expected to be published next week, will reportedly state this figure will be slashed further, to between 10,000 and 25,000 long-term migrants each year by 2025.

A source told the newspaper: “We are going to take full control over who can come to the UK, prioritising those with the skills the UK needs rather than on the basis of which country they come from.”

It is expected to lead to a cut in the number of highly skilled EU migrants from 15,000 last year to about 11,000, while those who are “medium skilled” will be slashed from 18,500 to around 4,500. Most of the 40,000 EU citizens with low skills are expected not to come at all.

Medium-skilled migrants will only be allowed in if they have a job paying at least £30,000 a year, while low-skilled workers will get short-term visas of up to a year if they are from a country that is a “low risk of immigration abuse”, according to the newspaper.

The reports will fuel concerns about the impact of Brexit on the economy after a study commissioned by the government found EU workers pay far more to the public purse than British-born residents – at £2,300 more in net terms than the average adult.

It found that over their lifetimes, migrants from the EU pay in £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits – while the average UK citizen’s net lifetime contribution is zero.

The reports will also stoke fears about gaps in the workforce in sectors that rely largely on EU workers, such as social care nursing and the hospitality industry.

Mr Javid is also set to distance himself from Theresa May’s “hostile environment” towards migrants and pledge to launch a “new conversation” on immigration with a “fair and transparent compliant environment” that helps protect legitimate migrants while cracking down on illegals.

The white paper is also expected to outline that EU nationals will no longer be able to travel to the UK using a national identity card but will have to use a passport.

Rather than a visa, they will be allowed to obtain an online Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), while Britons travelling to the EU will have to pay for an ETA costing £6.

The report comes after MPs expressed outrage that they would not view the government’s immigration plans before the meaningful vote on 11 December, which was subsequently postponed.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not comment on leaked documents. We plan to publish a white paper on the future borders and immigration system soon.”

Source: Brexit: EU immigration to UK ‘to be slashed by 80%’ after we leave bloc

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China’s Detention Camps for Muslims Turn to Forced Labor

2018/12/18 Leave a comment

Speaks for itself:

Muslim inmates from internment camps in far western China hunched over sewing machines, in row after row. They were among hundreds of thousands who had been detained and spent month after month renouncing their religious convictions. Now the government was showing them on television as models of repentance, earning good pay — and political salvation — as factory workers.

China’s ruling Communist Party has said in a surge of upbeat propaganda that a sprawling network of camps in the Xinjiang region is providing job training and putting detainees on production lines for their own good, offering an escape from poverty, backwardness and the temptations of radical Islam.

But mounting evidence suggests a system of forced labor is emerging from the camps, a development likely to intensify international condemnation of China’s drastic efforts to control and indoctrinate a Muslim ethnic minority population of more than 12 million in Xinjiang.

Accounts from the region, satellite images and previously unreported official documents indicate that growing numbers of detainees are being sent to new factories, built inside or near the camps, where inmates have little choice but to accept jobs and follow orders.

“These people who are detained provide free or low-cost forced labor for these factories,” said Mehmet Volkan Kasikci, a researcher in Turkey who has collected accounts of inmates in the factories by interviewing relatives who have left China. “Stories continue to come to me,” he said.

China has defied an international outcry against the vast internment program in Xinjiang, which holds Muslims and forces them to renounce religious piety and pledge loyalty to the party. The emerging labor program underlines the government’s determination to continue operating the camps despite calls from United Nations human rights officials, the United States and other governments to close them.

A satellite image taken in September shows an internment camp in Xinjiang. The buildings in the upper left corner appear to be of a design commonly used by factories.CreditTerraserver/Digital Globe

The program aims to transform scattered Uighurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities — many of them farmers, shopkeepers and tradespeople — into a disciplined, Chinese-speaking industrial work force, loyal to the Communist Party and factory bosses, according to official plans published online.

These documents describe the camps as vocational training centers and do not specify whether inmates are required to accept assignments to factories or other jobs. But pervasive restrictions on the movement and employment of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, as well as a government effort to persuade businesses to open factories around the camps, suggest that they have little choice.

Independent accounts from inmates who have worked in the factories are rare. The police block attempts to get near the camps and closely monitor foreign journalists who travel to Xinjiang, making it all but impossible to conduct interviews in the region. And most Uighurs who have fled Xinjiang did so before the factory program grew in recent months.

But Serikzhan Bilash, a founder of Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights, an organization in Kazakhstan that helps ethnic Kazakhs who have left neighboring Xinjiang, said he had interviewed relatives of 10 inmates who had told their families that they were made to work in factories after undergoing indoctrination in the camps.

They mostly made clothes, and they called their employers “black factories,” because of the low wages and tough conditions, he said.

Mr. Kasikci also described several cases based on interviews with family members: Sofiya Tolybaiqyzy, who was sent from a camp to work in a carpet factory. Abil Amantai, 37, who was put in a camp a year ago and told relatives he was working in a textile factory for $95 a month. Nural Razila, 25, who had studied oil drilling but after a year in a camp was sent to a new textile factory nearby.

“It’s not as though they have a choice of whether they get to work in a factory, or what factory they are assigned to,” said Darren Byler, a lecturer at the University of Washington who studies Xinjiang and visited the region in April.

He said it was safe to conclude that hundreds of thousands of detainees could be compelled to work in factories if the program were put in place at all of the region’s internment camps.

