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How Safe Is Safe? “Safe Migration” in Southeast Asia

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Part of the book series: Asia in Transition ((AT,volume 5))

Abstract

Safety issues of migration have come to the fore in the public and academic discourse in recent years. People seek irregular means of passage in their effort to migrate overseas. As a result, their lives are put at risk. Female migrants are more vulnerable than their male counterparts in unsafe migration conditions. This chapter tries to understand the perception of migrants about their own migration experiences. About 94 female migrants were selected based on snow ball and convenient sampling from two destinations: Thailand and Malaysia . The study shows that most of the respondents underwent (premigration , enroute, postmigration ) extremely dangerous and unsafe experiences. It also revealed significant human rights violations by travel agencies, brokers and employers. Making migration safer for vulnerable migrants entails a series of policies, programs, and initiatives which focus on all aspects of migration. They range from education of potential migrants in the home countries to policies which protect migrants while in transit, to the protection of human rights in holding centers, and proper border control and policing. Safe migration requires the participation of all countries involved in the migration process in creating more opportunities for safe migration by empowering and educating people on migration options and by creating policies that protect human rights.

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Correspondence to AKM Ahsan Ullah .

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Ullah, A.A., Yusof-Kozlowski, Y.M., D’Aria, M. (2016). How Safe Is Safe? “Safe Migration” in Southeast Asia. In: Carnegie, P., King, V., Zawawi Ibrahim (eds) Human Insecurities in Southeast Asia. Asia in Transition, vol 5. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2245-6_6

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