The Right to Adequate Housing for Female Migrant Workers

The Right to Adequate Housing for Female Migrant Workers – Increasingly viewed as a commodity, housing is most importantly a human right. Under international law, to be adequately housed means having secured tenure – not having to worry about being evicted or having home or lands forcefully taken away. To be adequately housed means living somewhere that is in keeping with culture, and having access to appropriate services, schools, and employment. Despite the numerous studies on violation of migrant workers’ rights, exploitation, and harsh working conditions, little is known about the women migrant workers and their family’s housing conditions and rights; as well as those factors that shape their choice of housing. This research projet explores and assesses women migrant workers’ and their family’s housing conditions and rights. The right to adequate housing is a part of the right to an adequate standard of living for an individual or a family. The study revealed that women migrants and their families currently are compelled to live in impoverished, unacceptable, and sub-human housing conditions. Women migrant workers, who have been found to be mostly low income earners, involuntary staying in houses without regulations, most of the houses do not have rental agreements by which the tenure of security becomes burdensome; there is no real choice of houses. Migrant workers’ children cannot easily and readily access to proper or even basic education because of the location of their houses.