The Xinjiang government did not respond to faxed questions about the factories, nor did the State Council Information Office, the central government agency that answers reporters’ questions.

The documents detail plans for inmates, even those formally released from the camps, to take jobs at factories that work closely with the camps to continue to monitor and control them. The socks, suits, skirts and other goods made by these laborers would be sold in Chinese stores and could trickle into overseas markets.

Kashgar, an ancient, predominantly Uighur area of southern Xinjiang that is a focus of the program, reported that in 2018 alone it aimed to send 100,000 inmates who had been through the “vocational training centers” to work in factories, according to a plan issued in August.

That figure may be an ambitious political goal rather than a realistic target. But it suggests how many Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities may be held in the camps and sent to factories. Scholars have estimated that as many as one million people have been detained. The Chinese government has not issued or confirmed any figures.

“I don’t see China yielding an inch on Xinjiang,” said John Kamm, the founder of the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that lobbies China on human rights issues. “Now it seems we have entrepreneurs coming in and taking advantage of the situation.”

The evolution of the Xinjiang camps echoes China’s “re-education through labor” system, where citizens once were sent without trial to toil for years. China abolished “re-education through labor” five years ago, but Xinjiang appears to be creating a new version.

Retailers in the United States and other countries should guard against buying goods made by workers from the Xinjiang camps, which could violate laws banning imports produced by prison or forced labor, Mr. Kamm said.

While the bulk of clothes and other textile goods manufactured in Xinjiang ends up in domestic and Central Asian markets, some makes its way to the United States and Europe.

Badger Sportswear, a company based in North Carolina, last month received a container of polyester knitted T-shirts from Hetian Taida, a company in Xinjiang that was shown on a prime-time state television broadcast promoting the camps.

The program showed workers at a Hetian Taida plant, including a woman who was described as a former camp inmate. But the small factory did not appear to be on a camp site, and it is unclear whether it made the T-shirts sent to North Carolina.

Ginny Gasswint, a Badger Sportswear executive, said the company had ordered a small amount of products from Xinjiang, and used Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production, a nonprofit certification organization, to ensure that its suppliers meet standards.

Seth Lennon, a spokesman for Worldwide, said that Hetian Taida had only recently enrolled in its program, and the organization had no information on possible coerced labor in Xinjiang. “We will certainly look into this,” he said.

Repeated calls over several days to Wu Hongbo, the chairman of Hetian Taida, went unanswered.

Satellite imagery suggests that production lines are being built inside some internment camps.

A state television broadcast promoting the internment camps showed textile workers at a company named Hetian Taida. The company shipped T-shirts to North Carolina last month.

Images of one camp featured in the state television broadcast, for example, show 10 to 12 large buildings with a single-story, one-room design commonly used for factories, said Nathan Ruser, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The buildings are surrounded by fencing and security towers, indicating that they are heavily guarded like the rest of the camp.

“It seems unlikely that any detainee would be able to go to any building that they were not taken to,” Mr. Ruser said.

Commercial registration records also show at least a few companies have been established this year at addresses inside internment camps. They include a printing factory, a noodle factory and at least twoclothing and textile manufacturers at camps in rural areas around Kashgar. Another clothing and bedding manufacturer is registered in a camp in Aksu in northwestern Xinjiang.

The government’s effort to connect the internment camps with factories emerged this year as the number of detainees climbed and Xinjiang faced rising costs to build and run the camps.

Many camps were once called “transformation through education centers” by the government, reflecting their mission: inducing inmates to cast aside Islamic devotion and accept Communist Party supremacy.

But since August, the Chinese government has defended the camps by arguing that they are job training centers that will help lift detainees and their families out of poverty by giving them the skills to join China’s economic mainstream. Many rural Uighurs speak little Chinese, and language training has been advertised as one of the main purposes of the camps.

Yet the practical training in the camps often appears to be rudimentary, said Adrian Zenz, a social scientist at the European School of Culture and Theology who has studied the campaign.

An early hint of the factory labor program came in March when Sun Ruizhe, the president of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, described it to senior industry representatives, according to a transcript of his speech that was posted on industry websites.

Mr. Sun said that Xinjiang planned to recruit from three main sources to increase the textile and garment sector’s work force by more than 100,000 in 2018: impoverished households, struggling relatives of prisoners and detainees, and the camp inmates, whose training “could be combined with developing the textile and apparel section.”

In April, the Xinjiang government began rolling out a plan to attract textile and garment companies. Local governments would receive funds to build production sites for them near the camps; companies would receive a subsidy of $260 to train each inmate they took on, as well other incentives.

In remarks in October defending the camps, a top official in Xinjiang, Shohrat Zakir, said the government was busy preparing “job assignments” for inmates formally finishing indoctrination and training. A budget document this year from Yarkant, a county in Kashgar, said the camps were responsible for “employment services.”

The inmates assigned to factories may have to stay for years.

Mr. Byler said a relative of a Uighur friend was sent to an indoctrination camp in March and formally released this fall. But he was then told he had to work for up to three years in a clothing factory.

A government official, Mr. Byler said, suggested to his friend’s family that if the relative worked hard, his time in the factory might be reduced.

The Chinese state media has praised the centers as leading wayward people toward modern civilization. It also reports that the workers are generously paid.

“The training will turn them from ‘nomads’ into skilled marvels,” the official Xinjiang Daily said last month. “Education and training will make them into ‘modern people,’ useful to society.”

