BU Research Blog

August 18, 2024

New paper on female migrant workers from Nepal

BU research, Featured academics, Global engagement, international, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, Women's Academic Network, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

This week the Global Health Journal accepted the latest article on female migrant workers from Nepal [1]. The paper is co-authored by Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health as well as by Faculty of Health & Social Sciences Visiting Faculty Prof. Padam, and other Nepalese co-authors are based in the UK and Nepal. Ms. Manju Gurung is co-founder & strategic advisor of POURAKHI Nepal, an Nepal-based organisation supporting ,migrant workers. Dr. Sharada P.Wasti, is based at the University of Greenwich, and he has collaborated with Bournemouth University academics on several previous academic papers on health, work-related migration and human trafficking [2-4].

The paper highlights the plight of women working abroad and the problems they encounter destination countries. This study reported in this paper was conducted among 1,889 women who were registered as migrant returnees at an organisation called POURAKHI Nepal. The study extracted and analysed data from this non-governmental organisation that
supports returning female migrant workers in Nepal.
Around half (43.1 %) of the women in the study were 35 or older, 30.9 % were illiterate, and 63.6 % were in their first overseas job. Over one-third (38.5 %) had experienced self-reported workplace harassment. Gender-based violence was a serious problem as physical violence was highly prevalent (68 %), followed by verbal abuse (37.5 %), mental stress (29.7 %), and sexual abuse (14.1 %).

Women who worked abroad with the following characteristics were at the greatest risk: those who were illiterate (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]1.25, 95 % confidence interval [CI]: 1.01 to 1.55), unmarried (AOR 1.27, 95 % CI: 1.05 to 1.56), worked abroad twice or more years (AOR 1.35, 95 % CI: 1.10 to 1.66), changed their place of work (AOR 2.38, 95 % CI: 1.42 to 4.01), lived without documents (AOR 1.24, 95 % CI: 1.03 to 1.50), worked as domestics (AOR 3.56, 95 % CI: 2.03 to 6.23), worked in other than Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (AOR 1.45, 95 % CI: 1.06 to 1.99), women who did not have a fixed salary (AOR 1.64, 95 % CI: 1.28 to 2.10) and did not receive salary (AOR 3.71, 95 % CI: 2.88 to 4.77) were more likely to be harassed at work.
The authors recommend that the host governments should introduce and enforce policies protecting women in the workplace. Moreover, migrant women should be provided with better information about health risks and hazards as well as how to improve preventive measures in destination countries to reduce workplace harassment.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health

References:

Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E., Gurung, M., Bhujel, S., Wasti, S.P. (2024) Workplace harassment faced by female Nepalese migrants working aboard, Global Health Journal (accepted)
Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E.R., Gurung, M., Wasti, S. (2018) A survey of health problems of Nepalese female migrants workers in the Middle-East & Malaysia, BMC International Health & Human Rights 18(4): 1-7. http://rdcu.be/E3Ro.
Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Sharma, A., Bissell, P., Poobalan, A., Wasti, S.P. (2018) Health consequences of sex trafficking: A systematic review, Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences, 4(1): 130-49.
Regmi, P., Dhakal Adhikari, S., Aryal, N., Wasti, S.P., van Teijlingen, E. (2022) Fear, Stigma and Othering: The Impact of COVID-19 Rumours on Returnee Migrants and Muslim Populations of Nepal, International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health 19(15), 8986; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19158986

January 6, 2024

New migration paper related to Nepal

Featured academics, Global engagement, international, open access, PG research, Publishing, Research news, student research, Uncategorized, Women's Academic Network, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

On the last day of 2023 the Journal of Health Promotion published the paper ‘Sexual Harassment Among Nepali Non-Migrating Female Partners of International Labor Migrant Men’ [1]. This paper, in an Open Access journal, addresses one of the consequences of male labour migrants leaving their family members behind in Nepal. While non-migrating spouses often receive financial support in the form of remittances, their husbands’ migration also creates numerous social and personal problems. This qualitative study explored non-migrating spouses’ experience of sexual harassment/abuse and its impact on their mental health. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted and women reported experiencing harassment by men they knew, including their teachers and colleagues, who knew their husbands were abroad. But none of the women reported taking any action against their perpetrators, indicating a lack of power in this study population in still predominantly patriarchal society.

