AFRICAN HUMAN MOBILITY REVIEW Volume 5 Number 3, September-December 2019 Living on the Fringes of Life and Death: Somali Migrants, Risky Entrepreneurship and Xenophobia in Cape Town African Immigrant and Refugee Families’ Perceptions on Informational Support and Health Status: A Comparison of African Immigrants Living in South Africa and the United States Internal Migration, Socio-Economic Status and Remittances: Experiences of Migrant Adolescent Girls’ Head-Porters in Ghana Social Inequality and Social Mobility: The Construed Diversity of Ethiopian Female Labour Migrants in Djibouti The Human Security Implications of Migration on Zimbabwean Migrant Women in South Africa ii AHMR _________________________________________________________________________________ Chief Editor Prof Mulugeta F. Dinbabo University of the Western Cape, South Africa Board Members Dr Beneberu Assefa Wondimagegnhu Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia Dr Delali Margaret Badasu University of Ghana, Ghana Dr Edmond Agyeman University of Education, Winneba, Ghana Dr Ernest Angu Pineteh University of Pretoria, South Africa Dr Joseph Yaro University of Ghana, Ghana Prof Laurence Piper University of the Western Cape, South Africa Dr Linda Oucho African Migration and Development Policy Centre, Kenya Prof Loren Landau University of Witwatersrand, South Africa Dr Lothar Smith Radboud University, Netherlands Dr Meselu Alamnie Mulugeta Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia Prof Raul Delgado Wise Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Mexico Dr Razack Karriem University of the Western Cape, South Africa Dr Sharon Penderis University of the Western Cape, South Africa Prof Simon Bekker University of Stellenbosch, South Africa Prof Shimelis Gulema Stony Brook University, New York Prof Thomas Faist Bielefeld University, Germany ____________________________________________________________________________________ AHMR is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed on-line journal created to encourage and facilitate the study of all aspects (socio-economic, political, legislative and developmental) of Human Mobility in Africa. Through the publication of original research, policy discussions and evidence research papers, AHMR provides a comprehensive forum devoted exclusively to the analysis of contemporaneous trends, migration patterns and some of the most important migration-related issues. AHMR is published by the Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa (SIHMA) a member of the Network of the Scalabrinian Centers for Migration Studies, with institutions in New York, Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Manila. AHMR is accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in South Africa. Articles and reviews in AHMR reflect the opinions of the contributors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. ISSN 2410-7972 (online) ISSN 2411-6955 (print). Webpage: www.sihma.org.za Copyright © 2019 by the SCALABRINI INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN MOBILITY IN AFRICA 47, Commercial St, 8001 Cape Town – South Africa Tel. 0027 021 461 4741, Email: editor@sihma.org.za http://sihma.org.za/mulugeta-dinbabo http://sihma.org.za/beneberu-wondimagegnhu/ http://sihma.org.za/delali-badasu/ http://sihma.org.za/edmond-agyeman/ http://sihma.org.za/laurence-piper/ http://sihma.org.za/linda-oucho/ http://sihma.org.za/loren-landau/ http://sihma.org.za/lothar-smith/ http://sihma.org.za/meselu-alamnie-mulugeta/ http://sihma.org.za/raul-delgado-wise/ http://sihma.org.za/sharon-penderis/ http://sihma.org.za/shimelis-gulema/ http://sihma.org.za/thomas-faist/ http://www.sihma.org.za/ mailto:editor@sihma.org.za African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) iii AFRICAN Human Mobility Review ___________________________________________________________________________ African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) CONTENTS 1674 Living on the Fringes of Life and Death: Somali Migrants, Risky Entrepreneurship and Xenophobia in Cape Town Pineteh E. Angu 1696 African Immigrant and Refugee Families’ Perceptions on Informational Support and Health Status: A Comparison of African Immigrants Living in South Africa and the United States Wilson Majee, Mulugeta F. Dinbabo, Isioma Ile and Michael Belebema 1717 Internal Migration, Socio-Economic Status and Remittances: Experiences of Migrant Adolescent Girls’ Head-Porters in Ghana Kennedy A. Alatinga 1749 Social Inequality and Social Mobility: The Construed Diversity of Ethiopian Female Labour Migrants in Djibouti Meron Zeleke 1774 The Human Security Implications of Migration on Zimbabwean Migrant Women in South Africa Mutambara Marcia Victoria Mutambara and Naidu Maheshvari African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1674 Living on the Fringes of Life and Death: Somali Migrants, Risky Entrepreneurship and Xenophobia in Cape Town Pineteh E. Angu Abstract Since the 2008 attacks on African migrants, xenophobic violence has become a form of social agency for responding to increasing unemployment, destitution and crime in South Africa. Africans living and operating businesses in urban and peri-urban areas are now objects of different forms of social violence, as they are repeatedly blamed for unfulfilled political promises by the ANC-led government. One of most victimised African migrant communities is the Somali community, whose business activities in cities and townships are perceived as undesirable threats to locals’ sources of livelihood. This article uses qualitative data collected from 30 Somali migrants in Bellville and Khayelitsha, Cape Town to examine how Somalis’ co-existence with South Africans and their business tactics in Cape Town intersect to influence xenophobic violence. It explores the relationship between risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia, and the threats that this relationship poses to Somali lives. Finally, it analyses South Africans’ strategies to force Somalis out of townships and how Somalis’ existential resistance to these strategies positions them on the fringes of life and death. Keywords: African diaspora, displacement, risky entrepreneurship, xenophobia. “Everybody just arrives in our townships and rural areas and set up business without licences and permits. We are going to bring this to an end! And those who are operating illegally must now know” (President Cyril Ramaphosa – Election Campaign 2019). Introduction Recent narratives about xenophobia in South Africa focus on the porousness of South African borders and “a subtle invasion of South African territory” by illegal aliens from other African countries (Vigneswaran, 2007: 144; Comaroff and Comaroff, 2002). As transnational migrants continue to challenge forms of citizenship, belonging and statecraft in South Africa, political populism now  University of Pretoria. Email: pineteh.angu@up.ac.za mailto:pineteh.angu@up.ac.za African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1675 constructs this imaginary territorial invasion by Africans as a potential threat to South Africa’s national security and sovereignty. This is because migration, legal or illegal, has been repeatedly blamed for high levels of poverty, joblessness and crime as well as poor service delivery in South Africa (Nyamnjoh, 2007; Pineteh, 2018). In Cape Town townships and elsewhere, locals have repeatedly attributed these social pathologies to the proliferation of Somali businesses and the resultant contestation over business spaces. Despite the success of South African businesses in townships, the expansion of Somali businesses in these areas has led to unhealthy business rivalry between locals and Somalis. Here, we see both parties employing different tactics to eliminate competitors and to remain at the centre of business activities. For example, South Africans are now resorting to autochthony tropes of citizenship to express their “exclusive entitlements to space, property and state resources”, especially during xenophobic attacks (Pineteh, 2018: 5; Dassah, 2015). The evocation of autochthonous citizenship disregards the fact that “transnational migration has led to new forms of citizenship and belonging that can no longer be ignored by states and their citizens” (Pineteh, 2018: 5). Nevertheless, Somali migrants continue to live on the fringes of life and death as they do business in townships, especially as calls for non-citizens to be expelled continue to dominate conversations about state transformation in post-apartheid South Africa (Charman and Piper, 2012; Nyamnjoh, 2007; Pineteh, 2018; Thompson, 2016). In 2015, as part of the African Humanities Program (AHP) of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), I conducted a narrative study of the xenophobic experiences of Somali migrants in Cape Town. This article emerges out of, and uses empirical evidence gleaned during this broader study. It uses qualitative data to examine how Somalis’ co-existence with South Africans and their business tactics in Cape Town intersect to influence xenophobic violence. It explores the relationship between risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia and the threats that this relationship poses to Somali lives. The article argues that as South Africans continue to deploy different strategies such as violent attacks, burning and looting of shops, and killings to force Somalis out of townships, Somalis will always devise new ways to resist the attacks and to continue doing business in these townships. In African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1676 finding novel ways to resist and circumvent xenophobic attacks, Somalis find themselves living on the fringes of life and death. To tease out the relationship between xenophobia and risky entrepreneurship, this article firstly provides a brief literature overview of transnationalism, African migrants and xenophobia in South Africa, and it describes the Somali community in Cape Town. Secondly, it explains the data collection methods and discusses how Somali business strategies and their responses to xenophobia position them on the fringes of life and death in Cape Town. Transnationalism, Somali Entrepreneurship and Xenophobia in South Africa To understand the exilic experiences of African migrants and the complex patterns of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa, I frame this article around conceptions of transnationalism. Here, I position particularly Somali experiences as “interactions between agents, transnational networks, structures of opportunity and constraints, and the production and circulation of power as seen through discourses of difference” (Smith and Bailey, 2004: 358). These conceptions of transnationalism help us to understand the “geographies of migrant life and livelihood”, and how migrants’ sense of belonging transcends territorial boundaries (Thompson, 2015: 121). Like other African transnational migrants, Somalis social existence in South Africa is constantly influenced by different agents including state institutions, political figures and local citizens on the one hand, and by their own strong networks on the other. These networks include close-knit relationships in South Africa and Somalia as well as with other Somali communities around the world (Jones, 2010; Pineteh, 2018; Vertovec, 2004). These networks provide different support structures for old and new Somali migrants and for business ventures. This has contributed significantly to Somali business expansion in Cape Town, which forges interactions with different agents in South Africa resulting in the display and interplay of different power dynamics and forms of resistance. For Carling (2008:1453), this display of power and resistance stems from the “multi-faceted nature of the relationship, with migrants and non-migrants experiencing vulnerability and ascendancy at different times and in different contexts”. During xenophobic violence, this multi-faceted relationship plays out in the form of reactions and counter-reactions as locals African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1677 try to reclaim business spaces in townships. Here, incendiary narratives, particularly from locals, have been subverted by counter-narratives that recognize Somalis’ rights to belong and acknowledge the contributions of Somali businesses to South Africa’s economic growth (see Gastrow and Amit, 2013; Pineteh, 2018). Because locals’ attempts to get rid of perceived non- citizens or outsiders in resource-constrained communities are countered by narratives of inclusivity, “violence becomes a form of agency” in these communities (Von Holdt and Alexander, 2012: 106). Therefore, any form of violence or protest action against Somali businesses in townships places Somali migrants on the fringes of life and death. In this context, I use the concept of transnationalism to mean “the daily lives, activities and social relationships of migrants” and how they intersect with those of non-migrants to influence xenophobic violence (Schiller et al., 1992: 5). I frame this article around transnationalism, not only because Somalis’ activities and transnational networks or cross-border business transactions have contributed to their business dominance in South Africa (Carling, 2008; Schiller et al., 1992), but also because “transnational activities flourish in highly concentrated communities, especially those that have been subjected to a hostile reception by the host society’s authorities and citizenry” (Portes, 2003: 880). Here, I try to argue that the growth of Somali business clusters in areas such as Bellville and Khayelitsha in Cape Town and the ensuing multi- faceted transnational activities respond to the alienation of African migrants in South Africa. Conversely, these business clusters and growing transnational activities drive xenophobia because they are imagined as migrants’ attempts to usurp spaces that naturally belong to autochthons (Gastrow and Amit, 2013; Pineteh, 2018). In this light, as xenophobic violence threatens the lives of Somali migrants, their “transnational cultural activities and civic associations offer a source of solace against external hostility, and protect personal dignities…” (Portes, 2003: 880). Drawing on these tenets of transnationalism, studies on African transnational migrants have focused on their sources of livelihood, imagined threats to the social wellbeing of citizens and xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa (see for example Klotz, 2016; Landau, 2011; Pineteh, 2018). The upsurge in these studies is attributed to the incendiary narratives about illegal migration and recurrent attacks of particularly African migrants in major South African cities African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1678 and townships since 2008. The culture of xenophobia in the new South Africa is also inflamed by preoccupations with “autochthonous forms of citizenship which often neglect Africa’s social formations of mobility and inclusiveness” (Boas and Dunn, 2013:12; Geschiere, 2009). In the context of South Africa, many of these studies explain how the notion of ‘origin’ is constantly used by those who claim to be daughters and sons of the soil to reject the judiciary rights of African migrants to belong. Here, increasing political rhetoric of autochthonous citizenship engenders the construction of “a state nationalism that is exclusionary and discriminatory”, especially in a South Africa with widening inequality gaps and competition over scarce resources (Lecours and Moreno, 2010: 128). These counter-democratic practices blame the miseries of South Africans on porous borders and the influx of African migrants. Studies such as those by Pineteh (2017), Landau (2011) and Hassim et al. (2008) have therefore argued that xenophobic tendencies are influenced partly by perceptions that migrants, especially those from the African continent, are illegal parasites, criminals and undeserving beneficiaries. As locals reimagined the post-apartheid state as belonging to autochthons only and continue to lay claims to public spaces and state resources, some of the studies on xenophobia seek to understand and theorize the uneasy relationship between immigrant entrepreneurship and xenophobia (Charman and Piper, 2012; Charman et al., 2012; Grant and Thompson, 2015). They explore the business rivalry between migrants and locals, highlighting the “complex milieus in which immigrant business practices and xenophobia mutually shape each other” (Grant and Thompson, 2015: 244). At the centre of this business rivalry between Africans and locals are Somalis and other migrants from the Horn of Africa because they have penetrated and set up businesses in some of the most hostile urban and peri-urban areas in South Africa. These studies therefore argued that operating businesses in these spaces positions Somalis and other migrants as prime targets during xenophobic violence (see Charman and Piper, 2012; Grant and Thompson, 2015; Pineteh, 2018; Thompson, 2016). Despite the significantly high numbers of Somali murders and equally significant capital losses in the form of goods and cash during violent attacks on foreign businesses, we are yet to see a decline in Somali businesses in those volatile spaces (Jinnah, 2010; Piper and Yu, 2016; Thompson, 2016). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1679 Somali Community in Cape Town The Somali population in Cape Town has increased exponentially over the years, and this population includes predominantly asylum seekers and refugees. It is, however, difficult to determine the exact number because of inaccurate and often obfuscating South African Department of Home Affairs (SADHA) data on asylum seekers and refugees in South Africa (Landau, 2010; Pineteh, 2018). The increase is matched diametrically by an upsurge in Somali business activities in different sectors of Cape Town. This is because earlier Somali migrants have grown into “self-employed immigrant entrepreneurs” and have created business opportunities and provided assistance in the form of start-up capital to new arrivals (Grant and Thompson, 2015: 260). This community has the foresight to spot business opportunities, and they are ready to risk everything including being “willing to run the risk of robbery” (Charman and Piper, 2012: 96). Their rapid expansion in business and appropriation of business spaces in peri-urban and urban areas has been likened to some kind of fetishism or black magic, and locals have tended to associate their “economic misfortunes like poverty, joblessness, and the consequent inability to marry…” to a spiritual spell cast on them by successful foreign business owners (Hickel, 2014:108). This street-level discourse hardly explains the success of Somali businesses in Cape Town. This paper further argues that the success of Somali entrepreneurism lies in their ability to see business opportunities in every situation they encounter in life. Moreover, the xenophobic experiences of Somali migrants in Cape Town cannot be disassociated from the collective tribulations of African migrants in post-apartheid South Africa. Somalis are part of a community which Landau (2011:1) describes as demons, “whose presence came to be seen as an existential threat to South Africa’s collective transformation and renaissance”. The collective violence against Africans has been justified by locals as restless attempts to “exorcise the demons”, “the enemy”, “an amorphously delimited group of outsiders that is inherently threatening, often indistinguishable from others, and effectively impossible to spatially exclude” (Landau, 2011: 2). So, just like other Africans in South Africa, the image of the foreigner “makes them markedly vulnerable to constant victimization, harassment and violence” (Crush et al., 2015: 52). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1680 Unlike many other African migrants, Somali migrants in South Africa are escapees of the never-ending civil wars and piratic activities in Somalia. These wars continue to disperse families and displace millions of Somali nationals. As political refugees, they come to South Africa with horrific images of a dysfunctional homeland. They are autochthons who have been deprived of citizenship, excluded and alienated in a place called home (Crush et al., 2015; Geschiere, 2009; Landau, 2011). In South Africa, what is strikingly unique about Somali migrants is their spirit of resilience and resistance to different forms of social violence. To date, they are arguably one of the most affected communities with regard to xenophobia, partly because of their extreme courage to implant themselves and operate businesses in spaces dreaded by other migrants (see Crush et al., 2015; Harris, 2002; Landau 2011; Pineteh, 2018). Today, when you read about Somali migrants, the dominant narrative is that of “violent entrepreneurship” or “the spaza shop violence” (Charman and Piper, 2012: 83). This narrative sheds light on the “construction of political insiders and outsiders through a long history of claiming autochthony” in volatile South African townships such as Alexandra, Delft, Joe Slovo and Philippi (Charman and Piper, 2012: 85). Narratives that allude to Somalis’ extreme courage and appropriation of business spaces in South Africa now reverberate in major cities like Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. In fact, there is an increasing formation of Somali ghettoes in these cities with a rich tapestry of Somali culture in the form of community halls, restaurants, mosques with nationalistic symbols such as the Somali flag (Pineteh, 2018). In Cape Town, the Bellville municipality in the northern suburbs is dominated by Somali spaza shops, supermarkets and wholesale businesses, competing favourably with popular South African brands such as Pick ’n Pay, Shoprite, Edgars and Pep (Charman and Piper, 2012; Pineteh, 2018). This business competition has spread with equal success to key townships/peri-urban areas in Cape Town such as Nyanga, Philippi and Khayelitsha, putting Somalis at loggerheads with local business owners. Although the formation of Somali ghettoes at urban and peri- urban intersections of Cape Town symbolizes a renewed sense of belonging and self-inclusion, it is weakened by their vulnerability to xenophobic attacks (Crush et al., 2015; Landau and Freemantle, 2010). This article was therefore African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1681 motivated by the intersections of Somalis’ risky business tactics, the unhealthy rivalry with local businesses and xenophobia in Cape Town. Research Methodology and Methods of Data Collection As previously mentioned, this article is based on qualitative data collected between 2015 and 2016 for a broader project funded by the American Council of Learned Societies through its African Humanities Program. This project sought to understand xenophobic experiences of Somalis residing and operating businesses in Bellville and Khayelitsha in Cape Town. The data was collected through one-on-one interviews with 30 participants – 20 males and 10 females – between the ages of 25 and 45. The interviewees were selected using a snowballing approach, and the interviews were conducted either at their residences or at their business premises. Each interview generally lasted between 30 and 60 minutes, and the questions were framed around Somali exilic experiences including the main themes of this article. Participants included five retail shop owners in Bellville, 15 spaza shop owners in Khayelitsha, three shop attendants in Bellville and seven roadside traders, also in Bellville. During the interviews, shop owners and roadside traders claimed that they had been robbed, beaten and had their businesses looted at least once during the xenophobic attacks. For instance, shop owners in Bellville emphasized that they had been victims of random robberies and sporadic lootings because of their location. However, spaza shop owners in the townships pointed out that they had experienced worse forms of xenophobic violence, ranging from looting and burning of shops to stoning and brutal murdering of Somalis. Of the 15 spaza shop owners, five claimed they had been shot at least once or had witnessed the brutal murder of another Somali business owner, and 10 stated that they had been seriously beaten. The participants in this project were not very fluent in English, so conducting 30- to 60-minute interviews in English was a major challenge. To address this challenge, I recruited, as a research assistant, a postgraduate Somali student at the University of the Western Cape who had research experience and was very familiar with the Somali community. His primary responsibilities included scheduling interview appointments, conducting interviews, interpreting and transcribing data. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1682 Through the research assistant’s networks and association with the Somali community, I was able to gain access and conduct the interviews. Before each interview, we explained the purpose of the research and, through a consent form, we requested permission to audio-record all the sessions. This document clearly explained ethical issues including confidentiality and anonymity. For this reason, participants are cited in this article simply as ‘participant’ and suffix numbers between 1 and 30. The interviews were transcribed and in some cases they were translated from Somali/Arabic into English by the research assistant. Using a thematic content analysis approach, data was categorized into key themes, coded and analyzed accordingly. The analysis revealed intricacies of risky entrepreneurship and social exclusion, and the characteristics of xenophobia in post-apartheid South Africa. They also revealed aspects of business rivalry, Somali business tactics and constellations of xenophobic violence in South Africa. Analysis and Discussion of Key Findings As opposition to the ANC-led government intensifies, its politicians now resort to populist renditions rather than substantive evidence of social reforms to lure local votes. These renditions desperately blame the social and economic activities of African migrants for the declining quality of South African lives (Dassah, 2015; Pineteh, 2017; 2018). In this light, the expansion of Somali businesses in South African communities is perceived as a process of dislodgement of local competitors. This immediately frames Somali entrepreneurship as a serious threat to the livelihoods of local South Africans, which must be eliminated (Nyamnjoh, 2006; Thompson, 2015). Somali Migrants, Risky Entrepreneurship and Xenophobia in Cape Town This study revealed that the majority of Cape Town-based Somalis rely on different business ventures as their main source of livelihood. In Bellville and Khayelitsha, they operate mainly clothing, homeware and grocery shops, as wholesalers, retail traders, spaza shop owners or street-side petit vendors (Charman and Piper, 2012; Pineteh, 2018). Like in other major South African cities such as Johannesburg, Durban and Pretoria, the sprawling of Somali businesses in Cape Town is attributed to the application of different tactics, some of which instigate hostile reactions from South Africans (Gastrow and Amit, 2013; Thompson, 2016). The study also revealed that through close-knit African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1683 networks and ghettos, Somalis are able use their financial power to illegally secure business space, intimidate competitors (especially other migrants) and defend themselves against assailants or robbers. They own their own weapons, which “are intended to hold back a South African ‘below’ that threatens to rise up from the group and throw out Somalis” in any business space (Thompson, 2016: 93). These tactics have enabled them to displace local businesses in spaces that have been owned and controlled by local shop owners for years. Attacks on Somali businesses in Cape Town are therefore construed “as part of a struggle to recapture lost market space or secure market advantage” (Charman and Piper, 2012: 5). According to one participant, This business place is my own because I have an agreement with the landlord and I pay my rent every month. This rent is also helping the landlord. So, no South African can drive me from this place. They are doing the same spaza shop business like us but we are not disturbing them, so they think they can take my business just because this is their country. What they are doing is not the law and I am not going to allow them to take my shop just like that. Let them come, I am waiting for them [sic](Participant 11). This interviewee is one of many Somalis who now operate successful spaza shops in Khayelitsha, disrupting a business culture that has existed in South African townships for decades. In fact, the piecemeal selling of household goods in small kiosks has been the source of livelihood for many South African families for decades, and Somalis’ accessing and appropriating this business idea is perceived as a threat to a longstanding business tradition that has influenced the identity of local township dwellers (Charman and Piper, 2012; Pineteh, 2018). The sense of an aggressive takeover in the quotation above is an “overt display of power in local communities” which instigates anger and contempt against Somalis in Cape Town townships (Pineteh, 2018: 11; Charman and Piper, 2012; Jinnah, 2010). Somalis’ business tactics are driven on one level by a form of business aggression, which enhances their business success and increases the pressure on local business owners to compete. This increasing pressure to compete with Somali businesses has translated into hostility and criminality in townships. According to one participant: African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1684 This [sic] people have seen the way we do business and they become angry that we are taking their customers. They say they are tired of us putting shops everywhere in Bellville and their townships and they cannot sell their own stuff because all the people now buy from Somalians. So, they attack us because they think we are taking their business, and thieves come to steal from us almost every day because they think we have a lot of money in our shops (Participant 12). This narrative is a replay of locals’ vocabulary of entitlement and pejorative images of high crime rates stemming from economic stagnation and rising unemployment (Pineteh, 2018). This is expressed in phrases such as ‘taking their customers’, ‘their townships’, ‘taking their business’ and ‘criminals rob us every day…’ Moreover, although Somalis who were interviewed are bona fide residents in South Africa, there is an underlying rhetoric of unwanted people or the “convenient metaphor of illegal alien…gaining undeserved advantages” (Murray, 2003: 447) during xenophobic violence. This testimony therefore alludes to locals’ attempts to de-legitimize Somalis’ judiciary rights to live and work in South Africa, rights accorded to them by SADHA (Crush and Pendleton, 2004; Landau and Freemantle, 2010; Pineteh, 2018). Despite complaints about Somali spatial appropriation, which are assumed to deprive local South Africans of business opportunities, Somali narratives tended to replay South Africans’ obsessive sense of entitlement, which arguably is driven by a culture of dependency imbued in South Africans by political promises. For example: They say we are taking all their business and I feel for them. But for me they are jealous of us and the problem is that this [sic] people are very lazy; they can’t do this job. Sometimes they come to the shops of Somalis and they say they want jobs, but if you give them work they won’t work. Instead they will be watching your business, and at night they will come and rob the shop. So no one is giving them jobs in their shop again. You see, they don’t want to work and they want their government to give them houses, jobs, food, and if they don’t get them, they come and attack us. But this shop is not given by the government and I work hard to build my shop – the government did not give me the money (Participant 8). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1685 As Somali migrants confront different forms of social violence, they tend to narrate their experience of xenophobia through African migrant images of a perceived lazy and dependent South African. Like many other African migrants, Somalis feels they are attacked because they are hardworking, and for them their businesses are symbols of this hard work (Pineteh, 2017; 2018). The narrative points to the xenophobia denialism and African migrant exceptionalism, which reconstruct the attacks on Africans as being in the wrong place at the wrong time (Crush and Pendleton, 2004; Harris, 2002). But as Somali migrants continue to operate businesses in Cape Town, the display of power and control over spaces, as well as Somali resistance to xenophobic violence, continue to endanger their lives. For Somalis and South Africans alike, Somali business successes are construed as a life of opulence, a gratuitous opportunity offered to Africans by the post- apartheid politics of inclusivity, while locals’ conditions of abjection persist (Pineteh, 2017; 2018). Xenophobic attacks on Somalis are scripted implicitly as a narrative of envy and the dystopia of a political agency of better living conditions for all South Africans, which over the years has unfolded into imagined permanent conditions of misery (Landau and Freemantle 2010; Nyamnjoh, 2006). However, the risk to Somali lives also emanates from a strong survivalist culture expressed through business tactics of close networks, kinship and affordable pricing (Jinnah, 2010). These unique business strategies have driven Somalis to volatile business spaces previously owned and controlled by local South Africans. As argued in previous articles (Pineteh, 2017; 2018), operating successful businesses in townships is seen not only as a threat to local livelihoods or as undesirable business competition, but also as illegal access to spaces that belong to indigenes. This participant asserted that, South Africans sleep the whole day, targeting to steal, loot and kill foreigners at night while they get support from their government. That is how they want to earn their living. But Somalis work hard and help each other to become business partners because they don’t have government [sic] to rely on. So the difference is Somalis want to work hard and South Africans totally don’t want to work but only to rob people. When they rob you, they say we come into their home and do business in their land, so the things belong to them (Participant 13). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1686 Again, the metaphor of an unwanted parasite and the culture of entitlement are used to justify criminality and attacks on Somalis. Although Somali businesses contribute to local economic growth, their mere presence in townships is perceived as a threat to locals’ autochthonous right to spaces, and the attacks as a community agency to protect what is rightfully theirs (Hassim et al., 2008; Neocosmos, 2010; Nyamnjoh, 2006). The following quotation points to a narrative shift, which subverts South Africans’ claims of an aggressive business takeover by Somali migrants. During the interviews, one participant reiterated that South Africans cannot claim that Somalis have taken their businesses and customers when they do not have any interest in business. He argued that South Africans are just jealous of Somali success, but do not have the character to run successful businesses. He commented: I don’t think South African people like business. They want the government to give them everything: education, jobs and houses. I come from a country with no government to give you anything, so you must work for yourself. We can’t take their business; we only start our own spaza shops in the township. Before we came here they were already doing the business but it wasn’t growing because they have no strategies. They attack our shops because of all the bad things they think that we bring to South Africa. They even say we use muti 1 to do business… (Participant 14). This participant is disingenuous about South Africans’ entrepreneurial skills because there is research evidence which shows the success of South African spaza shops despite the expansion of Somali businesses (See Gastrow and Amit, 2013; Pineteh, 2018). Here, the victimization of Somalis is simply connected to “their keen sense of business acumen” (Jinnah, 2010: 98). However, the looting of Somali shops and the killing of shop owners is a pretext for a generalized hatred of the other African, constantly imaged “not only as a tramontane intruder who disrupts the status quo, but also a stronger, or one who figuratively pollutes, contaminates and despoils the existing moral order” (Murray, 2003: 448). Although the generalized perception about Africans is a powerful narrative trajectory in Somali reconstruction of 1 Muti is a Zulu word for traditional African medicine. It is commonly used by traditional healers in Southern Africa. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1687 xenophobic experiences, Somali business tactics remain a trigger of violence, whether or not South Africans are business-oriented. For example, the success of Somali spaza shops in Cape Town townships and elsewhere in South Africa is attributed to strong networks and kinships, which give them access to start- up capital for new businesses. Instead of seeking business loans from the banks, they are easily funded by established Somalis. Because they have access to capital and goods, they are able to negotiate favourable prices or offer credit options to local communities, compared to local shop owners who charge relatively high prices. Living on the Fringes of Life and Death: The Somali Case As political rhetoric and local narratives continue to blame African migrants for the woes of South Africans, townships are seen as the hotspots for all forms of social violence, including service delivery protests and xenophobia (Landau, 2011; Pineteh, 2017; 2018). This is because decades after the demise of apartheid, South African townships are still embodiments of human suffering and they epitomise the extent to which the Black-led government has failed to deliver on its political promises of a better life for South Africans. Instead, the government’s politics of state transformation has created “a politically entitled but materially deprived citizenry [which has taken] on the obligation to alienate and exclude those standing in its way” (Landau, 2011: 3). These residential spaces “serve to modify, extend, and entrench various forms of spatial control, political authority and sovereignty”, even at the expense of human lives (Landau, 2011: 3; Pineteh, 2018). The growing social deprivation, anxieties and gruesome images of social violence show how townships have transformed into risky and volatile spaces, especially to African migrants, whom many local residents perceived as architects of their socio-economic problems. But for Somali migrants in Cape Town, operating businesses in risky spaces is a normal business challenge. One participant asserted: Many people ask us whether we are not afraid to live in the township and open businesses in the townships because there is a lot crime in the township and they are killing foreigners every day. I always tell them business is about taking risk, and if you do not take any risk in business, you are never going to make any money. You can die at any place and any time, and if it is not your time to die, Allah is not going to allow it to happen (Participant 8). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1688 This participant normalizes the violent attacks on Africans and the looting of their businesses, internalizing the logic that business, risk and social violence are co-dependent variants in any competitiveness business environment (Charman and Piper, 2012; Gastrow, 2013). Although foreigners and their businesses in the townships are the most vulnerable during xenophobic violence, compared to those in urban areas, this participant still perceives access to risky business spaces and resilience to violence as predictors of business success (Pineteh, 2018; Piper and Yu, 2016). This attitude explains why, despite the killing of Somali migrants in Cape Town townships, research studies are yet to show a decline in Somali businesses in these areas. For Somali business owners, behind the façade of the social violence and threats to the lives of Somalis in Cape Town townships lies a business opportunity. As survivors of years of Al-Shabaab incursions in Somalia and tumultuous journeys to exile, the violence in townships ignites not fear but a sense of déjà vu in many participants interviewed in this study (Pineteh, 2017; Thompson, 2015; 2016). This sense of déjà vu is captured in the following excerpt: Yes, we know that there is crime in the townships the same way that there is crime in the cities. My brothers have shops in Bellville but they still attack them. Before coming to South Africa, I ran away from war in Somalia and they were killing people every day and I ran way. I travelled a long distance through different countries to come here, and I passed through places where there was fighting and killing of people, and I was attacked and arrested. So there is nothing in South Africa that I am afraid of (Participant 11). During the interviews, participants pointed out that living on the fringes of life and death in Cape Town townships is a normal way of surviving in crime- ridden post-apartheid South Africa. Although townships pose a major threat to the lives of Somalis, this participant claims xenophobic violence can no longer be localized because threats to the lives of Africans have permeated to all parts of South Africa. In addition, Somalis’ experiences of statelessness and political violence at home, crossing turbulent borders and hostile reception during their journeys to exile reduce the violence experienced in South African townships to very familiar exilic experiences (Gastrow, 2013; Pineteh, 2017; Thompson, 2015). The eruption of violence against Somali migrants who have African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1689 penetrated business spaces in the townships is nothing but “an identifiable locus of ungovernance in which experiences of state presence and absence come together as migrants circulate through the neighbourhood across lines of unofficial segregation, provincial boundaries, and national borders” (Thompson, 2016: 92). As subaltern South Africans continue to seek answers for their existing material conditions, Somali business successes in Cape Town will remain existential threats to their South African competitors if answers, besides blaming their conditions on the influx of illegal migration are not forthcoming from politicians (Grant and Thompson, 2015; Pineteh, 2018; Thompson, 2016). Tensions and the imminence of violent attacks will