Source: China’s Detention Camps for Muslims Turn to Forced Labor

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Saudi Arabia Declares War on America’s Muslim Congresswomen

2018/12/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

Ever since the midterm election, conservative media in the United States have targeted with special zeal Ilhan Omar, an incoming Somali-American Democratic congresswoman and a devout Muslim who wears hijab. In response to Democrats’ push to remove a headwear ban on the House floor to accommodate Omar, conservative commentator and pastor E.W. Jackson complained on a radio show that Muslims were transforming Congress into an “Islamic republic.”

The Democratic Party has several rising political stars with Arab or Muslim backgrounds, all of whom have become objects of such conspiracy theories. But it’s not only American conservatives who have been indulging in this culture war. The organized attacks have also been coming from abroad—specifically, from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The midterm elections have amplified an existing suspicion in Middle Eastern media of Muslim political activism in the United States. Academics, media outlets, and commentators close to Persian Gulf governments have repeatedly accused Omar, Rashida Tlaib (another newly elected Muslim congresswoman), and Abdul El-Sayed (who made a failed bid to become governor of Michigan) of being secret members of the Muslim Brotherhood who are hostile to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. On Sunday, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya published a feature insinuating that Omar and Tlaib were part of an alliance between the Democratic Party and Islamist groups to control Congress. The article accused the two of being “anti-Trump and his political team and options, especially his foreign policy starting from the sanctions on Iran to the isolation of the Muslim Brotherhood and all movements of political Islam.”

In another example, a talk show on Saudi-owned station MBC discussed the Muslim congresswomen and more broadly the implications of Democrats taking the House. Prominent Arab anchor Amr Adib debated the matter with Egyptian political scientist Moataz Fattah, who suggested that Trump’s successful combating of Islamists would be undermined by the Democrats’ victory. The attacks have become so ubiquitous in the Persian Gulf that the trend itself is the subject of debate, both online and on television.

Occasionally these attacks have been made by officials of those governments, in apparent anxiety that their countries’ expensive public relations and lobbying efforts might be undermined. Just hours after Omar won her election, for example, a staffer at the Saudi Embassy in the United States accused her of following the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, which he said has permeated the Democratic Party. “She will be hostile to the Gulf and a supporter of the political Islam represented in the Brotherhood in the Middle East,” tweeted Faisal al-Shammeri, a cultural advisor at the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission to the United States, which is part of the embassy, and a writer for Al Arabiya.

El-Sayed, an American born to Egyptian immigrants, noticed the attacks from the region during his campaign. Media in the Middle East amplified accusations by a Republican candidate for governor, Patrick Colbeck, that El-Sayed had links to the Brotherhood. Egyptian newspaper Youm7, for instance, reported that El-Sayed likely lost the election to his link to the “radical” Nation of Islam, and his relationship with Muslim-American activist Linda Sarsour, “known for her radical views.”

El-Sayed told me that political elites in places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE felt threatened by American politicians who are also Muslim. For average Middle Easterners, his story is inspiring. (The clearest instance of Middle Easterners drawing such inspiration, ironically, was the first presidential election victory of Barack Obama, who faced false accusations of being a Muslim.)

The rise of politicians like El-Sayed, Omar, and Tlaib also undermines a core argument advanced by dictators in the Middle East: that their people are not ready for democracy. “People would not have access to power in their countries but they would if they leave; this destroys the argument by Sisi or bin Salman,” El-Sayed said, referring to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “What’s ironic is there is no way I would aspire to be in leadership in Egypt, the place of my fathers.”

American allies in the region also fear that the Democratic Party’s new Arab leaders will advocate for political change in their countries. Having spent millions of dollars for public relations campaigns in Western capitals, the Persian Gulf countries feel threatened by any policymakers with an independent interest in and knowledge of the region. They have thus framed these officials’ principled objections to regional violations of human rights and democratic norms as matters of personal bias. One commentator, who is known to echo government talking points and is frequently retweeted by government officials, recently spread the rumor that Omar is a descendent of a “Houthi Yemeni” to undermine her attacks on the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

The most common attack online by the Saudi-led bloc on the Muslim-American Democrats has been to label them as members of the Muslim Brotherhood, or more generally as ikhwanji, an extremist catch-all term. These attacks started long before this year’s elections. In 2014, the UAE even announced a terror list that included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The attacks attempting to tie Omar and Tlaib to the Muslim Brotherhood started in earnest after CAIR publicly welcomed their election to Congress. One UAE-based academic, Najat al-Saeed, criticized Arabic media for celebrating the two Muslim women’s victories at the midterms, and pointed to CAIR’s support for them as evidence of their ties to the Brotherhood.

The attacks on Omar have also indulged in racism. While Tlaib and Omar have both been the targets of smears, it’s been easier for Gulf Arabs to single out Omar for insults because of her African heritage. Negative stereotypes about Africans— who serve as poorly treated migrant workers in the Gulf’s oil economy— are widespread throughout the region.

This was evident in the social media campaign launched last month against Omar by Ahmad al-Farraj, a Saudi writer and researcher with UAE-based Trends Research and Advisory—a firm founded by a former Dubai police official and consultant. He attacked Omar for criticizing Trump’s muted response to the CIA assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman likely directed the murder of former U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. “These miserable beings coming from the underdeveloped worlds are more hateful to their race and to you than any enemy,” Al Farraj tweeted to his more than 60,000 followers. A steady stream of racist attacks followed in response. One person tweeted a picture of Omar accompanied by the caption “whenever you buy a slave, buy a stick along with the slave. The slave is miserable filth.”

