The Exploitation of Undocumented Migrant Women in the Workplace

Organised by PICUM and the United Methodist Women Immigrant/Civil Rights Initiative, this workshop – held in Athens in 2009, provided for valuable networking and information sharing between migrant women and their advocates. Adopting a global perspective, this workshop aims to explore the specific vulnerabilities facing undocumented women in the labour market and enable participants to share and discover solutions which have successfully served to protect and empower undocumented female workers. Thirty participants from 17 countries came together to discuss key concerns within different global regions and highlight good practice examples whereby undocumented women obtained their rights in the workplace. This discussion sought to explore the role of the unions, social networks, solidarity movements and undocumented women themselves in addressing labour-based exploitation and empowering female workers with an irregular status. This report provides an overview of the contributions of the speakers as well as themain themes of discussion from this workshop session.