continue to simmer in hotspots around the country, further endangering the lives of Somali migrants (Buyer, 2009; Klotz, 2016). However, over and above these visible threats, this study revealed that Somali lives are equally endangered by their reactions to xenophobic violence in the absence of state protection and justice for victims (Gastrow, 2013; Pineteh, 2017). In the following quote, one participant emphasized the need for self-protection against criminality and xenophobia in the Cape Town townships: My shop is five years now in Khayelitsha [sic], and criminals have broken into my shop many times and taken my stuff. They have attacked me and threatened to kill me. There was a time when they came to steal during the evening, a group of five men, and they attacked me with knives, and I fight [sic], and they took some money and stuff and ran. I called the police and they did not come. So now I sleep in my shop and I have my own weapons; I am waiting for them to come again (Participant 17). In this quotation, we see an existential character that is ready to take responsibility to protect his life and livelihood in the midst of crime and anti- immigrant violence because Somali victims have been unable to access “justice via formal state institutions” (Gastrow, 2013: 10). Empirical evidence from studies on the state’s response in providing judiciary protection to Somali migrants affected by xenophobic violence shows that the response has been sluggish and tokenistic. In a study on Somali businesses in the Western Cape, Gastrow (2013: 10) opines that “there has been very little police and prosecutor success in achieving convictions in respect of the Somali business robbery victims…” Whilst the lack of police protection can be blamed on African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1690 several challenges within the South African Police Services (SAPS) and the South African Judiciary System, the quotation shows clearly that Somalis can no longer rely on the SAPS for protection against their assailants. As Somali migrants pursue alternative means of justice and defence such as owning their own guns and “paying youth and gangs for protection”, they will continue to live in the margins of life and death (Gastrow, 2013: 11; Pineteh, 2018). Discussion and Conclusion The most recent (2019) and previous xenophobic attacks on African migrants demonstrate that there is still a need for more scholarly, evidence-based research in migration and the politics of belonging. This type of research plays a critical role in understanding the multi-faceted and often contentious debates about the thorny issue of migration, as South Africa grapples with worsening socio-economic challenges (see Dassah, 2015; Nyamnjoh, 2006; Pineteh, 2018). Research on the lived experiences of African migrants therefore provides a practical prism through which we can engage with broader conceptions of transnational migration and the implications for policy formulation (Amit and Kriger, 2014). This article therefore contributes to existing studies on the role of immigrant entrepreneurship and political populism in shaping South Africans’ perceptions about African migrants. In one of my previous publications, I argued that xenophobia has become a new form of political agency driven by a fixation on the dangers of free human mobility, border control and the expulsion of ‘outsiders’ (Dassah, 2015; Nyamnjoh, 2006; Pineteh, 2017; 2018). One of the dominant narratives in South African political discourse today is the porousness of South African borders and clarion calls for the government to control and fix its borders to prevent the entry of African migrants, regardless of the potential economic benefits they may bring. For example, Somali migrants bring entrepreneurial skills from which South African small business owners can learn to become more competitive in the spaza shop business (Charman and Piper, 2012; Gastrow, 2013; Pineteh, 2018; Thompson, 2016). Interestingly, South Africans’ calls for better securitization of South African borders show that although globalization is about flexible borders, goods and financial capital seem to be enjoying this flexibility more than human beings. This suggests that the “open flows of globalization have triggered the construction of new boundaries, the reaffirmation of old ones and the closure of identities” (Boas African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1691 and Dunn, 2013: 18). South Africa’s recent approach to migration poses critical questions about the right to belong, the politics of inclusion and exclusion as well as citizenship in a post-apartheid South Africa that has given foreigners judiciary rights to live and work in the country (Pineteh, 2017; 2018). As political parties desperately want to hold on to power or scramble for votes during elections, they now resort to populist forms of ethnic nationalism, which blame ‘illegal migrants’, an amorphous phrase for African migrants, for their worsening social and economic challenges. What we see in South Africa today is a politics of denialism and deflection, where politicians find scapegoats to shift the attention of locals from their failures, particularly during service delivery protests (Landau, 2010; Nyamnjoh, 2007). For them, the government should not be held to account for unfulfilled political promises such as jobs, housing, and better living conditions because of illegal immigration. But what does legal or illegal migration mean to South Africans living in poverty? Whose responsibility is it to regulate migration in South Africa? Does this type of populism mean that South Africa will become a pure and flawless nation if all African migrants are exorcised? As this narrative finds its way into townships, tensions and violence simmer as African migrants who do business in these spaces are now seen as usurpers. During periods of xenophobic violence, African migrants in townships become the most vulnerable, and since the Somali community is one of the African communities that have identified business opportunities in townships, they now live on the margins of life and death, every day. As South Africans continue to deploy different strategies such as violent attacks, burning and looting of shops as well as killings to force Somalis out of ‘their townships’, Somalis will always devise new ways to resist the attacks and continue living in these townships. In finding ways to resist and circumvent xenophobic attacks from locals, Somalis are likely to continue living at the mercy of local South Africans who are determined to exorcise African migrants from South Africa. Acknowledgement I would like to thank the American Council of Learned Societies for its generous financial support of this project, through its AHP postdoctoral fellowship. My sincere gratitude also goes to all participants for providing very rich empirical data for this study. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1692 References Amit, R. and Kriger, N. 2014. Making migrants “il-legal”: The policies and practices of documentation in post-apartheid South Africa. Kronos, 40(1): 269-290. Boas, M. and Dunn, K. 2013. Politics of origin in Africa: Autochthony, citizenship and conflict. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Buyer, M. 2009. Negotiating identity and displacement among the Somali refugees of Cape Town. South African Historical Journal, 60(2): 226-241. Carling, J. 2008. The human dynamics of migrant transnationalism. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(8): 1452-1477. Charman, A. and Piper, L. 2012. 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Although African immigration to the United States (U.S.) and South Africa has increased rapidly over the past two decades, little is known about the health experiences of this growing population even though conditions surrounding the migration process have been found to increase vulnerability to ill health. The aim of this study is to examine and compare the perceptions of African refugees and immigrants to South Africa and the U.S. on informational support and its impact on health status. Data was collected from purposively selected 62 African immigrants to the United States and 66 African immigrants to South Africa using the PROMIS Global Health v1.2 and the PROMIS Item Bank v2.0 (informational support) instruments which assess an individual’s general physical, mental and social health. Participants were selected based on their country of origin and immigration status in the country of residence. We developed a Health Perception Index (HPI) and Information Support Index (ISI) as a composite of the measures of the response to health questions and how information support contributes to migrants’ overall health status. In addition, we conducted Chi Square test to assess if there was any difference between the  Department of Health Sciences and Public Health, University of Missouri, USA (Corresponding author, Dr Wilson Majee, 536 Clark Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia 65211. Email: majeew@missouri.edu  Institute for Social Development, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.  School of Government, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.  Institute for Social Development, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. mailto:majeew@missouri.edu African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1697 indicators in terms of association of the two cities. African immigrants to South Africa reported that they were very satisfied with the South African Health Services offered to migrants, contrary to those in the U.S. healthcare. The evidence indicates that migrants in South Africa seem to have a better HPI index compared to those in the U.S. In general, there was no difference in the challenges faced by these immigrants in accessing relevant information to enable them to improve their socio-economic conditions in destination countries. Access to healthcare services remains a major challenge for most migrants. Given that countries rely on formal documentation for access to information and healthcare services, governments could institute special medical and information support structures that cater specifically for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as undocumented immigrants, in the course of waiting for formal recognition in the state. In order to improve African immigrant and refugee families’ access and utilization of healthcare services, policies and programs that seek to address social determinants of health and tap into culturally relevant networking, collaborative approaches are needed. Keywords Migration, health, refugee, immigrant, social Services, South Africa, United States. Introduction Migration has been on the increase across the world and remains the defining issue of this century. The decision to emigrate depends on a combination of various factors, such as lack of social security and justice, the low level of confidence in the state, poverty, urbanization, climate change, youth unemployment, as well as better opportunities for work abroad (Dinbabo and Nyasulu, 2015). These flows have generated opportunities and challenges that affect the social, political, economic and health conditions of people and raised complex questions for both policy-makers and researchers. At the global level, but in Africa in particular, there is a paucity of data and scientific research on the issues, challenges, opportunities, benefits and costs of the experiences of international migrants. To address these concerns, scholars are compelled to move out of traditional paradigms and disciplinary boundaries to analyze the multi-faceted and interlinked nature of migratory processes. In this paper we present findings from a comparative study done in the U.S. and in South Africa African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1698 exploring the health experiences of African immigrants in their countries of destination. Background Although migration places individuals in situations that impact their health and well-being, there has been a surge in human migration in recent years. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) (2019), there are an estimated 1 billion migrants in the world today, of whom 258 million are international migrants and 763 million are internal migrants. In the U.S., as in many other countries, immigrant and refugee families form a considerable and growing proportion of the population, with African immigrants representing one of the fastest growing groups of immigrants. Africans now make up 39% of the overall foreign-born black population, up from 24% in 2000 (Anderson and Lopez, 2018). Much of this growth has been fueled by African migration mainly from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia (Capps et al., 2012). South Africa, like the U.S. has also witnessed a surge in the number of people migrating from other African countries. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), between 2010 and 2017, the number of immigrants living in South Africa increased from 2.2 million to 4 million (IOM, 2019). The surges in African migration, whether to the U.S. or to South Africa, happen as a result of economic, social, political and environmental factors such as fleeing political persecution, war or terror, enhanced education and employment opportunities, reunification with family members, and better quality of life (Vaughn and Holloway, 2010). Despite the increase in number and diversity of Africans in the U.S. and South Africa, and the diverse reasons for immigration, no comparative studies have examined African immigrants’ and refugees’ experiences in African and U.S. settings. There are four global migration flows. The largest flow, South-South, involves people moving from one developing country to another (e.g. from Indonesia to Costa Rica, from Zimbabwe or Congo to South Africa). In 2013, over 82 million were part of this flow (Duncan, and Popp 2017). For Africa, 79% of sub-Saharan African migrants move within the same region and fewer than 22% of migrants from Africa emigrate outside of Africa (Zong and Batalova, 2017). The second largest flow, South-North, constitutes people moving from low- and middle-income countries to high-income countries (e.g. from Congo to France, from Mexico to the U.S., from South Africa or Zimbabwe African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1699 to the U.S). In 2013, close to 82 million people migrated under this classification (Martin, 2019). According to Zong and Batalova (2017), of the African immigrants living in the U.S. in 2015, 44.6% were from West Africa, 35.7% from Eastern Africa, 5.8% from Southern Africa and 7.5% from Middle Africa. The third flow, North-North, consists of people migrating from one high-income country to another, as from the U.K. to the U.S. Human migration from high-income countries to low and middle-income countries constitutes the fourth flow (North-South). Our study is founded in the first two largest flows: South-South and South-North. Each of these flows presents unique features and experiences that warrant examination. We argue for a global understanding of migration. Our argument for this examination lies in the inevitability, volume, and heterogeneity of migration (Dinbabo and Nyasulu, 2015). Although evidence suggests that African immigrants in general have a health advantage over other immigrant groups, this work is limited to comparisons between black immigrants (from all regions) and native-born African Americans or between black African immigrants and native-born African Americans (Mason et al., 2010; Read et al., 2005; Singh and Hiatt, 2006; Singh and Miller, 2004; Hummer et al., 2007; Jasso et al., 2004; Palloni and Arias, 2004). For example, in their analysis of National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) data, Read et al. (2005) found that African immigrants report their own health to be better than African Americans report. In their study, African immigrants reported the best status, as compared to West-Indian and European-born blacks and African Americans (Read et al., 2005). However, other researchers have questioned the ‘healthy immigrant’ phenomenon (Fennelly, 2007). Researchers have also noted the gradual deterioration in health among many immigrants (John et al., 2005; Kandula et al., 2004). Length of residence in the receiving country has been found to impact negatively on health (Dinbabo and Carciotto, 2015; McDonald and Kennedy, 2004). In U.S. census data, Africans are generally lumped together as Black or African American thereby overlooking the effect of cultural background and length of stay in the country of destination on their health. Relocation from one country to another can result in family and social disruption that impact health (Lum and Vanderaa, 2009). Factors such as being poor, acculturation stress, and African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1700 lifestyle changes, have been associated with declining health for some immigrants (Fennelly, 2007). It appears there is an information gap because of the understudying of some immigrant groups (Cunningham et al., 2008). With the surge in African immigration around the world, there is a need to fill this information gap. Health and migration is a multi-dimensional matter. When specific ethnic groups are under-studied or under-represented, culturally competent care is compromised thereby exacerbating health disparities among populations (Betancourt and Green, 2007; Cooper et al., 2002; Dinbabo et al., 2017; Sithole and Dinbabo, 2016; Smedley et al., 2003, Pavlish et al., 2010). According to the Institute of Human Development and Social Change, low-income immigrant families disproportionately face barriers in accessing health and human services programs and are at greater risk of living in poverty (Perreira et al., 2012; Yoshikawa et al., 2019). Thus, rapid changes in population movement have important public health implications, including limited access to healthcare services, disrupted family and social networks, and financial barriers. The vast differences between the way of living in Africa and in the U.S. make African refugees and immigrants in the U.S. an especially vulnerable group. Immigrants have to adjust to nearly all aspects of living – the weather, food, and laws (Boise et al., 2013). During this adjustment phase, immigrants may feel sad, lonely, and disappointed about moving from their home country. They may also feel separated from networks of support left behind in Africa (Boise et al., 2013). Immigrants are also likely to experience acculturation stress due to adaptation to the U.S. including such factors as enhancing language skills, fear of deportation, finding employment, housing, schools, and navigating the bureaucracy of immigration and documentation (Artiga and Ubri, 2017; Boise et al., 2013; Warheit et al., 1985; Aroian et al., 1998). Further, depending on the acculturation process, African immigrants tend to have less access to and utilization of healthcare services. Factors increasing immigrants’ vulnerability regarding access to healthcare include, knowing where to go for healthcare, a lack of perceived need, the cost of care, language and cultural barriers, a lack of transportation, perceptions of lack of respect, discrimination or racism, and not understanding how the U.S. healthcare system works healthcare (Boise et al., 2013; Perreira et al., 2012; Siegel et al., 2001). These barriers may result in African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1701 many people turning to hospital emergency departments as their main source of care (Boise et al., 2013). Along the same vein, Derose et al. (2007) found that immigrants have lower rates of health insurance, use less healthcare, and receive lower quality of care than the U.S.