Other than the flurry of racist comments, Omar was trolled based on two false accusations: that she was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and that she had married her brother. Hashtags also began trending with dozens of anonymous accounts tweeting slightly different variations of the same language, and echoing known government-affiliated accounts. The pattern is typical of Twitter troll armies that seem to be used regularly by Mohammed bin Salman to silence the kingdom’s critics.

It should be little surprise that America’s authoritarian allies have responded with panic and fear to voices like Tlaib and Omar. These regimes have always benefited from the false choice they present to policymakers in the West—in Muslim countries, they say, extremists are the only alternative to dictators. That argument is eloquently undermined by American politicians who share those regimes’ religion, but not their cynicism about democracy.

Source: Saudi Arabia Declares War on America’s Muslim Congresswomen

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Many worldwide oppose more migration – both into and out of their countries

2018/12/17 Leave a comment

Latest good data and analysis by Pew Research, showing where Canada stands. Relatively large number on concerns about out migration in Canada (more than one-third) surprised me as I had not seen those numbers before:

As the number of international migrants reaches new highs, people around the world show little appetite for more migration – both into and out of their countries, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 27 nations conducted in the spring of 2018.

Across the countries surveyed, a median of 45% say fewer or no immigrants should be allowed to move to their country, while 36% say they want about the same number of immigrants. Just 14% say their countries should allow more immigrants. (Those who said no immigrants should be allowed volunteered this response.)

In Europe, majorities in Greece (82%), Hungary (72%), Italy (71%) and Germany (58%) say fewer immigrants or no immigrants at all should be allowed to move to their countries. Each of these countries served as some of the most popular transit or destination countries during Europe’s recent surge in asylum seekers. (In several countries, most disapprove of how the European Union has handled the refugee issue.)

People in other countries around the world hold views similar to those in Europe. Large majorities in Israel (73%), Russia (67%), South Africa (65%) and Argentina (61%) say their countries should let in fewer immigrants. In every country surveyed, less than a third say their nation should allow more immigrants to enter.

Worldwide, a record 258 million people lived outside their country of birth in 2017, up from 153 million in 1990. Their share of the global population is also up, reaching 3.4% in 2017, compared with 2.9% in 1990.

In recent years, a surge in migration has focused public attention on issues related to this, leading to the rise of political parties that question national immigration policies in some destination countries. More than 2 million migrants have sought asylum in Europe since 2015. In the Americas, thousands of Central American families and children have sought to enter the United States. (Recently, immigration has declined as an issue of public concern in parts of Western Europe, even as it has remained a top issue in U.S.)

Together, the 27 countries surveyed by the Center have more than half of the world’s international migrants. The U.S., with 44.5 million immigrants in 2017, has the largest foreign-born population in the world, followed by Saudi Arabia (12.2 million), Germany (12.2 million) and Russia (11.7 million).

Meanwhile, among the countries surveyed, immigrants make up the largest shares of national populations in Australia (29%), Israel (24%), Canada (22%) and Sweden (18%). About 14% of the U.S. population is foreign born, a share comparable to that of Germany (15%), the UK (13%) and Spain (13%).

See our interactive map of destinations and origins of migrants around the world.

Outmigration also widely seen as a problem

At the same time, people in many countries worry about people leaving their home for jobs in other countries. Among surveyed nations, Greece and Spain – two countries that have seen significant numbers of people move abroad in recent years – have the highest shares of people who say this is a very or moderately big problem (89% and 88%, respectively).

About eight-in-ten (79%) say this in Mexico, which has one of the world’s largest numbers of people living outside of their country, at 13 million, according to the United Nations. (The country’s mass migration to the U.S. has slowed over the past decade or so.) In India, the nation with the largest international migrant population (16.6 million), 64% say people leaving for jobs elsewhere is a big problem.

In many countries that are home to large foreign-born populations (whether by total number or by share), few say people leaving their country for jobs elsewhere is a big problem. In the U.S., for example, 38% say outmigration for jobs is a big problem. In Sweden, 18% say the same.

In many countries, more people today say outmigration is a very big or moderately big problem than in 2002, when the Center began asking this question. In Russia, Japan, South Korea, Kenya, Poland and Italy, the share saying this has climbed about 15 percentage points or more during this time. (Fifteen countries have survey data from both 2002 and 2018.)

In fact, since 2002, the only surveyed countries where worries over emigration due to jobs abroad have declined significantly are Germany and Canada. The share who say outmigration is a big problem in Germany fell by almost half (from 64% in 2002 to 33% in 2018), while the share in Canada declined from 55% to 37%.

On Dec. 10, representatives of most countries worldwide are expected to gather in Morocco to sign the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, a non-legally binding agreement intended to manage migration for both origin and destination countries. However, the compact’s effect on future migration remains unknown, in part because several nations have said they will not adopt it. This list includes the U.S., Australia, Hungary and Poland.

Note: See full topline results (PDF) and methodology here.

Source: Pew Research Center

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Conservatives call for audit of immigration system after gangster twice released in Canada

2018/12/17 Leave a comment

His case should not have fallen through the cracks, suggesting communications issues between CBSA and the IRB, particularly in terms of timeliness. While in the end, the system did work, the issues should have been caught and acted upon earlier.