The lead author of the paper is Assistant Prof. Kalpana Gyawali from Tribhuvan University, Nepal’s largest and oldest university paper. Her co-authors are: Padam Simkhada, Visiting Professor in BU’s Faculty of Health & Social Sciences as well as Professor in Global Health at the University of Huddersfield, Edwin van Teijlingen in Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery & Women’s Health, Ms. Shraddha Manandhar, PhD. student at the University of Huddersfield, and Mr. Ram Chandra Silwal the Country Director of Green Tara Nepal, the charity we have been working with for nearly twenty years.

References:

Gyawali, K., Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E.R., Manandhar, S., Silwal, R.C. (2023). Sexual Harassment Among Nepali Non-Migrating Female Partners of International Labor Migrant Men. Journal of Health Promotion, 11(1): 22–31. https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/jhp/article/view/61198

April 24, 2023

BU PhD student publishes in The Conversation

BU research, data management, Featured academics, international, Postgraduate Research, Publishing, research integrity, research methods, Student Engagement, the conversation, Uncategorized, Women's Academic Network, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

Congratulations the Abier Hamidi, PhD student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) whose PhD work was published in The Conversation this week (24 April) under the title Social media now trumps traditional family networks in Libya – my Facebook survey reached 446,000 women. Her piece in The Conversation on the recruitment of female participants for a PhD study in a rather patriarchal society brings together issues of anonymity, gender, and wider social culture.

This is Abier’s PhD research is supervised by Dr. Pramod Regmi, Senior Lecturer in International Health and the Global Engagement Lead in the Department of Nursing Sciences, and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).

Congratulations!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

April 26, 2021

Violence against women and girls

Impact, policy carters

Colleagues may be interested in responding to a new Home Affairs Committee inquiry into violence against women and girls.

The inquiry will look at how violence against women and girls is being addressed. The Committee will use information from this call for evidence to inform its future programme of work on this issue. The deadline for submissions is 12pm on Tuesday 11 May 2021. You can submit evidence here – please engage with the policy team before submitting to an inquiry.

The Committee invites evidence on the following points, to inform development of its future programme:

How VAWG affects women and girls. This may include:

Information on different forms and experiences of VAWG – for example rape, sexual harassment and abuse, domestic abuse, coercive control, street and online harassment, stalking, forced marriage, female genital mutilation and other forms of violence and abuse – and the differences between addressing VAWG in the public and private spheres;
How VAWG has changed and how issues relating to VAWG are affected by modern technology, for example the use of social media and online dating sites, sexting, revenge porn and the accessibility of explicit pornography;
How VAWG affects young women and girls including in school and education institutions, in public places and online;
How VAWG affects particular groups, such as migrant women, sex workers or women with protected characteristics;
The prevalence and effect of honour-based violence and other practices that may affect minority groups such as female genital mutilation and forced marriage;
How sexual violence is being normalised within relationships, including strangulation, and the influence of extreme or violent pornography;
How organisations that women and girls turn to for support and help engage with issues relating to VAWG and their role in tackling and preventing it.

How VAWG should be prevented and addressed. This may include:

The role information and education for both men and women play in protecting women and girls;
Whether there is sufficient and appropriate support available for victims;
What measures should be in place for perpetrators;
The role of organisations and institutions including the police and criminal justice system, schools, colleges and education institutions, employers and trade unions, social media companies, local community and specialist services;
What lessons should be learnt from the 2016-2020 Ending Violence against Women and Girls strategy when developing the Government’s 2021-2024 strategy;
How current Bills, such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and the Domestic Abuse Bill and other recent legislation that has been introduced can address, or have addressed, the issue of VAWG; and
Steps towards ratification of the Istanbul Convention.

Chair of the Home Affairs Committee Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP said: “Women across the country have been speaking out about their experiences of violence, abuse, stalking, and feeling unsafe – be it on our streets, in schools or at home. Everyone agrees that violence against women and girls is abhorrent, yet far too little has changed in practice to improve women’s safety and in some areas things have got worse. This inquiry will examine the many forms that violence against women and girls takes in our society, what action is being taken to end the scourge of violence against women and girls, and how it is currently being addressed by Government, the police and the criminal justice system.”

Tagged / violence women girls

BU PhD student publishes in The Conversation

Violence against women and girls

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