-born population. To understand African immigrant health, which is changing as migration transforms the health profile of Africa, it is important to explore the health experiences of African immigrants in their countries of destination. The primary objective of this research was to investigate the experiences of health of African immigrants to South Africa and the U.S. It was hypothesized that immigrants in advanced economies have better access to healthcare services and greater information support compared to immigrants living in developing economies. This study aims to contribute to the current small body of research on African immigrant health by comparing perceptions on health of African immigrants to South Africa and the U.S. In our review of the literature, we have not found any studies that compare perceptions on health between South-South and South-North African immigrants. This type of analysis will shed more light on the inter-connectedness between health and migration from a global perspective. This understanding can nurture opportunities to brainstorm on collective responses to the unmet health needs of immigrants at the global rather than national level. Methods Instrument: Quality of social support refers to interpersonal relationships that serve particular functions. This includes the interactive process by which emotional, instrumental or informational support is obtained from one's social network. It also includes companionship, feeling cared for and valued as a person, communication with others, and feelings of belonging and trust. Measures of social support generally seek information about a person’s perception of the availability or adequacy of resources provided by others. For our study, we used the PROMIS Instrumental Support to collect data. The instrument assesses self-reported perceived availability of assistance with material, cognitive or task performance. The instrumental support short- forms are universal rather than disease-specific. It assesses emotional support (quality of life, physical health, mental health, social satisfaction, social African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1702 activity, physical activity, emotional problems, fatigue levels, and level of pain), and informational support (companionship, feeling cared for and valued as a person, communication with others, and feelings of belonging and trust). Data collection: Ethical approval was obtained from the University of the Western Cape and the University of Missouri prior to data collection. Data for this study was drawn from migrants living in Cape Town, South Africa and Columbia, Missouri in the U.S. In the U.S. researchers partnered with an immigrant who volunteers at the Refugee and Immigrants Office in order to reach the population of interest. The community partner was trained on how to complete surveys. The training included sessions in which the community partner observed researchers interviewing participants. The community partner then recruited and interviewed immigrants who come for services at the Refugee and Immigration Services. The community partner also identified other participants based on his knowledge of immigrants in Columbia, Missouri. In South Africa, migrants were randomly selected from different neighborhoods for the project. For example, migrants were selected from Bellville, Parow, Maitland, Wynberg and the Cape Town central business district (CBD). This process helped to ensure that migrants from all income classes and status levels had a fair chance of being selected for the survey. In total, 128 respondents were successfully interviewed using a structured survey questionnaire. Of the 128, 62 were in Columbia and 66 in Cape Town. All participants were selected based on their migrant status in the country of residence and their country of birth or country of origin. Though the data may not be representative of the migrant population in both cities, it at least provides a synoptic overview of the migrants’ perception of their health and health services. For both sites, the requirement was for participants to have lived in their host country for at least one year. Data analysis: To achieve the main objective of the study, we first provide a descriptive and comparative overview of the demographic characteristics of the migrant population. We then develop a Health Perception Index (HPI) and Information Support Index (ISI) which were used to determine the extent to which immigrants perceive their health status and whether such perception correlates with access to healthcare services as well as their relevant information support within their social space in the destination country. According to Babbie (2007), when studying a phenomenon with multiple African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1703 indicators, it becomes paramount for the researcher to develop a data reduction instrument so that a composite indicator is developed with a single numerical score to measure the extent of the problem. Several studies have applied the same principle such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), developed by Bryan and Cecchetti (1993), the Human Development Index (Noorbakhsh, 1998) and the Economic Security Index designed by Hacker et al. (2014). The HPI and ISI are composites of the measures of the response to health questions and how information support contributes to migrants’ overall health status. According to Babbie (2007), developing an index is an ideal way of data reduction that allows for reducing multiple Likert scale variables or multiple response variables into a single numerical score. We computed the indexes by first assigning values from 1 to 5 where 1 represents a low score and 5 represents a high score, thus indicative of excellent health or higher propensity to access of information. This 5-point Likert scale procedure was used to allow respondents to easily evaluate their health perception and their information support. Results We analyzed some of the demographic characteristics of migrants who participated in the study. Migrants from 19 countries were successfully interviewed with the majority coming from sub-Saharan African countries. The result shows that men continue to dominate in the flow of migrants. Males were at 75% compared to females at 25%. However, the sample showed that male migrants in the U.S. constituted 34% compared to 41% in South Africa. The majority of these migrants (76%) were aged 26 to 45 years. In addition, migrants classified as refugees were by far the dominant category of participants interviewed. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1704 Table 1: Demographic Structure Analysis of Empirical Data Refugee status was 41% for the U.S. and 38% for South Africa. However, on the whole, people with refugee status constituted about 52% of the sample. The proportion of immigrants who classified themselves under ‘other documentation’ in South Africa was very high (21%) compared to none for U.S. Besides the issues of documentation, the results showed that 60% of the sample have lived in the destination country for between one and five years. In the U.S., the majority of immigrants have lived there for between one and five years. The situation in South Africa was rather spread out between one and fifteen years. Global Health Perception and Information Calibration of Immigrants Immigrant health has been broadly studied and evidence in the literature suggests that given the current wave in international migration, African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1705 disproportionality exists in the assessment of migrants’ health. Abubakar et al. (2018) acknowledge that it is not possible to cover all the broad topics of migrants’ health. In this analysis, the HPI and ISI indexes are used to draw inferences based on the total weight values and the index deviations from the mean. Items above the mean are seen to have higher response rates from the population. Analysis of Empirical Data We identified factors that affect immigrants’ health perceptions as well as their ability to access support generally which fall under the information calibration items for the study. The results shown in Table 2 above present the responses from the immigrants in relation to their health perceptions using 10 health perception indicators. The average score for the HPI was 2.86. Seven of the health perception indicators in the scale had a mean score above the overall mean score of 2.86. A score of 3 rated as good or greater in the scale of 5 indicates a respondent is perceived to be generally healthy. Three indicators were =>3 that is, global health, physical health and mental health. A score of less than 3 indicates that a respondent might be experiencing poor health conditions. Given that the overall mean score of HPI for both the U.S. and South Africa was 2.86, which is less than 3 on the scale, the authors conclude that, immigrants perceive their health status as below average. The mean HPI for the U.S. was 2.71 while the mean HPI for South Africa was 3.59. A t test was executed to test significance of the mean difference. The result showed that t = -7.4396 and P-value-<0.001 at 95%. In addition, a Kruskal- Wallis test was carried out to show the overall difference in means for each of the indicators for the study areas. There was no evidence of a significant African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1706 difference in the fatigue levels and quality of life of the immigrants. However, 8 of the indicators showed significant results as shown in Table 2. These differences are between the U.S. and S.A. As already stated, the overall mean difference shows that S.A. immigrants have a higher health perception index compared to U.S. immigrants and this was significant at P-value<0.05. A similar procedure was carried out for ISI scores. In Table 3 below, we show the responses of immigrants’ access to information support especially in crisis times. We developed the ISI index to measure immigrants’ information access using the design information calibrated items measured on a 5-point Likert scale. Analysis of Empirical Data Overall the ISI index showed that ISIµ =3.06. The ISIµ for Cape Town=3.28 while that of S.A. was ISIµ= 3.24. Nine of the ISI indicators had a positive deviation from the mean. Three of the ISI indicators had a negative deviation from the mean – I have someone who gives me advice in times of crisis; My friends have useful information to help me with my problems; and I have someone to talk with about my money matters. A score of 3 or greater indicates that immigrants on average are able to access information support satisfactorily. Given that the mean of ISI was greater than 3, we conclude that immigrants from both countries generally have access to information support. Though most of the ISI indicators had scores above the mean score, just one of African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1707 the indicators yielded a significant result. We applied a ttest to assess the difference in ISI for the U.S. and S.A. and found that t = 0.2381 and p-value> 0.05. This means that there was no overall difference between immigrants in Columbia and Cape Town in their information support. Similar results emerged using the Kruskal-Wallis test for each of the indictors. Despite the negative deviation from the overall ISIµ, I have someone to talk with about my money matters had a score of 4 and this was significant at p-value=0.0041. Thus, Cape Town immigrants show evidence of possible social interactions and social capital that contribute to their information support compared to immigrants in the U.S. city of Columbia. Discussion Our study observed that the HPI was significantly different between the cities with migrants in South Africa having a better HPI despite the fact that the average HPI was less than the scale average of 3. On the other hand, the overall ISI was relatively above average which is equivalent to >=3 on the scale. However, we did not find significant evidence to believe that the ISI was different between the study areas. In this context, it is safe to state that immigrants’ access to information support is the same for both countries and is higher than the scale average of 3. A better HPI for immigrants in South Africa is not surprising because refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa, especially pregnant women and children, have access to basic health services. However, this could be even better if the perceptions of xenophobia were eradicated in the body polity. For immigrants to the United States, the current political climate, and debates over issues such as a border wall, become part of the environment that influences access to health and subsequently health outcomes. Over the last two decades, U.S. immigrants have witnessed a changing immigration enforcement landscape. For example, following the passing of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act in 1996, the number of illegal immigrants detained increased (Hacker et al., 2014; Miller, 2005). Following the creation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), there has been a noticeable increase in detention and deportation activities across American communities (Capps et al. 2015) The current anti-immigrant rhetoric, which emerged more recently, particularly during and after the 2016 presidential election, is exacerbating the vulnerability of immigrants in the U.S. regarding their African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1708 participation in healthcare. Our research findings, particularly the lower HPI found among African immigrants in the U.S., illustrate that immigrants may experience social inequalities that are a result of the immigration process and related policies that in turn can drive health disparities. Unlike African immigrants in South Africa who share some cultures and languages with their host country, African immigrants in America have to deal with language barriers, cultural assimilation and discrimination and racism – all of which increase their vulnerability regarding access to healthcare. Our findings support research that highlights ‘legal status’ and acculturation as major determinant of immigrants’ access to social services, jobs, and health services (Dahlan et al., 2019; Parmet, 2018) as immigrant families often forgo needed healthcare and social services because they fear interactions with public agencies. Therefore, the level of social support within the host country plays a crucial role in shaping immigrant health. We observed that few immigrants were able to obtain informational support in terms of advice in times of crisis yet this type information and suggestions that help with problem solving, are critical for the well-being of people. In their study, Dahlan et al. (2019) show that information and social support such as family, friends and community were positively associated with immigrants’ oral health outcomes. Informational barriers present a substantial challenge in that, for this population, information on benefits of public programs is often communicated via word of mouth. Thus, immigrants whose networks are mostly bonding (not bridging) in nature often do not receive adequate information about the benefits available to them. This challenge can be more pronounced in small rural communities where there are few immigrant- serving community-based organizations. One of the challenges migrants face worldwide is access to documentation that regularize their status in the destination country. For a variety of reasons including language, literacy, cultural barriers, stigmatization, immigration-related fears, and logistical and information barriers (e.g. transportation), many immigrants live as ‘undocumented’ or fail to seek information that can help them participate in the social and economic mainstream. In the U.S., access of benefits by unauthorized immigrants is limited due to fear of being detected by immigration enforcement authorities. Community perceptions regarding the effects of immigration on community resources, and increased cooperation African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1709 between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement can lead to increased fears among immigrants to associate with government officials at any level. In South Africa, the term ‘undocumented migrants’ refers to anyone residing in the country without legal documentation. It includes people who entered South Africa without inspection and proper permission from the government, and those who entered with a legal visa that is no longer valid (Dinbabo and Nyasulu, 2015). The researchers observed that undocumented migrants feel stigmatized when addressed as ‘undocumented migrants’, in the context of South Africa. For this reason, the use of ‘other document’ for such migrants seem to convey some level of self-dignity of the migrants. The proportion of ‘other documentation’ in South Africa was very high (21%) compared to ‘other documentation’ for the U.S. In general, migrants in U.S. find it easy to obtain documents. Implications for Practice One major implication stemming from our study is that it aligns with the call for greater understanding of how policy processes should address social determinants of health (Carey et al., 2014; Andermann, 2016). Immigrant health determinants can be modified in part through policies that target disadvantaged populations in general (e.g. living wages, access to education, decent housing) and in part through activities and policies targeted specifically at immigrants. We suggest a few promising practices for increasing immigrant access to services and participation in community life.  There is a need for multi-disciplinary collaboration around theoretical and practical migrant health matters. Researchers, community development practitioners, health professionals, police, and immigrants themselves should collaborate in stimulating further understanding of immigrant health and the strategies needed to engage the immigrant population. As migration between countries, including the United States, continues to increase, there is a need to include migrants in community-level discussions that shape the design of policies and resource allocation decisions that affect their health and well-being. Studies have shown that building immigrant-friendly communities can result in greater social cohesion and less societal fragmentation (Cheung and Phillimore, 2017; Mulvey, 2018). As such, integration can have positive effects not only for immigrants but also for members of the host society. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1710  Policy-makers in the socio-political arena should ensure that immigrants have access to accurate and adequate information about what to expect in healthcare settings, on the differences between local law enforcement and ICE (in the U.S.), and on their rights and responsibilities as immigrant community members. Consideration should be given to providing this information through ‘spaces’ which immigrants consider friendly and accessible, such as churches, schools and social media.  Cultural respect and competency training, particularly for healthcare providers (including migrant rights) and law enforcement officials in the U.S., are crucial elements in this process. Immigrants serving community organizations can be more proactive in conducting linguistically and culturally sensitive outreach. Use of trusted mentors to disseminate information to low-income parents has been found to have more impact than when a service provider is used (Capps and Fortuny, 2006; Chaudry and Fortuny, 2010; Yoshikawa et al., 2011). Because families develop trusting relationships with community health workers (CHWs), a community-health-worker-approach in which CHWs are trained to hold meetings in immigrants’ gathering places and disseminate immigration- related information, holds promise in engaging immigrants. Limitations and Future Research Findings should be considered in light of the study’s limitations. First, recruiting African immigrants in the U.S. was difficult. Most African immigrants tend to live in clusters, depending on the African country they come from and the language they speak. We used different strategies to address this challenge including recruiting a recruitment coordinator, who was an African immigrant himself; working with service providers to recruit participants when they turn up for services; and snowballing sampling. Our study was limited because most of the participants were recruited by the recruitment coordinators and were mostly from eastern Africa. Furthermore, some participants were from the same family, which limited the breadth of the findings. Additionally, 49 of the 62 participants (79%) fell under one legal status (refugees) thereby limiting the generalizability of the findings to a broader immigrant population. Future research studies that include a bigger and more diverse sample reflective of the many countries in Africa are needed African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1711 to better understand health disparities among immigrants in different country settings. Acknowledgement The authors are grateful to the African immigrant and community partner in the United States (U.S.), Mr. Abdu Ahmed, for his assistance with coordinating the recruitment of participants, and data collection. We also greatly appreciate the support of the Office of Refugee and Immigrant Services in Columbia, Missouri for allowing us to recruit participants from those visiting their premises. In South Africa we are indebted to the support of the Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa (SIHMA) and those who have helped and supported us during the research and writing process. Finally, we acknowledge the support from all participants in taking the time to complete the survey. 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What is the added impact on children of parent- targeted services in early childhood education programs? A meta-analytic study. Symposium panel presented at the biennial conference of the Society for Research in Child Development, Montreal, Quebec, 31 March to 2 April. Yoshikawa, H., Chaudry, A., Rendón García, S., Koball, H. and Francis, T. (2019). Approaches to protect children’s access to health and human services in an era of harsh immigration policy. NYU Institute of Human Development and Social Change. Zong, J. and Batalova, J. (2017). Sub-Saharan African immigrants in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1717 Internal Migration, Socio-Economic Status and Remittances: Experiences of Migrant Adolescent Girl Head Porters in Ghana Kennedy A. Alatinga Abstract This paper examines the relationship between internal migration, socio- economic status and remittances, drawing on the experiences of migrant adolescent girl head porters in the cities of Accra and Kumasi in Ghana. Through an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design involving 503 individual surveys and 24 in-depth interviews, the paper established that 61% of adolescents studied migrated from the north to the south to escape poverty while 29% migrated to work and raise money for school fees. The kayayoo business does not seem to capacitate the adolescent girls to live the kind of lives they have reason to value because only 36% of them remitted to their families. A logistic regression model showed that older adolescents, 15- 19 years, (AOR=7.32, p<0.05, CI= [1.999-26.802] number of years spent working as head porter, 3-years, (AOR=3.97, p<0.05, CI= [1.633-9.677] and socio-economic status – not poor (AOR=8.63, p<0.001, CI=[4.761-8.435]) significantly influenced remittances. Remittances capacitated recipient families to invest in human capital development and also improved household food security. This study recommends that, in the short-term, adolescents working as head porters to raise money for school fees must be identified and enrolled in schools, based on the Ghanaian Free Senior High School Policy, while the establishment of factories and industries in Northern Ghana to create employment opportunities could be a long-term measure. Keywords: Capabilities-aspirations, human transport, kayayoo, females, remittances, adolescents, Ghana.  