But it is somewhat ingenuous for Conservative immigration critic to state that the Liberal government is undermining public confidence in the immigration system while ignoring the contribution that some of her over-the-top language and positions (e.g., opposition to the Global Compact on Migration) also play. Fine line between legitimate criticism and stoking the fires:

Abdullahi Hashi Farah had an extensive criminal record, ties to a violent gang, and a long history of breaching probation. But Canadian immigration officials still released him after he crossed illegally into Canada in October 2017. (Supplied)

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel is again calling for a complete review and audit of the immigration screening system in response to a CBC News investigation that revealed a Somali gang member with an extensive criminal record was twice released in Canada.

“The government has to acknowledge that there are serious flaws in the process and commit to fixing the system,” the Calgary MP said in a telephone interview Thursday.

In an earlier scrum outside the House of Commons, Border Security Minister Bill Blair was asked about the case of Abdullahi Hashi Farah.

Blair conceded Farah would not have been released had the full extent of his gang ties and criminal record been known. But he said he took “some comfort in the fact that the system has worked and we’ve identified the individual, and he is subject to deportation.”

Rempel said Blair’s response will only serve to further undermine public faith in the system.

‘This is pretty bad’

“People will read [the CBC News story] and they will look at the minister’s response and go, ‘This is somebody who is not taking this situation seriously, and it is a serious situation,’ ” Rempel said.

“And I worry that by doing this, the Liberals are actually eroding public confidence writ large. And that is not where we want to be in a pluralism like Canada. They need to restore order to the system. This [case] is pretty bad.”

As CBC News first reported Thursday, Farah was fleeing an arrest warrant and deportation in the U.S. when he crossed illegally into Canada at Emerson, Man., in late October 2017.

Then 27, Farah told Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officials about his criminal record and gang ties. The agency wanted him held for a few more days until it could retrieve his full criminal record from the U.S.

But an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) hearing officer, impressed with Farah’s seeming honesty, ordered his release.

As a condition of release, Farah surrendered his cellphone to the CBSA so that it could be checked for evidence of criminal activity

Six days after Farah was set free in Winnipeg, he breached his release conditions and was arrested again.

That same day, the CBSA gained access to Farah’s cellphone. They found recent photos and videos of Farah playing with loaded handguns, doing cocaine, concealing cocaine, and flashing wads of cash. There were also photos of what authorities believed was a stolen credit card.

Released despite evidence of criminal activity

The CBSA has declined to explain why the evidence from Farah’s cellphone was not immediately provided to the IRB.

Without that evidence, another IRB hearing officer again released Farah in March 2018 and allowed him to move to Calgary.

In June, Edmonton police arrested Farah as a suspect in a string of armed convenience store robberies after a CBSA officer in Winnipeg picked him out of robbery photos taken from store security camera footage.

Edmonton police have declined to say why Farah is no longer a suspect in the robberies. He is now jailed in the Edmonton Remand Centre, awaiting deportation to Somalia.

The CBC News investigation revealed Farah had lied repeatedly about the extent and seriousness of his criminal record and the length of his involvement with the Somali Outlaws gang in Minneapolis and Nashville.

The investigation also revealed Farah had breached immigration and parole conditions more than 30 times in the U.S and in Canada. He had also been imprisoned for contempt after he reneged on a promise to testify against his former gang in relation to a major sex-trafficking case in Nashville involving girls as young as 12.

Rempel stressed her party is pro-immigration but said this case, and others like it, show the system can’t handle the volume of immigrants while ensuring adequately rigorous screening.

“While certainly not every case is going to be like this, even one is unacceptable, and even one puts the integrity of the system — and the perception of the integrity of the system — at risk.”

Source: Conservatives call for audit of immigration system after gangster twice released in Canada

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Malta: Henley and Partners’ profits rise by 500%, selling passports

2018/12/17 Leave a comment

A lucrative business:

The citizenship planning firm, Henley and Partners, has seen its share of distributed funds from the Individual Investor Programme (IIP) increase by over 500%, calculations by Newsbook.com.mt finds.

The firm is a leader in the process more commonly known in Malta, as the selling of Maltese passports.

Comparing the reporting by the Office of the Regulator for the IIP for the Third and the Fifth Reports (2016 – 2018), the firm has managed to make a significant sum of money through the IIP. The reporting period ranges between the 1st July and 30th June.

In the Third report which includes the profits from the start of the IIP to the 2016/17 reporting period, Henley and Partners managed to make €5.8m from their services.

The publication of the Fifth report last month, now shows that that this number has grown to €28.8m, 500% since the IIP process began

As with previous years, the sums of money that the firm receives come via a Suspense account which is set up to receive the financial contributions, property purchases, rents and investments generated from individuals seeking citizenship.  These elements are written into the Laws of Malta.

Once the individual(s) have made the Oath of Allegiance, these funds are then distributed under IIP guidelines. Henley and Partners is entitled to receive 4% of the contributions as well as 4% of the investments made under the Investment Requirement.

MEPs speak to Henley and Partners

The firm is by no means the only entity in Malta carrying out this process of ‘citizenship planning’ and it is clear from the reporting periods that Identity Malta generates more from the IIP. H&P are however a prime mover and shaker in the investment visa field, a field said to still be in need of proper regulation.

During their investigations into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, and wider concerns about Malta, an EU delegation of MEPs from the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, spoke to the firm trying to understand more about how the process works, and the firm’s role in it.

Malta and Cyprus are the only two countries which operate the ‘Golden citizenship programme’ within the EU, and according to their discussions with a representative of Henley and Partners, they found that they facilitate only 40% of the total number of applications for Malta.

With EU sanctions imposed on Russia and Russians being one of Malta’s citizenship clientele, the delegation raised concerns about a number of those blacklisted under EU sanctions who had managed to receive citizenship through their programme. H&P insisted that their due diligence processes were ‘very reliable’. The continued saying that the process is, ‘extremely serious and rather lengthy’ and that, ‘it is not easy to get citizenship rapidly’.

The representative added that they cooperate with the government and other organisations in cross checking the identities and backgrounds of those making applications.

The delegation report states that rejection rates for Russians have been going up and this is consistent with the 25% overall rejection rate that currently stands in Malta.

Applications are down but demand is steady

The latest regulator report shows that numbers of applications have dropped in the yearly reporting period, standing at 330, 47 less than the last year.

However, numbers from Europe remain high at 141 applications, 42.7%. Asia has also grown to 107 this year, 32.4%. This is 11%  greater than last and four times greater than 2015 figures (8.6%).

The Middle East has seen a 5.6% drop its numbers with only 26 applications made. Individuals from African states on the other hand, submitted 30 applications this year (9.1%), almost 4% more than 2016/17 reporting.

Overall, the number of approved applications was 223, making the total to June 2018, 961. This offsets the number of rejected or withdrawn applications which currently sits at 75.

Turning serious money into solid investment

Investment clients ‘are obliged to invest in a residential immovable property in Malta, either by acquiring and holding one having a minimum value of €350,000 or by taking one on lease for a minimum annual rent of €16,000.’ This is stipulated under the IIP Regulations.

Over this year’s reporting period, the total amount of property purchased as part of the IIP’s investment regulations sits at €29,600,500. This covers the value of 25 properties averaging €1,184,020 in value.

Sliema and St Julians are the most favourable places for this property, accounting for 72% of those purchased.

According to the 2016/17 report, there were 80 properties purchased, more than this year. The favourable locations of those properties remains consistent with this year.

Over 200 (231) other properties were being leased for a contractual duration of 5 years. This amounts to a total of €23,062,687.64, averaging €95,695.80 per contract and €19,139.16 per lease.

These leased properties are found across 26 different areas in Malta with Sliema and St Julians emerging as the most favourable again, 35% and 21% respectively.

Last year’s figures show that the number of leased properties was over double that of this reporting period. 483 properties were leased by investment clients. Their locations are also as varied as this year’s report.

They didn’t speak to me, they didn’t look at the reports

This year’s report opens with some criticism from the regulator, Mr Carmel DeGabriele. In his foreword to the report, he talks about his disappointment that members of the EU delegation that visited Malta, did not consult with him or look at the previous reporting or frameworks that the IIP use to vet potential citizenship candidates and use the funds.

He says that, ‘none of the fact-finding missions which came over to Malta from both the European Commission and the European Parliament as well as other institutions that have decided to criticize the running of this Programme have even bothered to request a meeting with the undersigned or any of the members of my Office or seem to have at least carefully studied any of this Office’s past Annual Reports before expressing in one way or another their deep concerns over this Programme.’

He also readdressed the question that the contributions that are paid in through the regulations go towards the country’s improvement.

‘It has already been spelt out that the income which the Government is and will be deriving from this Programme will in the coming months and years play an extremely important role in the country’s infrastructural boom and social development.’

Source: Henley and Partners’ profits rise by 500%, selling passports

Filed under Citizenship, citizenship-by-investment Tagged with ,

How second-generation immigrants are transforming the landscape of Spanish society

2018/12/17 Leave a comment

One does not see too many articles on Spain, and even fewer on the second generation and many of the issues are similar to those experienced by the second generation in Canada:

Children born in Spain to immigrant parents have not had to go through the trials and tribulations of migration but they do have to live between two cultures. They belong to a new generation of Spaniards who have been brought up here and whose parents are predominantly from countries further to the south.

They are very often bilingual and their mixed identity allows them to enjoy links to their parents’ culture while positioning themselves within Spanish society, according to the report Spain in expansion: the integration of immigrant children, published in 2014 by La Caixa Foundation.

20% of babies born in Spain have a foreign parent

Fátima J., a criminology graduate from Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, explains that she has grown up with two very different mindsets, and this has helped make her more tolerant. She has two approaches to life and she says her visits to Morocco during the holidays have taught her the value of hospitality. “You are always welcome in anyone’s house,” she says. “In Spain, this seems strange because you have to be invited to eat at a relative’s home. But in Morocco, the doors are open to you any time of the day.”

In 2005, it wasn’t clear whether immigration would continue to grow in Spain or whether the trend would reverse. There are four million foreigners registered in the country, which is 10% of Spain’s 46.7 million population, and data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) shows that the new generation of Spaniards is the most diverse to date.

A study carried out by Verne on births, nationality and population reveals that 20% of the almost five million births in the last decade – amounting to 1,150,629 – have been to at least one foreign parent, according to INE data from 2007 to 2017.

Data gathered between 2006 and 2016 indicates that immigrant parentswho arrived in Spain during the last decade are predominantly Moroccan (around 26%), with Rumanians accounting for 12%, Ecuadorians 6% and Chinese 4%. It is their children who are transforming the landscape of Spanish society.