Department of Community Development Faculty of Planning and Land Management University for Development Studies, Ghana. Email: kalatinga@gmail.com African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1718 Introduction Migration remains a critical part of human existence. Migration, whether internal or international, is a public policy concern and is perhaps the most visible sign of globalization in the 21st century (Goldin and Reinert, 2012; IOM, 2018). In developing countries, internal migration is largely a rural-urban phenomenon. This trend is justified on the hypothesis that urban residents have access to better infrastructure and services, including employment opportunities, health care, education and are generally more prosperous than rural dwellers (Rice, 2008; White, 2016). Urbanization is often equated with modernization, and socio-economic development (Cyril et al., 2013). Contemporary migration trends in developing countries, including Ghana, reveal that the migration process is dominated by youth aged 18-24 years (White, 2016), especially adolescent girls (Temin et al., 2013). Migration may offer adolescent girls who migrate voluntarily the social space for socio- economic advancement through access to education, access to quality health services, and remittances to reduce household poverty (Mac-Ikemenjima and Gebregiorgis, 2018; Nyasulu, 2017). Migration trends in Ghana in recent times reveal the movement of predominantly adolescent girls aged 10-19 years largely from the poorer northern regions of Ghana to the richer urban markets of Accra and Kumasi with the aim of improving their socio-economic status (Awumbila and Ardayfio-Schandorf, 2008; Tufeiru, 2014). Opare (2003) claims that most families and households mobilize financial resources, and some even borrow money to finance the adolescent girls’ travel to Kumasi and Accra. In the cities of Accra and Kumasi, most of these adolescent girls engage in the head-load carrying (kayayoo) business. The kayayoo ‘business’ is the situation in which adolescent girls literally use themselves as human transport by carrying loads of goods on their heads for unregulated fees to save money for later investment and remitting to their families back home (Agarwal et al., 1997; Tufeiru, 2014). It appears thus, that the kayayoo business in the urban market centers is a household survival strategy in response to poverty (Awumbila and Ardayfio-Schandorf, 2008). Thus migration becomes a conduit for the adolescent girls to aspire to change the poor socio-economic status of their families for the better. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1719 However, there is currently little evidence on whether these adolescent girls’ aspirations of migration are met. For example, the adolescent girls’ ability to remit, the extent to which the kayayoo business improves the adolescents girls’ socio-economic status, financial situation, and their overall poverty situation and that of their families appear not to have received adequate scholarly attention. From a capabilities perspective, the extent to which the kayayoo business increases the capacity of the adolescent girls to be more secure and live the kind of lives they have reason to value, is also not known. In terms of income potential, head porters are reported to have low levels of earnings. For example, Awumbila and Ardayfio-Schandorf (2008, p.177) and Oberhauser and Yeboah (2011: 22) found that female head porters are among the poorest of urban dwellers in Accra, with an estimated average daily earnings ranging from US$ 1.20 to US$ 2.20 and US$ 3.20 to US$ 5.20 on a good day. The female head porters live and work under deplorable and harsh conditions including poor accommodation, which have implications for their health (Nyarko and Tahiru, 2018; Opare, 2003). It is in these trying circumstances that the adolescent girls aspire to make money to finance their living costs, save and remit to their families in order to make a positive difference. Examining whether or not the kayayoo business capacitates these female youngsters to achieve their aspirations is of crucial public social policy relevance because they are of school-going age and should normally have been in school. The Sustainable Development Goal Four (SDG 4) is loud and clear as it calls for inclusive and equitable quality education for all (UNGA, 2015: 17). The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it interrogates the adolescent girls’ ability to remit, their socio-economic status, financial situation, and their overall poverty situation and that of their families in the context of the kayayoo business. Secondly, it makes a novel methodological contribution by deploying a mixed methods research design, drawing on the centers of aggregation sampling technique and purposive sampling, which are suitable for hard-to- reach populations such as the female head porters (Reichel and Morales, 2017). Earlier studies on the subject matter have been qualitative in nature, relying largely on intuition and convenience to draw their samples (Baah- Ennumh et al., 2012; Nyarko and Tahiru, 2018). Section two presents a clear picture of the kayayoo business in Ghana, followed by the theoretical and African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1720 conceptual literature in section three. The research setting and methodology are presented in section four. Section five exemplifies the study results and discusses them. Section six concludes the paper and makes recommendations. Adolescents Girls on the Move: The Case of Ghana’s Head Porters Ghana’s population is increasingly becoming urbanized. With an urban growth rate of 4.25%, Ghana’s current urban population is estimated to be about 56%, making Ghana the third most urbanized country in West Africa (UN, 2018). The proportion of the urban population is further projected to increase to about 63% by the year 2025 (Awumbila et al., 2014: 6). Scholars have pointed to several reasons that explain Ghana’s adolescent girls’ movement from the north to the south to engage in head-load business – including high levels of poverty in the three northern regions, conceptions of female occupational career structure, and Ghana’s urban light goods transportation structure. High levels of poverty compel people to migrate from the three northern regions of Ghana (Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions) to the two largest urban cities: Accra – the national capital, and also the capital of the Greater Accra Region, and Kumasi – the capital of the Ashanti Region, in search of jobs and other economic opportunities (Osei-Boateng, 2012). These three northern regions also have the highest incidence of poverty in Ghana. The latest Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS7) reports that poverty in the three Northern regions worsened, from 70.7% in 2012/13 to 70.9% in 2016/17, in the Upper West Region, from 44.4% in 2012/13 to 54.8% in 2016/17 in the Upper East Region, and from 50.4% in 2012/13 to 61.1% in 2016/17 in the Northern Region respectively (GSS, 2018). During the same period, the poverty situation improved in the Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions: poverty declined from 14.8% in 2012/2013 to 11.6% in 2016/17 in the Ashanti Region, and from 5.6% in 2012/13 to 2.5% in the Greater Accra Region, compared to the national average of 23.4%. The conceptions of female occupational career structures, particularly in Northern Ghana, appear to fuel the migration practice of adolescent girls. For example, in Ghana, kayayoo is considered a petty form of trading which is culturally understood as being women’s work, and so head-load carriers are self-employed, informal sector workers (Agarwal et al., 1997). The authors indicate that the engagement of female children in kayayoo is considered as African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1721 part of the female occupational career structure. Agarwal et al. (1997) argue that adolescent girls and women engage in kayayoo in order to build up capital to invest later in assets such as sewing machines and more rewarding occupations. Besides, it is less expensive to invest in kayayoo than other informal sector businesses. The use of human transport in the form of adolescent girl head porters can also be understoond as part of the light goods transport structure in Ghana’s urban markets. Commerical traders and some shoppers in Ghana’s urban markets engage the services of adolescent girl head porters to transport their goods from one point to another (Agarwal et al., 1997). Inappropraite urban physical planning and design resulting in overcrowding and congestion make the use of human transport within markets more convenient as compared to motor vehicles (Agarwal et al.,1997; Ardayfio-Schandorf et al., 2012). The Theory of Migration: Towards a Conceptual and Theoretical Framework of Aspirations and Capabilities Historically, colonial development policy was essentially urban-biased and Northern Ghana has long served as a labour reserve for the south (Thomas, 1973). Investments in modern health care and educational facilities were undertaken in Southern Ghana to the detriment of the north. After independence, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana, embarked on a rapid industrialization drive to usher in egalitarian development and eliminate the north-south development gap created by the colonialists (Adarkwa, 2012). However, Nkrumah’s industrialization policy concentrated particularly in the south, in the ‘golden triangle’ – Accra-Tema, Kumasi and Sekondi-Tarkoradi – resulting in an unsuccessful policy (Adarkwa, 2012). The migration of adolescent girls to Ghana’s urban cities can be understood within the context of the north-south development gap. Existing research such as Ravenstein’s laws of migration (Ravenstein, 1885), Lee’s push and pull factor theory (Lee, 1966), Todaro and Smith’s rational choice theory (Todaro and Smith, 2012), and Stark’s migration decision-making model (Stark, 1984), amongst others draw largely on development and economic theories or models to explain migration. The gist of these theories is that economic reasons fuel migration. For example, Ravenstein (1885) argues that migrants drift from areas of low economic advantage to more endowed areas. Lee’s African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1722 (1966) ‘push and pull’ theory suggests that ‘push’ factors such as poverty, the lack of job opportunities, poor social services and inadequate infrastructure in rural areas, and ‘pull’ factors such as better job opportunities and improved infrastructure in the urban areas are responsible for rural-urban migration. Explaining the economic motives for migration further, Todaro and Smith (2012) suggest that the decision to migrate is calculated rationally based on expected urban-rural real wage differentials. Migrants expect higher wages in urban areas than in rural areas, which are usually agriculturally dominated. According to Stark (1984), rural-urban migration is a survival strategy where migrants under favorable conditions accumulate wealth and send remittances to their families. Remittance is a key concept in the migration literature because available evidence suggests that migration and remittances reduce poverty, improve living conditions, improve household welfare and contribute to human development in origin communities (Abdulai et al., 2017). Other researchers (see for example, de Haas, 2014; Kleist and Thorsen, 2017,)) also argue that poverty and economic factors alone cannot explain migration since migrants need a certain minimum of financial, human and social resources in order to migrate. The need for resources to migrate speaks to two important issues. First, it speaks to the fact that migration is selective because migrants have different abilities and respond differently to sets of circumstances triggering their movement (Lee, 1966). Carling (2002) argues that migration is restricted by poverty, illiteracy and lack of planning in the lives of the poor and disadvantaged. Secondly, if poverty alone were the trigger for the movement of the adolescent girls, one would expect that the volume of movement would be reduced because of the resources and the initial financial costs needed to migrate. On the contrary, Opare (2003) reports that the number of adolescent girl head porters keep rising every day in the urban markets. This scenario foregrounds other issues, such as aspirations and opportunities, in addition to poverty, that may occasion the movement of the adolescent girls (Mac-Ikemenjima and Gebregiorgis, 2018). The different views espoused by researchers and the multifaceted nature of migration suggest that migration cannot be explained by a single theory. This paper therefore, draws on the capabilities-aspirations theoretical model to complement the main economic theories with a capabilities-aspirations theoretical conceptualization to explain the migration of the adolescent girls. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1723 This conceptualization aims to advance a comprehensive understanding of the north-south migration of the adolescent girls in Ghana. Drawing on Sen’s capability approach, human capabilities are regarded as the substantive freedoms people have or enjoy to live the kind of lives they have reason to value (Sen, 1999). The range of human capabilities is diverse and varies from elementary freedoms encompassing being free from hunger to complex abilities such as achieving self-respect, irrespective of one’s socio-economic status and gender (Sen, 1989). From this perspective, migration entails people’s capability or freedom to choose where to live or to stay (de Haas, 2014). The concept of capabilities used in this context demonstrates the ability of individuals to achieve meaningful outcomes for themselves and their families through migration (Preibisc et al., 2016). Aspirations are more attitudinal or psychological in nature, including migration desires, needs and intentions (Carling and Schewel, 2018). Aspirations depend on people’s life preferences and perceptions about opportunities and life elsewhere, shaped by culture, personal disposition and information (de Haas, 2014). According to Kleist (2017), aspirations present an excellent starting point for appreciating the link between migration and young people’s sense of the possibilities they have for their lives. This capabilities-aspirations framework is justified because migration first involves the wish to migrate, and second, the realization of that wish (Carling, 2002: 6). In this sense, some people may aspire to migrate but may never realize their dreams because they lack the ability do so, thus becoming involuntarily immobile (Carling, 2002; Carling and Schewel, 2018). Furthermore, some scholars conceptualize migration as a function of aspirations and capabilities within a given set of opportunity structures (de Haas, 2014). This means that structural conditions in society may shape and offer opportunity structures that enable individuals and groups to pursue and achieve their personal or communal aspirations and capabilities (Merton, 1968; Preibisc et al., 2016). In societies where people are constrained by the lack of, or inadequate opportunity structures, adventurous individuals or groups may migrate to perceived opportunity-abundant locations in order to achieve their ambitions and aspirations (Opare, 2003). Put differently, where local opportunities do not allow people to live the kind of lives they have reason to value, they may migrate once they have the capability to do so. Thus, African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1724 the lack of these opportunity structures constitutes impediments to individuals’ aspirations and their capacity to live the kind of lives they have reason to value. Mac-Ikemenjima and Gebregiorgis (2018) report that the migration of Eritrean youth is largely due to lack of appropriate institutional arrangements to achieve their aspirations and limited opportunities for employment. Deploying the aspirations-capabilities framework, de Haas (2014) observed that despite significant increases in income and the improvement in general living conditions between 1998 and 2000, rural-urban migration in Morocco had continued unabated. Based on this observation, de Haas (2014: 16) argues that neo-classical push-pull economic models failed to explain migration adequately because it is an integral part of social change, and “to understand society is to understand migration, and to understand migration is to better understand society”. Thus, relying on economic push-pull factors alone reduces migrants to objects that lack capabilities, perception and are deprived of social relations (de Haas, 2014). Theoretically, the aspirations-capabilities framework explores the fact that migration may be valued, and yearned for in its own right. Adventure, curiosity or experience and the need to be independent from parental control may drive teenagers to migrate (Carling and Schewel, 2018). Viewing migration beyond economic factors also allows one to distinguish clearly between the instrumental (where migration is a means to achieve an end, such as earning higher incomes, higher social status, better education) and the intrinsic (value attached to the migration experience, the joy and pleasure derived from exploring new societies) nature of migration (de Haas, 2014). People may migrate not just to achieve material and social resources and lifestyles but because of wanderlust and a desire to discover new horizons (de Haas, 2014). Consistent with Carling and Schewel (2018), de Haas (2014) suggests that the youth demonstrates an innate desire to migrate for varied reasons, including the psychological need to separate from their parents, to prove their independence and satisfy their curiosity. Adolescents and youth may also aspire to migrate to meet future partners and acquire basic assets in preparation for marriage. For these reasons, migration may be considered a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom in its own right (de Haas and Rodríguez, 2010). Opare (2003) argues that the current phenomenal rise in African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1725 the rate at which teenage girls and young women migrate southwards from the north is in fulfillment of their aspirations. Research Setting and Methodology This research was conducted in the Accra and Kumasi metropolitan areas. Accra and Kumasi are the biggest and most urbanized cities in Ghana where the adolescent girls usually go to engage in the kayayoo business. While Accra is located along the coast, Kumasi is centrally located and serves as a traversing point from all parts of the country. Major financial institutions and government ministries also operate in these cities. Accra contributes about 20- 30% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and has the highest average per capita income in Ghana while Kumasi has the second highest average per capita income (Oberhauser, 2011). These two cities are also endowed with modern health care and educational facilities. Prior to data collection, the author visited the research sites and met with the leadership of the Kayayoo Association in Accra and some key informants in both Accra and Kumasi who have been working with the head porters as part of a formative study. Thereafter, research instruments – a questionnaire for a cross-sectional survey and an in-depth interview – guide were developed. An explanatory mixed methods research design was deployed in collating and analyzing data. Because hard-to-reach populations and migrant populations are characterized by the difficulty in sampling from them using standard probability methods (Gile and Handcock, 2010), quantitatively, time-location sampling was considered appropriate for generating random estimates for the migrant adolescent girl head porters (Reichel and Morales, 2017). Additionally, there are no accurate statistics on female head porters in Ghana, hence no sampling frame is available (Lattof, 2018). Time-location sampling assumes that it is possible to adequately reach and cover the target population at predefined locations through random sampling of those locations, using the ‘centers of aggregation sampling technique’ (Reichel and Morales, 2017). The centers of aggregation sampling technique produces a list of non-residential locations where the target population concentrates (Reichel and Morales, 2017). The rationale behind this strategy is that the random selection from this list provides interviewers with the locations where they also randomly select the final respondents (Reichel and Morales, 2017). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1726 In Accra, the following locations (markets) were listed: Agbogboloshie, Tema Station, Mataheko, Rawlings Park, Nima, Madina, Mamobi and Tudu Market. Subsequently, Agbogboloshie, Tema Station, and Madina were randomly selected. In Kumasi, the following locations were listed: Aboabo Station, Central Market, Adum, Kejetia, Roman Hill, Asawase, Alabaa, and Dr Mensa. Of these, Aboabo Station, Kejetia, and Roman Hill were randomly selected. In each of these selected locations, centers of aggregation, where the head porters frequently met or visited, were created (Salentin, 2014). The centers of aggregation sampling technique was then used to select the study respondents from these locations. Adolescent girls between the ages of 10-19 years, and who had been in the kayayoo business for six months or longer were included in the study. This time frame was considered long enough to determine the adolescent girls’ remittance ability, their socio-economic status, financial situation, and the overall poverty situation of the girls and their families. These processes resulted in the administration of 503 questionnaires – 253 in Accra, and 250 in Kumasi. The questionnaire was 9 pages long and comprised 87 questions including: the socio-demographics of the respondents, income and savings levels, remittance history, their socio-economic status, and their financial and poverty situations. For purposes of international comparisons, the socio-economic status of the adolescent girls was determined using the World Bank’s poverty line of US$ 1.90 a day. Adolescents whose daily incomes fell below US$ 1.90 were categorized as poor and those whose daily incomes were above the US$ 1.90 poverty line were considered not poor. Data collection was done mostly on Sundays when the head porters conglomerated, resting or washing their clothes. The survey data was entered into a data base using Epidata, and then exported into STATA Version 14.0 for analysis. Double entry was done to minimize errors. Cross-tabulations, chi-square test and logistic regression models were used to analyze the data. Qualitatively, purposive sampling was used to select some of the girls for in-depth interviews on specific issues, in order to assess the validity of the quantitative findings. Twelve in-depth interviews were conducted in both Accra and Kumasi. All the interviews were conducted in the local dialect (Twi), tape- recorded and later transcribed verbatim into English. Thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data manually. After listening to the audio recordings several times and comparing them with the visual transcripts to ensure that the recordings and the visual transcripts were African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1727 consistent, the data was then categorized and summarized into themes based on the research objectives. The themes were then compared across the various respondents to establish any similarities and differences in their responses (Leech and Onwuegbuzie, 2008), with the aid of the verbatim quotes. Results and Discussion Table: 1 Background characteristics of respondents Background Characteristics Frequency (N) Percent (%) Age Group 10-14 37 7.4 15-19 466 92.6 Level of Education None 183 36.4 Primary 121 24.1 JSS/JHS 158 31.4 Secondary/Technical 41 8.2 Marital Status Married 79 15.8 Never Married 415 82.8 Divorced/Widow 2 0.4 Cohabitation 5 1.0 Ethnic Group Dagomba 215 42.7 Mamprusi 210 41.7 Walla 14 2.8 Gonja 33 6.6 Others 31 6.2 Religion Islam 459 91.3 Christian 33 6.6 Traditional/Other 11 2.2 City of Migration Accra 253 50.3 Kumasi 250 49.7 Number of years working as a Head Potter African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1728 Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 Age, Educational Status and Length of Stay as Head Porters As illustrated in Table 1, nearly 93% of the adolescent girls (92.6%) fall in the age categories of 15-19 years. This age bracket is the prime time for the adolescents to be at senior high schools or at tertiary schools. It was thus not surprising that one-third of the girls had no formal education while 31% of them attained junior high school status, with only 8.2% of them attaining secondary/technical education status. Regarding the duration of their stay in the kayayoo business, more than half (59%) of adolescent girls had worked as head porters for 1-2 years, 28% of them had worked for less than a year, while 13% of them had worked for 3-4 years or longer. These variables – age, length of stay in the kayayoo business, and the educational satus of the adolescent girls – relate to their aspirations for migrating, their earnings potential, their socio-economic status and their ability to remit. For this reason, these issues are discussed in detail in light of the existing literature and the theoretical framework in the ensuing sections. As previously stated, all the migrant adolescent girls in this study came from Northern Ghana. Their reasons for migration are presented next. <1year 141 28.0 1year 151 30.0 2years 145 29.0 3years 36 7.0 4years or more 30 6.0 SES( Wealth Index) Poor 176 35 Not poor 327 65 Ability to send remittance to family Yes No 181 36 322 64 Job Category Frequency Mean Daily Income Std. Deviation Kayayoo Business only 471 GHs 13 23.00 Other Jobs in addition to Kayayoo 32 GHs 42.5 18.87 African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1729 Figure 1 Summarizes the Adolescents’ Aspirations for Migrating Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 Figure 1 clearly demonstrates that over 60% of the adolescent girls migrated to escape poverty. For this reason, poverty remains the core reason for migrating. Poverty has reduced nominally in Ghana from 56.5% in 1992 to 23.4% in 2017 (GSS, 2018: 10-18). The reduction in poverty appears uneven – the GSS report estimated that the number of poor persons living in poverty in Ghana increased by close to 400,000 people. Even so, these aggregate figures mask the reality because huge regional disparities abound – the reduction in poverty has largely not benefitted the northern Savannah ecological zone. The incidence of poverty has been an endemic rural phenomenon. The highest poverty head-count in 2016/17 was found in the rural Savannah zone at 67.7% (GSS, 2018: 11). For example, the GSS (2018: 14) illustrated that more Ghanaians were living in extreme poverty in 2017 than they did in 2013: the 1 61 29 3 3 3 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 To escape forced marriage To escape poverty To raise money for school fees Because my peers moved To be exposed to city life To escape FGM P e rc e n ta g e o f A d o le sc e n t G ir ls Fig 1: Aspirations for Migrating Aspirations for Migrating African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1730 number of people living in extreme poverty increased from 2.2 million in 2013 to 2.4 million in 2017. The implication of this situation is that about 2.4 million people do not have access to the minimum daily requirement of 2,900 calories per adult equivalent of food per day, even if they were to spend all their income on food. At this rate of progress, and without any radical policy direction, achieving the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending extreme poverty by 2030, is questionable in Ghana. The results support earlier research that reported that poor households living below the poverty line and who have high unemployment rates are most likely to send out members of their families as migrants to supplement family income (Redehegn, et al., 2019). The results resonate perfectly with mainstream development and economic theories, especially Lee’s (1966) push and pull factor theory, because in the context of the adolescents, poverty is the push factor propelling them to migrate. These results also point to the economic and social values of migration where the majority of adolescents see it as an opportune platform to improve their lives. Consistent with the theoretical framework, 6% of the adolescent girls migrated because of peer influence and the need to be exposed to city life. In consonance with de Haas (2014), these results are also aligned to the instrinsic value of migration, where young people aspire to migrate not merely to accummulate material and financial resources but also, importantly, for the joy and pleasure of doing so. As de Haas (2014) explains, the social prestige attached to moving to the city to see the ‘bright lights’ coupled with the freedom to migrate increases people’s life satisfaction particularly in the context of rural-urban migration. Four percent of the adolescents migrated in an effort to escape from outmoded socio-cultural practices such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM). These practices affect adolescent girls’ school attendance and performance as well as their psychological well-being. For instance, studies in Tanzania showed that girls who underwent FGM missed school for several weeks to allow for a recuperation period to recover from their wounds, and the pain associated with FGM created a phobia for some girls who became so psychologically disoriented, that they could not concentrate on classroom learning (Pesambili and Mkumbo, 2018). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1731 Importantly, 29% of the girls migrated to raise money from the kayayoo business in order to pay school fees. This finding dovetails into the findings in Table 1 because about 31% of the girls attained junior high school status and would probably seek to raise money to at least, attain senior high school status. One respondent corroborated this finding during an in-depth interview as follows: My aspirations for coming here have not been met. I came here to work and get money to pay my school fees because my parents can’t afford it. I am sorry for coming here, since up to now, I am left with 14 days for us to go back to school, and today my money is not even up to GHS 50 [US$ 9.31] (18-year-old adolescent girl, in Agbogbloshie Market, Accra). Another respondent remarked: The main reason why I migrated to Kumasi is that my sister has gained admission into senior high school but there is no money to finance her education and there is no help coming from anywhere. If I do not do something about it, my sister will not further her education, so for this reason I have migrated to Kumasi to work to support her education (19- year-old adolescent, Roman Hill Market, Kumasi). The aspiration of the adolescent girls to migrate and work as head porters in an effort to raise money to pay their school fees is a function of poverty because if their parents could afford to pay the fees, the girls could be in school. At the 2019 Women Deliver Conference in Canada, the President of Ghana, during a panel discussion suggested that Ghanaian women were not equitably represented in the political landscape because women lacked activism and dynamism (GhanaWeb, 2019). But the adolescent girls – future women leaders – have abandoned the classroom to transport heavy loads of goods in the urban markets to support their families, and in some cases, to support their brothers’ education. Adolescent girls missing out on formal schooling opens up spaces for social and political inequalities between women and men and produces entrenched disadvantages, including poverty for women (Kabeer, 2015). This study acknowledges the empowering potential of education and asserts that these adolescent girls must return to the classroom if the activism and dynamism that the President demands of women to propel them into the political African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1732 limelight is to be achieved. Foucault (1977) postulated that knowledge is power because knowledge in the form of education acts as a catalyst for both individual civic participation and for higher levels of household well-being. Education leverages knowledge to individuals in the form of acquired skills and innovative ideas to make them more employable in better paid jobs (Alatinga and Williams, 2015; 2019). Kabeer (2008) suggests that women’s paid work has a transformative potential, leading to empowerment and agency; it also engenders social change. However, to ignite the desired social change, women’s paid work must be fulfilling – work that offers a sense of self- actualization – rather than being alienating – work taken up under extreme forms of economic compulsion, distress, sale of labor entailing hard physical labor under unfavorable conditions (Kabeer, 2008). The kayayoo business fits the description of alienating work because it undermines the self-esteem and dignity of the adolescents as females, yet they take up this work because they have no choice of getting a fulfilling one. This study believes that repositioning the adolescent girls to take advantage of education is possible through the Ghanaian Free Senior High School Policy (FSHSP). For example, if the 29% of adolescent girls in this study who were determined to raise money for their school fees were identified and supported to return to school through the FSHSP, the multiplier effects of their contribution to community development would be enormous. Earning Potential, Socio-Economic Status and Remittances The estimated average daily income of the adolescent girls was (GHS 13 or US$ 2.41) for those adolescents who worked only as head porters and (GHS 42.5 or US$ 7.89) for those who did additional jobs. Regarding their socio-economic status, Figure 4 below illustrates that 35% of the sampled population was categorized as poor and 65% was categorized as not poor based on the World Bank’s US$ 1.90/day poverty line. Of the 35% poor population, only 10% managed to remit. It is likely that this category of adolescents engaged in other activities deemed as illicit in Ghana, such as prostitution in their quest to earn income to remit to their families. The following quote supports this claim: Some people practice prostitution. From midnight around 12am-1am most people in my room go out and do that. They do it [prostitution] themselves without force (18-year-old adolescent, in Agbogbloshie Market, Accra). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1733 Another respondent also claimed: Those who are into prostitution only do that to support themselves financially, and this is because we do not get the money we need from the kayayoo business. They are easily influenced by men to meet their needs (19-year-old adolescent, Kejetia Market, Kumasi). Interestingly, only half of those who were not poor were able to remit while the other half were unable to remit as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2: Average Monthly Expenditure Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 Based on the results in Figure 2 above, a chi-square test was performed to determine the association between socio-economic status and the amount of money remitted annually, as shown in Table 2 below. 120 16 117 12 19 35 7 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 A m o u n t ih G H S Expenditure Type Average Monthly Expenditure African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1734 Table 2: Chi-Square Test of Association between SES and Remittance Amount Remitted Annually (GHS) Poor Not Poor Total <100 0 (0.00) 28 (100.00) 28 (100.00) 100-300 17 (15.45) 93 (84.55) 110 (100.00) >300 1 (2.50) 39 (97.50) 40 (100.00) Total 18 (10.11) 160 (89.89) 178 (100.00) Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 The chi-square test produced a chi-square value of 9 and a P-value of 0.010 at 95% level of confidence. The P-value of 0.010 shows a significant level of association between socio-economic status and the amount of money remitted annually. In other words, those who were not poor were better able to remit even higher amounts compared to the poor. Nearly 98% of those who were not poor were able to remit GHS 300 (US $55.58) or more annually to their families. From the disaggregated data, the highest annual remittance amount was GHS 500 (US$ 92.63). One girl remarked: I have been able to support my mother and siblings back at home with the little money that I get in their feeding (sic) even though I wish I had the ability to do more or better especially with their education (19-year- old adolescent, Kejetia Market, Kumasi). Based on these findings, a logistic regression model was run to determine the predictors of remittances among the adolescents as presented in Table 3 below. Table 3: Logistic Regression Analysis of Remittances by Adolescent Girls Head-Porters in Ghana Variables Unadjusted Adjusted OR (95% CI) OR (95% CI) Age group 10-14 (Reference) 15-19 6.870(2.076- 22.733)** 7.319(1.999-26.802)* Marital status Married (Reference) African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1735 Never Married 0.980(0.592-1.623) 2.150(1.097-4.211)* Divorced 1.785(0.107-29.665) 2.473(0.077-79.501) Ethnic group Dagomba (Reference) Mamprusis 1.262(0.846-1.881) 1.664(0.991-2.794) Walla 2.028(0.685-6.005) 1.400(0.403-4.857) Gonja 1.014(0.466-2.207) 1.057(0.419-2.666) Others 1.465(0.680- 3.157) 1.598(0.625-4.089) Education None (Reference) Primary 0.795(0.499-1.268) 0.8201(0.471-1.430) JSS/JHS 0.384(0.242-0.611)*** 0.425(0.240-0.752)** Secondary/Technical 0.288(0.126-0.659)** 0.230(0.088-0.599)** Religion Islam (Reference) Christian 1.014(0 .486- 2.114) 0.765(0.310-1.884) Traditional/Other 1.479( 0.444- 4.920) 2.126(0.492-9.185) City of Migration Accra (Reference) Kumasi 0.733(0.509-1.057) 1.028(0.634-1.666) Number years working as a Head Porter <1year (Reference) 1year 1.369(0.829-2.260) 0.996(0.550-1.804) 2years 2.879(1.592-5.207)*** 2.289(1.132-4.626)* 3years 3.102(1.532-6.279)** 3.976(1.633-9.677)* 4years & Above 3.246(1.509-6.980)** 3.202(1.216-8.435)* Socio-Economic Status (SES) Poor(Reference) Not Poor 9.41(5.456-16.231)*** 8.627(4.761-15.632)*** *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 The regression results show that the variables – age, marital status, education, number of years spent working as a head porter and socio-economic status – significantly influence the adolescents’ ability to remit at p<0.05, p<0.01, p<0.001 significance levels respectively. Based on the adjusted odds ratio African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1736 (AOR), adolescents aged 15-19 years were about 7 times more likely at p<0.05 significance level to remit compared to those aged 10-14 years. Similarly, at p<0.05 significance level, the AOR of 2, indicated that adolescents who were never married were twice as likely to remit relative to their married counterparts. The number of years spent working as head porter is significantly associated with the adolescents’ ability to remit. For example, adolescents who worked for three years as head porters are nearly 4 times more likely to remit compared to those who had worked for less than a year at p<0.05 significance level. At p<0.01, adolescents who attained junior high school and secondary/technical school levels were 0.43 times and 0.23 times respectively less likely to remit with reference to those who never attended school. This scenario reflects the findings in Figure 1 because as many as 29% of the adolescents migrated to work as head porters to enable them to raise money for school fees. This category of adolescents may thus simply accumulate funds for the purpose of paying school fees; hence, they may not be in the position to remit. Finally, at p<0.001, adolescents who were not poor were nearly 9 times more likely to remit relative those who were poor. This finding is also very consistent with the chi-square test results in Table 3 as nearly 90% of the non-poor adolescents were able to remit various sums of money to their families. In this study, the kayayoo business had capacitated only 36% of the adolescent girls to remit various sums of money ranging from less than GHS 100 to over GHS 300 (US$ 18.5-55.58 annually. Despite these amounts being lower than expected, the results amply demonstrated that receiving families used these remittances to increase household food consumption and also to pay school fees of children. Atuoye et al. (2017) found that remittance-receiving households reported a high incidence of food security in both rural and urban settings in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Mabrouk and Mekni's (2018) research in Ethiopia reported identical results. Remittances positively and significantly impacted upon the access, stability and utilization dimensions of food security. It does appear that the migration of the adolescent girls has an instrumental value. These favourable stories may make it difficult, if not impossible, to address the north-south migration of adolescent girls without a deliberate and coherent policy agenda that seeks to structurally transform the economy of Northern Ghana through the establishment of factories and African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1737 industries to create job opportunities to address the yawning development gap between the north and the south. These positives, however, appear to cancel each other out because the majority (64%) of the adolescents are unable to remit. Because age and the length of time spent working as a head porter are positively and significantly correlated with