…

The Longitudinal study on the Second Generation by La Caixa, which carried out 7,000 interviews over the course of 10 years, suggests that the identities of the children of immigrants is fluid and changes over time and according to the context they are in, particularly during adolescence.

“The children of immigrants select the values from each culture that are worth preserving,” says Nathalie Hadj Handrim, doctor in Spanish and Latin American Civilization and Language at the University of Barcelona.

….

Born in Spain, but without Spanish nationality

Not all the children of foreigners born in Spain obtain Spanish nationality. It depends on the legal status of their parents. If neither parent has Spanish nationality, the children take the nationality of their parents unless they are stateless.

In legal terms, this is known as the right to nationality by blood versus the right to nationality according to place of birth. To be recognized as Spaniards on paper, either one of the parents must have Spanish nationality or the child must reside in Spain for a year, according to the country’s Civil Code.

…

According to the Algerian sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad, who studied the children of immigrants in France during the 1990s, administrative and social realities keep these children in between two worlds.

“On the one hand, there is an administrative reality which determines nationality […] and on the other hand, a social reality which keeps these children between two countries and two nationalities and two societies beyond the purely legal dimension […] so that they become products and victims of the same story,” he writes in his work The Double Absence. From the dreams of the emigrant to the suffering of the immigrant.

A glance at INE data from 2013 to 2017 shows there were 108,074 children of immigrants who acquired Spanish nationality in that period, 46,700 of whom were previously Moroccan, 8,556 Ecuadorian, 5,818 Bolivian, and 4,318 Nigerian.

Rosa Aparicio, from the José Ortega and Gasset Foundation’s Research Institute and co-author of The Longitudinal study on the Second Generation, points out a recent spike in Moroccans who are becoming Spanish citizens, having accumulated the 10 years of official uninterrupted residency.

This is because, according to INE data, Moroccan immigration peaked exactly 10 years ago, with the arrival of 70,000 migrants. Last year, 39,000 migrants arrived in Spain from Morocco, a similar number to 2009 figures.

Four million people, or around 10% of the population, are currently registered as foreign nationals, most of whom are either Moroccan or Romanian. This percentage was 3.85% in 2001, according to a report by the Ministry of Employment and Social Issues.

Forging identity through art

Born in 1995 in Spain, Kinue Tsubata has maintained close ties to her Japanese roots. Though her mother is from Alicante, both parents – her father is from Nagaoka in Japan – have instilled Japanese values in her, such as punctuality, perseverance and the importance of attention to detail.

“I think I definitely feel more Spanish because I grew up in Spain, but I also identify with Japanese values,” explains Kinue, who is currently in London getting a master’s degree in Japan-focused International Administration at the School of Oriental and African Studies. “I have a lot of contact with Japanese culture and I watch series and films in Japanese so I won’t forget the language.” She goes on to list Japanese animation movies including Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away from Ghibli studios.

Since she was little, she has had to find her own cultural references as everyone on TV and in cartoons was white. “I was drawn to films such as Mulan and I had a Japanese Barbie that wore a kimono,” she says. Now, she tries to participate in as many cultural events and parties thrown by the Japanese community as possible.

According to the mothers of children of African descent, such as Sara Plaza and Kenia Ramos, second-generation children need references to help them identify – “both in the media and within institutions,” says Sara, the mother of a two-year-old whose father is Senegalese.

“Everything that reaches them contains images of white people and particularly the typical blonde girls with blue eyes,” says Kenia, who has a seven-year-old daughter.

In order to forge the identity of their children, both women try to find relevant cultural references in food, stories and toys. “It’s difficult because there’s no information,” says Kenia, who points out that there are many more books of this kind in English than in Spanish, such as Little Leaders: bold women in black history and Kirikú and the sorceress.

The Cross Border Project theater company, which began in New York and has since set up in Spain, addresses the issue with their play Fiesta, fiesta, fiesta,which tells the story of seven teenagers born in Spain to foreign parents.

The play covers themes such as wearing the headscarf, the culture clash between parents and their children, and the teenagers’ own dreams and fears. “What is happening in the classroom is what is happening in Spain,” says dramatist Lucia Miranda, who came up with the script base on real-life conversations and interviews.

“This is the big identity issue facing the country and Europe, not what is promoted by nationalists. I think it’s an issue that is still not being spoken about in debates. People who are very close to me still speak about Spain in a way that is completely outdated. Spain is no longer white and Catholic. It is very diverse.”

METHODOLOGY

This analysis is based on data from the INE and the Ministry of Education on the census, births and student numbers. We have classed any child with at least one foreign parent as the child of immigrants, in line with the broadest academic definition of the term and with the definition used by researcher Rosa Aparicio.

No distinction has been made between the terms immigrant and foreigner. We are aware that the word foreigner carries less political punch than the word immigrant. No distinction has been made as the data and conversations carried out by experts suggest that 73% of people coming from abroad to live in Spain are from the south while 27% come from countries further north such as Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom.

The analysis of school students is based on data from the Ministry of Education between 2010 and 2017. The data included preschool, primary, secondary, vocational training and pre-university schooling. The children of immigrants who have Spanish nationality have not been included as they are now registered as Spanish.

The analysis may be extrapolated since, according to researcher Rosa Aparicio, the economic status on which it is based is different to that of children with two Spanish parents. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCDE) points out, “The different socio-economic levels account for more than a fifth of what differentiates immigrant students from native students when it comes to acquiring basic skills in OCDE countries and the European Union.”

For population data, provisional 2018 statistics have been used and subjects have been grouped as follows: children between 0 and 19, youths between 19 and 30, adults between 30 and 69, and the elderly. It is not possible to analyze minority nationalities, which are classed as “others” due to statistical confidentiality, according to the INE. Oceania is also treated as a country as no data exists apart from the statistical data.

English version by Heather Galloway.

Source: How second-generation immigrants are transforming the landscape of Spanish society

Filed under Integration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Why are we so afraid of gender-based analysis?

2018/12/17 Leave a comment

Interesting and relevant study that gets behind the rhetoric around Trudeau’s statement on gender based analysis and infrastructure projects like pipelines:

Justin Trudeau set off a social media firestorm during the G20 summit in Argentina in November when he said, “Even big infrastructure projects, you know, might now say, ‘Well, what does a gender lens have to do with building this new highway or this new pipeline or something?’ Well, you know, there are gender impacts when you bring construction workers into a rural area. There are social impacts because they’re mostly male construction workers. How are you adjusting and adapting to those?” A Toronto Sun editorial headline appeared soon after: “Trudeau Unacceptably Smears Construction Workers.” Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer called him “a threat to rural Canada” in a tweet. Many Canadians have taken to Facebook and Twitter expressing their anger that Trudeau suggested that they or their husbands, sons or brothers who work in resource industries might be causing harm in rural communities.

We recently completed a report for the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, based on a review of over 400 scholarly and community research articles and interviews with seven key informants, about strengthening impact assessments of large resource developments to better understand and consider the experiences of Indigenous women. Our research found that there are both positive and negative — but mostly negative — social, economic, cultural and health impacts for Indigenous (and non-Indigenous) women when a resource development project is situated near their community. These gendered impacts are regularly overlooked in current environmental impact assessment processes.

Gendered impacts of resource development

New employment and business opportunities are some of the most important benefits of resource development for rural and remote communities. Indigenous women who are able to access these opportunities report positive impacts on their self-confidence and financial independence. However, not all women are able to access good-quality, high-paying jobs. Because of persistent gendered work patterns, women typically bear the bulk of care work in families and communities. When child care services are unavailable, unaffordable or inaccessible, women face barriers to accessing the training needed for high-paying jobs, such as those in the trades. The shift work and fly-in, fly-out nature of many resource development industries also creates child care challenges for families. While impact benefit agreements and other arrangements sometimes provide preferential hiring opportunities for Indigenous women, these jobs are often temporary, low-skilled and low-paying, and in traditionally feminine sectors like cooking and housekeeping.

Increases in violence and harassment are common impacts of resource development identified by Indigenous women. Racialized and sexualized violence and harassment are frequently reported by Indigenous women who are employed at resource extraction job sites. Women in communities near resource extraction sites sometimes experience rapid increases in gender-based and sexual violence. In particular, the stress that “two-week-on, two-week-off” industry work schedules place on families sometimes contributes to gender-based violence in workers’ homes. More disposable income can lead to increases in substance use and abuse, which research studies have linked to increased crime rates and increased rates of gendered and sexualized violence for women and girls.

Increases in sex work often accompany resource development industries and the mass influx of primarily male workers to resource towns and work camps. Some women enter sex work as an alternative source of income for themselves and their families, while others are victims of human trafficking.

Nearby resource development projects further strain what are in many cases very limited housing resources in Indigenous communities and in northern municipalities with high numbers of Indigenous people. Indigenous women who experience intergenerational trauma, addictions or mental health crises and who have low levels of education are especially vulnerable to becoming hard-to-house or homeless in these contexts. Others who have jobs with lower incomes than those in resource development sectors can find it hard or impossible to afford housing in their home communities.

The social impacts are both positive and negative, but our research shows that for Indigenous women, and other marginalized members of communities, the negative impacts are in many cases likely to outweigh the positive ones.

Trudeau is correct to call for gender-based analysis. People’s Party Leader Maxime Berniersuggests that considering gender in resource development is “cultural Marxism nonsense,” and others have worried it will be “bad for business,” but gender-based analysis is an analytical tool used around the world by governments, businesses, researchers and nonprofit organizations. The federal government committed to using gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) to guide its decision-making beginning in 1995, although the fall 2015 Auditor General’s report made it clear that the quality of GBA+ in many federal departments has historically been less than ideal.

Using a GBA+ lens involves asking deliberate questions about not only gender but also diversity impacts and outcomes, focusing on who receives most of the benefits and who bears more of the costs in policy planning and decision-making, including decisions about resource development. In this case, it also involves making sure that environmental impact assessment processes seek out and listen to the voices of Indigenous women and other community members whose experiences have historically been overlooked.

Culturally relevant gender-based analysis recognizes the diversity among members of communities. It is an important analytical tool that can help to identify gendered impacts and aid in the development of plans to mitigate the worse impacts on women, to ensure that all members of our communities (Indigenous and non-Indigenous, women and men) can share in the benefits of resource extraction and to make it less likely that more marginalized members of communities, including women and girls and people with disabilities, will face more negative impacts than positive ones.

This article is based on a report co-written with Patricia Nash (independent researcher, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, NL) and Deborah Stienstra (Jarislowsky Chair in Families and Work, University of Guelph).

Source: Why are we so afraid of gender-based analysis?

Filed under gender Tagged with , , , ,

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