remittances, adolescent girls would have to spend longer periods out of school or they may never return to school in order to work and raise money for themselves and their families. Expenditure Patterns of Adolescent Girl Head Porters Fig 3: SES and Remittances Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 As indicated in Figure 3 above, the estimated average daily income of the adolescent girls was (GHS 13 or US$ 2.35). This amount was then multiplied by 30 – that is 30 days in a month to obtain the average monthly income – GHS 13*30 (GHS 390 or US$ 70.46). As shown in Figure 3, the total monthly expenditure on the various items amounted to GHS 326. The average monthly income over expenditure was then computed as GHS 390-GHS 326=64 or US$ 11.56. The average daily expenditure on food was estimated at GHS 120/30 =GHS 4 or US$ 0.74. Food, health, and water constituted the largest Total Sample 503 Poor 176 (35%) Remittance 17 (10%) No Remittance 159 (90%) Not Poor 327 (65%) Remittance 164 (50%) No Remittance 163 (50%) African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1738 expenditure, amounting to 31%, 30% and 9% of income respectively. The health care expenditure related to only those respondents who sought and paid for health care in the past month preceding the survey (i.e. 63% of respondents). Electricity constituted the lowest expenditure item, amounting to about 7% of the monthly income. The low expenditure on electricity is understandable because most of the adolescent girls lived in make-shift structures such as shacks, kiosks and containers, which may not be connected to the national grid. Notably, the colossal health expenditure of the adolescents is an issue of relevance to the country’s social and health policy because such a huge health expenditure is potentially catastrophic to poor families – health expenditure that exceeds or equals 30%-40% of household incomes – and could further push both the adolescents and their families into extreme poverty (Xu et al., 2003). The huge health expenditure is not surprising, given the physical and tedious nature of the adolescents’ work. The implication of the huge health expenditure is that the adolescent girls may adopt other coping strategies, such as cutting down on other necessities such as food and clothing. This appears to be the case with the adolescents because their average monthly food expenditure was GHS 120 (US$ 22.14). This figure translates to an average daily food expenditure of GHS 4 (US$ 0.74), but some even spend as low as GHS 1.50 (US$ 0.28). This amount of GHS 4 is too paltry to access any reasonable balanced meal in the urban setting to meet the daily calorie requirements of the adolescent girls in light of the brutal nature of their work. The qualitiave narratives (in this study) reported that feeding was sometimes difficult for some of the head porters. As highlighted earlier, some of these adolescents even indulged in activities such as prostitution, with its associated health risks such as contracting HIV/AIDS, and teenage pregnancy, just to make a living. Prevailing Financial Situation and Overall Poverty Situation In order to appreciate the prevailing financial and overall poverty situations of the migrant adolescent girls, the following two questions were asked: (1) Based on the kayayoo work, how would you assess your current financial situation? (2) Since you started the kayayoo work, how would you assess the overall poverty situation of yourself and your family back home? These African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1739 questions attracted mixed responses detailed in the results presented in Tables 4 and 5 and the qualitative narratives below. Table 4: Current Financial Situation Based on Kayayoo Business Current Financial Situation Based on Kayayoo Business Frequency Percentage More than adequate 5 0.99 Adequate 113 22.47 Just adequate 125 24.85 Inadequate 260 51.69 Total 503 100 Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 Table 5: Overall Poverty Situation Based on Kayayoo Business Overall Poverty Situation Based on Kayayoo Business Frequency Percentage Improved a lot 18 3.58 Somewhat improved 175 34.79 Remained the same 250 49.70 Somewhat deteriorated 28 5.57 Deteriorated 32 6.36 Total 503 100 Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 The results from Table 4 illustrate that over half (52%) of the adolescents saw their current financial situation as inadequate and fewer than 1% of them saw their current financial situation as being more than adequate based on the kayayoo business. These results are not surprising because as shown earlier, the average daily income of the adolescent girls ranged from GHS 13 (or US$ 2.41) to GHS 42.5 (or US$ 7.89). Nearly half of the adolescents did not experience any changes in their poverty status. In fact, as shown in Table 5, remarkably, nearly 12% of the adolescents reported that their poverty situation had worsened. The following qualitative narrative bolstered these quantitative results: African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1740 I and my family (sic) are now poorer than before. My father borrowed money (GHS 300) [US$ 55.58]) for me to come to Accra because we thought I could raise enough money to pay that money. But for the past two years I have been here, I have been struggling to raise that money. The little money I get, sometimes GHS 8 in a day, I have to spend GHS 1.50 [US$ 0.28] on food, GHS 1 [US$ 0.18] to bath, GHS .50 [ US$ 0.090] for toilet use, pay for accommodation and light bill. And the person who gave the money to my father is putting pressure on him (14-year-old adolescent, Madina Market, Accra). These findings are consistent with previous work. For instance, Awumbila and Ardayfio-Schandorf (2008) and Oberhauser (2011) reported that female head porters are among the poorest of urban dwellers in Ghana. Even so, as shown in Table 5, 38% of adolescents indicated that their poverty situation had seen some improvement. The quote below lends credence to this finding: To speak the truth, my finances are okay now. I have been able to send money to my parents when they demanded some. I also buy things for myself. I have been able to gather money to send back home to cater for my younger brother’s fees since for the past three years my dad said he didn’t have (the money). Just three days ago, I sent money home in preparation towards my brother’s school (fees) (18-year-old adolescent, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra). These mixed results and narratives paint a worrying picture about the ability of the majority of the adolescents to improve their well-being through the incomes generated from the kayayoo business. Disturbingly, from the earlier narrative above, migration had worsened the poverty situation of some of the adolescents and their families because some families borrowed money to finance the trips of their daughters. These findings are consistent with the existing literature; Opare (2003) suggests that some families go to the extent of borrowing money to finance the travel expenses of the adolescent girls. The findings are also consistent with the aspirations-capability theoretical framework deployed in this work. The results aptly imply that the kayayoo business does not necessarily capacitate the majority of the adolescents to meet their aspirations in order to live the kind of lives they have reason to African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1741 value (Sen, 1999). Awumbila et al. (2014) and Hagen-Zanker et al. (2017) assert that migration does not always achieve its poverty reduction potential because of poor living conditions, exposing migrants to floods and diseases such as typhoid fever and cholera. Involuntary Immobility In order to appreciate the adolescents’ own subjective evaluation of their well- being relative to achieving their migration aspirations, the adolescent girls were asked whether they would like to return home. Overwhelmingly, 93% of adolescents responded in the affirmative, as illustrated in Table 6. Table 6: Return Home or Stay Would You Like to return Home? Frequency Percentage Yes 466 93 No 37 7 Total 503 100 Source: Author’s fieldwork, 2019 However, the question to ask is: what prevents the adolescents from returning home if their aspirations for migrating are not being met? Here is why: What am I going back home to do? The situation at home has not changed, there are no jobs for my parents to do and get money for my school fees. There is no food, there is just nothing, and so I can’t return home now because the family expects me to work and get money to help them (17-year-old adolescent, Kejetia Market, Kumasi). The above scenario highlights Carling’s (2002) concept of involuntary immobility initially used to describe the number of people willing to migrate but not being able to do so. Instead of migration being considered a fundamental capabilities-enhancing freedom in its own right (de Haas and Rodríguez, 2010), it rather constrains the freedom of choice of the adolescent girls to return home. Contextually, the concept of involuntary immobility may also be used here to describe the situation of the migrant adolescent girls who want to return home but are not able to do so because of lack of resources thus becoming involuntarily immobile. This finding fits in neatly with the aspirations-capabilities theoretical framework because from the narrative African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1742 above, the necessary structural conditions in the adolescents’ places of origin to shape and offer opportunity structures that would enable them to pursue and achieve their personal or communal aspirations and capabilities are inadequate or non-existent (Merton, 1968). In summary, based on the evidence adduced here, the potential of the kayayoo business to improve the socio-economic status of the adolescents and their families does not seem bright. On the contrary, it looks bleak because 64% of them are worse-off in the kayayoo business. In this process, most of the adolescents become involuntarily immobile, and socially dislocated from their families. Based on the capabilities-aspirations framework therefore, the kayayoo business does not seem to capacitate the adolescent girls to live the kind of lives they have reason to value. Conclusion and Recommendations This paper examined the relationship between internal migration, socio- economic status and remittances, drawing on the experiences of migrant adolescent girl head porters in the cities of Accra and Kumasi in Ghana. The evidence presented in the paper suggests that poverty is the chief driver of the girls’ migration. For this reason, the migration of adolescents largely appears to have an instrumental value, a kind of social protection mechanism to manage household poverty. Yet, only 36% of the adolescents remit to their families for various purposes, including the payment of school fees and improving household consumption. Factors such as age and the length of time spent working as a head porter positively and significantly influenced remittances. While remittances improved the lives of impoverished families, they carried a high cost for the adolescents, who stayed out of formal schooling, either temporarily or permanently. This study shows that the practice of adolescents forgoing formal schooling to engage in the kayayoo business, jeopardizes the future manpower development needs of Ghana because women constitute 52% of the population, of which adolescents are an integral part. The process of migration also caused some adolescents and their families to be poorer because some families borrowed money to finance their trips. Thirty percent of the adolescents’ earnings were spent on healthcare. Some of these adolescents were unable to return home against their wishes, thus becoming socially dislocated. Based on the evidence, two strands of policy recommendations are African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1743 proffered – short-term and long-term. In the short-term, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection must collaborate with the Kayayoo Association to identify adolescent girls who work as head porters, to raise money to pay their school fees in line with the Free Senior High School Policy. This strategy will ensure that such girls are not deprived of education because of poverty. In the long-term, the state must deliberately roll out plans to close or narrow the development gap between the north and the south through the establishment of relevant industries and factories to provide employment opportunities. Northern Ghana is a largely agricultural economy and so the construction of dams for irrigation to ensure all-year farming may help boost the local economy of the area. It is in this context that the government’s ‘One Village, One Dam’ and ‘One Village, One Factory’ policy, if successfully implemented, could provide a fertile ground for the structural transformation of Northern Ghana. 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African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1749 Social Inequality and Social Mobility: The Construed Diversity of Ethiopian Female Labor Migrants in Djibouti Meron Zeleke Eresso  Abstract Discussions about female labor migrants from the Horn of Africa are often loaded with accounts describing them as a homogenized group of destitute people on the move. Such trends of homogenization often hide the diverse social classes within these groups and the differential access co-nationals have across such social classes. Moreover, such discourses conceal the differences in migrants’ migration trajectories and related variances in their overall integration processes. This paper accentuates the heterogeneity of the social classes of Ethiopian female migrants and argues that the term Ethiopian female migrant is a parasol that often obscures the diverse and highly stratified migrant group. By going beyond this dominant trend of homogenization, this study addresses how differential access to economic resources, different social characteristics of migrants, and migrants’ settlement patterns impact migrants’ networks and their status within the larger Ethiopian female migrant group. By building on lived experiences of Ethiopian female migrants, the project assesses how Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti describe their social class trajectories reflecting on how non/belonging to a specific class shaped the scale and nature of their social exclusion and inclusion by the Djiboutian host community, and their entire integration process. As an anthropological piece based on an ethnographic study, the paper shows how class and social inequality is subjectively construed. Keywords: Djibouti, Ethiopia, female migrants, social class, social inequality. Introduction: Setting the Scene Ethiopia is one of the countries in the Horn of Africa region with a large track record of outmigration. A study by the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS) in 2014 noted that about 1 500 Ethiopian migrants legally depart  Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and Editor in Chief of the Ethiopian Journal of Human Rights, Addis Ababa University, Center for Human Rights. Email: eressokiyya@gmail.com African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1750 from Ethiopia every day, of which the majority is recorded to be female. Studies conducted over the last decade indicate a rise in the number of migrants leaving the country. Woldemichael (2013) mentions that about 154 660 migrants left the country in the period between 2012 and 2013. Another study by the Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat (RMMS, 2014) indicates the rise in migration stating that out of 107 532 Horn of Africa migrants crossing the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea to Yemen, 78% (84 446) were Ethiopians. The US State Department annual Trafficking in Person (TIP) Report of 2015 indicates that about 1 500 Ethiopian migrants legally depart from Ethiopia every day. Political instability, coupled with economic push factors, have been the leading drivers of migration for hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians leaving the country (RMMS, 2014). The majority of labor migrants destined to the Middle East are young Ethiopian girls and women. The growing level of landlessness in the context of a massive agrarian economy, coupled with growing youth unemployment, are considered to be the leading factors significantly contributing to the mass exodus from Ethiopia (Carter and Rohwerder, 2016). Furthermore, gendered dynamics and sociocultural factors are among the contributing factors for the growing trend in the feminization of migration in Ethiopia (Meron, 2018a). Following the mass deportation of Ethiopian migrants, Ethiopia officially banned the legal migration to the Gulf States in 2013/2014, a phenomenon that led thousands of migrants to resort to irregular means of migration. Unlike legal migration routes, this involves several transit points and stopovers. For labor migrants destined to the Middle East, Djibouti is one of the key transit countries. Prior research has documented the plight of the female labor migrants by drawing on the different socio-economic rights violations the migrants face in different contexts (Felegebirhan, 2013; Waganesh etal 2015; Zewdu and Suleyman, 2018). The conventional discussion on Ethiopian female labor migrants has portrayed women and young girls as a homogeneous group of passive agents whose migration trajectories are often narrated in reference to the diverse socio-economic violations of rights they face (Selamawit, 2017). Most of these prior studies on Ethiopian female labor migrants failed to provide a detailed gendered analysis (For more on this see Meron, 2018b). These studies have the tendency to homogenize the socio-economic profile of African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1751 Ethiopian female migrants and essentialize the group of female migrants without discussing the diverse social class differences existing among the respective migrants, and the different factors accounting for such differences (RMMS, 2014). Furthermore, prior studies, which pay more attention to the victimhood narrative, tend to undermine the agency of the migrants. This paper argues against this point by emphasizing the agency of female migrants by drawing on aspects of social mobility. This paper addresses these two sets of gaps, i.e. the gap in understanding the heterogeneity of female labor migrants and the gap of research in addressing the agency of migrants by paying attention to aspects of social mobility. The paper is structured in five sections. The following section, i.e., section II, presents a note on the research method. Section III provides a brief review of the literature on social inequality, class, and international migration as a way of giving a brief summary of the relevant literature and introducing the general analytical framework. Section IV presents the heterogeneous class of Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti. Section V explores the factors affecting the social mobility of migrants and section VI presents the concluding remarks. Brief Note on Methodology This paper addresses the perceived gap in research addressing the class positioning of migrants and the agency of female emigrants by drawing on the findings of an extended qualitative research conducted on Ethiopian female migrants residing in Djibouti. The empirical data presented in this article is based on a senior postdoctoral research project of the author, conducted for a period of three years on Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti. Djibouti’s geographical proximity to Ethiopia gives it the significance of a preferred transit and destination country for many Ethiopian migrants. It draws on accounts of key Ethiopian female informants interviewed in Djibouti consisting of a purposively selected group of informants. The informants interviewed during the course of the study are from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. Their socio-economic status, as discussing in section IV of this paper, is quite diverse. The study implemented various data collection tools such as in-depth interviews with key informants, collection of migrants’ biographies and narratives (self-descriptions and definition of the situation), and focus group discussions. The study was conducted in both Djibouti city and in the border town of Obock neighboring Yemen. Unstructured, open- African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1752 ended questions were posed to key informants with the purpose of giving them more room to shape the flow of conversation. Furthermore, two focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with a group of 10 informants over the course of the study. The study pays attention to the subjective understanding of social class and class positioning and thus draws on individual stories as a tool in order to get the nuances of the dynamics of class positioning, and the factors that account for social mobility. The methodological departure point of the study is that the subject-centered approach in migration research helps to avoid biases by letting the subjects of the study speak for themselves (Triulzi and McKenzie, 2013). By going beyond the dominant trend that often treats migrants in general, and female migrants in particular, as a homogeneous entity, the paper shows the heterogeneity of Ethiopian female migrants revealing a complex social class positioning. As a way of protecting informants, pseudonyms are used in this paper. By going beyond presenting trends of the feminization of labor migration in Ethiopia, this paper presents the heterogeneity of Ethiopian female migrants and their differences in their socio-economic status. Furthermore, it reviews how migrants make sense of such diversities and the factors contributing to it, and their subjective understandings of class and social mobility in such heterogeneous environments. Social class is conceptualized in this paper as a fluid, dynamic and flexible entity referring to the hierarchical distinctions between migrant individuals, where the factors that determine class varies widely, as illustrated below. This paper shows that Ethiopian female migrants have different ideas about what makes one ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ in the hierarchy with different defining characteristics. Social stratification among the migrant community under discussion represents the structured inequality between individuals and social groups, whereby the migrants find themselves in asymmetrical relations and possess statuses in a hierarchical structure that is prone to change rather than being a fixed entity. Class, Social Mobility and Migration Class is a theme that has attracted less scholarly attention in migration research than others. Van Hear (2014: 100) explains that, “while once a mainstay of social science, class has lately been eclipsed in much of migration studies by consideration of other forms of social difference, affinity, and allegiance such as ethnicity, gender, generation, and lately religion”. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1753 Latest discussions of class and migration involve various sub-topics. Some studies focus on discussing class in relation to the socio-economic inequality happening after migration (Oliver and O’Reilly, 2010). Other studies discuss how class affects mobility/immobility either by providing or limiting access to migration and the way class shapes the migration trajectories of migrants’ decision-making, the routes they take, and their respective destinations (Van Hear, 2004). Van Hear (2014) argues that the resources that would-be migrants could gather often shapes the form and outcome of migration. Furthermore, the discussion about class and mobility also relates to studies that address how migration policies are influenced by the educational and professional profile of prospective migrants (Kofman and Raghuram, 2015). How migration is perceived, as a means to realize some goals by groups belonging to a certain class of the society is another theme addressed within the overarching topic of the relationship between class and migration (Mapril, 2014). A recent study by Cederberg (2017) accents the importance of understanding class from the individual subjects themselves. Accordingly, Cederberg (2017: 149) argues, “exploring subjective accounts of class provides useful insights into the complexity of how class is experienced in the context of international migration.” Cederberg (2017) shows the different aspects in which migrants evaluate their class trajectories. Instead of looking at and defining their status quo at a given specific time, migrants tend to describe their long-term prospective class positioning. Others discuss their class trajectories in reference to the context of the family unit, by emphasizing different quality-of- life aspects existing across generations. The other central theme in the discussion on class and migration involved discussions on social mobility attending to migration outcomes in host, destination or home countries. Likewise, studies by Parrenas (2015) and Kelly et al. (2012) present the intricacy of social class in migration by referring to points of social mobility. Parrenas (2000, 2015) highlights how such social mobility is defined in different ways in different contexts. Accordingly, she uses the term ‘contradictory class mobility’ to signify the trajectories of Filipina female migrants who managed to secure higher income through domestic work in Western countries, but who at the same time are experiencing ‘downward social mobility’ by being involved in work that is African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1754 believed to be a domain of those with low social status. Kelly’s study emphasizes the need to pay attention to a subjective understanding of social mobility and discusses how, in a context that apparently seems to be ‘deprofessionalisation and deskilling’ (2012: 166) migrants might on the other hand tend to describe their situation of class positioning in more complex ways. Thus, the main discourse in the studies of social mobility in the context of migration research accents the need to adopt a transnational perspective in an attempt to understand and study social class and social mobility within the framework of migrant communities. Likewise, Kelly (2014: 18) notes that, “class position that must be understood in a comparative or transnational frame concerns the extension of class identity from the individual to a wider familial network”. Accordingly, these academic works argue that in discussions of class and social mobility, studies need to address the themes across national boundaries because migrants are often differently positioned in different contexts (Nowicka, 2013; Parrenas, 2015). Furthermore, Kelly et al. (2012: 17) state that, “discussions of social mobility in a transnational frame tend to go beyond the aspect of presenting one’s position in one hierarchy and comparing it with a position in another, it is rather discussing the prospect for mobility within that hierarchy, either across a career or across generations, that is a major factor.” The other point in the discussion on social mobility in migration relates to the value of different forms of capital in shaping the social mobility process. As Van Hear (2014: 101) argues, “patterns and outcomes of migration are shaped by the resources migrants can mobilize.” Economic capital is described as affecting the pattern of social mobility of migrants. While arguing along the same line, Sheller and Urry (2006) used the allegory of mobility in “fast and slow lanes” to discuss how the social mobility of migrants is shaped by access to resources and power (Sheller and Urry, 2006: 219) Apart from economic capital, the gathering of non-economic resources is discussed as another factor impacting the longer-term class prospects and social mobility (Nowicka, 2013). The value of social capital in shaping the social mobility of migrants is quite significant. As Bourdieu (1986: 248-249) mentions, the amount of social capital at the disposal of a given agent is shaped by the size of the network and connections that could be mobilized, and by the African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1755 amount of capital held by the different networked agents. However, there are two competing accounts discussing the value of social networks. Some like Massey et al. (1994) accent the value of social networks arguing that social capital decreases the costs and the risks of migration by increasing the expected net returns. On the other hand, Mahuteau and Junankar (2008) highlight the negative effect of migrant networks, which they argue limit the integration of migrants to the local community and market and often restrict them to lower positions in the labor market. Other studies have discussed the importance of taking a family-wide and inter- generational perspective on social mobility (Kelly et al., 2012; Nowicka, 2013). Studies on social mobility have accented the importance of time in the mobility process (Eade et al., 2007). Ryan (2015) shows that migrants who might have experienced deskilling earlier in their migration trajectories have experiences followed by upward mobility based on the friendship and social ties they form, emphasizing the value of time in the social mobility process. As Arthur (2014) argues, contemporary migration dynamics in Africa exhibit class dynamics and inform the ever-widening inequality structures on the continent. Attending to the complexity of the interplay between factors accounting for migration, Van Hear (2014) notes that the nexus between social development and migration dynamics in contemporary Africa is quite a complex and multifaceted entity. Flahaux and De Haas (2016) argue that development and social transformation in contemporary Africa raised the capabilities and aspirations to migrate. Prior research conducted on Ethiopian female labor migrants destined to the Middle East has discussed groups of migrants often facing different forms of rights violations and precarious working conditions in their respective destinations (Busza et al., 2017). Furthermore, the studies drew attention to the discourse about the homogeneous socio-economic profile of Ethiopian female labor migrants who in most circumstances are uneducated, young girls from an economically deprived family making the decision to migrate in search of a better future (RMMS, 2014; Woldemichael 2017). By drawing on the findings of the study on Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti, this article shows the diverse socio-economic profile of migrants and the highly stratified migrant community residing in the republic and transiting through it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Busza%20J%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=28893298 African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1756 In the following section, this paper argues against the dominant trend in the literature paying much attention to discussing class in reference to economic factors and rather argues for the subjective understanding of class and social mobility. By going beyond the homogenization trend dominant in studies on Ethiopian female migrants, this paper analyzes how the migrants speak about class in class-terms, and reviews the different features of their accounts that refer more broadly to their socio-economic positions. It further addresses the implications of migrants’ social class positioning in defining their migration trajectories. This is an essential methodological and analytical shift from the dominant trend of migration studies on Ethiopia, which fail to address the account of migrants defining their social status and where migrants’ subjective understanding of class is often muted. Furthermore, this paper argues that while addressing the factors contributing to the social mobility of migrants, studies need to pay attention to exploring the subjective accounts of social mobility in a specific context rather than pinpointing to specific factors, as such an approach helps to provide useful insights into the complexity of the social mobility process and factors accounting for it. The Setting and Heterogeneity of Ethiopian Female Migrants Djibouti has a coastline stretching from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, passing through the Bab el Mandeb Strait, granting it a strategic location enticing thousands of migrants from this troubled region of the Horn of Africa. Accordingly, thousands of Ethiopians, Somalis and Eritreans destined to the Gulf area and beyond transit through Djibouti. Ethiopians are the majority of foreign communities in Djibouti followed by Somalis and Eritreans (Hawa, 2015). Following the deportation of about 160 000 undocumented Ethiopian migrants from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Ethiopian government announced a temporary ban on migration to the Middle East (Meron, 2018a). This ban on official labor migration led a number of migrants to resort to irregular ways of migrating. Djibouti appealed as one of the major transit pathways for thousands of Ethiopian migrants. In order to better comprehend the discussion on social class and status of migrants, this paper focuses on stationed Ethiopian female migrants who are residing in Djibouti Ville excluding thousands of transit migrants. The analysis of the empirical data collected during the course of the study shows the heterogeneous social class of the group. The subjective definition of class by African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1757 the migrant groups shows the insights into the complexity of experiencing and defining class. The three major variables said to mark the social class of the female migrants are the nature of job/income status of migrants, the migration status of the respective migrants, and their settlement patterns. Income/Nature of Job and Social Class Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti are highly stratified in terms of their economic status. Even though it is difficult to draw a clear line marking the hierarchy, the class difference among this migrant community can be inferred from the different nature of the jobs they engage in and the related economic capital they generate and have at their disposal. As an ethnographic study that paid much attention to the subject-centered approach, the hierarchies of the different types of jobs and the sub-categories and hierarchies of different businesswomen are drawn from accounts of the key informants of the study. As most informants allude, negade setoch (businesswomen) are the ones regarded as being economically well-to-do and at the upper scale of the economic ladder. Even though the number of Ethiopian female business owners in Djibouti city is insignificant compared to their male counterparts, there are few women who run businesses in Djibouti Ville and on the outskirts of Djibouti town. There is no special immigration scheme in Djibouti that aims at facilitating the entry of highly skilled, well-educated and wealthy immigrants at the national and provincial levels. Hence, most Ethiopian business owners in Djibouti are those who entered the country either as undocumented migrants and have stayed in the country for a while and changed their status or those who have entered on a work permit. Negade setoch are heralded as providing economic benefits to the locals and as being better integrated into the local market. The negade setoch is a generic term used to describe those owning hotels, restaurants, bars and nightclubs. Owners of sagur bet (beauty salon) are the second in the social class of negade setoch following hotel owners. The third in the social class of migrant businesswomen are those selling vegetables, fruits and spices imported from Eastern Ethiopia. The justifications given for placing businesswomen on top mainly relates to their higher income and earning capacity. The other factor raised by informants also relates to the immigration status of businesswomen who in most circumstances have a legal permanent/temporary resident status, which qualifies them to run businesses in Djibouti. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1758 While describing the economic status of the migrants, informants tend to describe professional women as the ones who hold secondary status next to businesswomen. The number of professional Ethiopian women in Djibouti participating in the workforce requiring some type of specialization and higher education training is very insignificant. There are very few Ethiopian women working as sales agents in transit and freight companies, transnational corporations and in the financial services in Djibouti. There were about six young girls working for transit companies during the time of the fieldwork. The strict immigration policy, language requirement (proficiency in the official working language, French), the low pay scale and the harsh weather conditions are described by this group of skilled migrants as non-conducive factors restraining the number of skilled Ethiopian female migrants from joining different private firms in Djibouti. The other set of professional female immigrants consists of the few Ethiopian nationals working at different international and regional development organizations in Djibouti. Their number is also quite insignificant compared to the thousands of labor migrants residing in the capital and in the republic. The groups holding the third status among Ethiopian female migrants are the Ethiopian sex workers involved in the lucrative sex work business. Sex work is a well-paid business in Djibouti due to the significant number of international military personnel, numerous port operators, and long-distance truck drivers. As an economic hub, Djibouti city is a place where there is a high injection of global finance. The sex workers are a highly stratified group ranging from the sex workers working as kimit (mistresses), strippers/dancers, those working at private residences, massage parlors, and those working at hotels and nightclubs. During the course of the fieldwork, the author interviewed a number of Ethiopian women who are serving as kimit of expatriates, mainly foreign military men, working as contractors and soldiers for the foreign military bases, mainly the Americans, French, Spanish, and Chinese. The majority of the informants involved in the sex work business mentioned their aspirations to be in such a relationship which is commonly referred to as kimit, as the account of Elisabeth shows: The dream of every sex worker is to change her status from being a bar girl to a kimit. This dream further entails the ultimate aim of every kimit which is to change her status from being a kimit to being a wife. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1759 Even though there are rare cases of young Ethiopian sex workers marrying expats, such precedents give the kimits the hope that most of them cling to, to becoming a wife. Among the general categories of sex workers, those who are considered to be on the lowest strata are the ones working at small brothels in the neighborhood of Quartier 2, a neighborhood with numerous small bars with large numbers of Ethiopian sex workers. While sex work is officially outlawed, such ‘complexes’ like Quartier 2 are located at the heart of the old city. They usually consist of 30-50 brothels run by separate owners and each housing between 3-5 sex workers. Even though informants mentioned sex work as a better paying job than domestic work in Djibouti, most of the key informants, including the sex workers, mentioned the stereotype and stigma attached to it. This relates to the account by Sanders and Campbell (2007: 3) which relates to the historical and cultural endurance of intolerance and hostility towards sex workers. The social class of specific migrants defined by the Ethiopian community in relation to the type of job places Ethiopian women working in the care sector on the lowest strata of the economic ladder. The care sector refers to transnational labor and care arrangements in domestic work migration. This group consists of the majority of the migrants who are over-represented in low-paid jobs. They are generally described as shaqala or serataganas (maids). The shaqala group, like the three general groups mentioned above, consists of further stratified migrant workers. The difference between classes among this group relates to the pay scale, the nature of jobs they engage in and the immigration status of the workers. The jobs these groups of female migrants often engage in are tsidat (cleaning), migib sira (cooking), and lij tibeka (baby- sitting). Key informants and focus group discussion participants emphasized the better pay that maids in Djiboutian households earn than the average payment a maid working in Ethiopian upper-class households earn. In Ethiopian upper-middle class households the maximum amount maids earn on average is about 2 000 Ethiopian birr (circa 65 USD) per month. This amount is by far less than the minimum wage. A maid working in a Djiboutian lower-middle class household usually earns about 17 000 DJF (circa 3 150 Ethiopian birr, or 112 USD). The pay is by far higher in Djiboutian upper-class households where maids earn on average up to 25 000-30 000 DJF (circa 143- African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1760 170 USD). Despite Djibouti’s high cost of living, the expenses for the migrants in Djibouti are quite low due the fact that food and accommodation are provided by employers. The construction of social hierarchies of class in the context of the female migrants shows a strong inclination towards defining class in relation to earning capacity. This needs to be situated and analyzed with reference to the key push factor accounting for the migration project of the migrants under discussion. As most migrants are labor migrants who left their country in search of green pastures, the relative success of a migration project in such circumstances tend to be framed and defined in reference to one’s economic income. The analysis of such a reference to the pay scale in their home country, while discussing their income in Djibouti, shows the value of transnational understanding and the spatiality of class. This relates to Kelly’s (2009) discussion on the point that class is constructed in important ways either in the context of comparisons between the host country and home, or in relation to transnational linkages between the two places. Migration Status and Social Class Although there are no official statistics available on the overall number of Ethiopian migrants in Djibouti, data collected by the Ethiopian community association shows that there are more than 60 000 Ethiopians residing in the republic. As shown in this section, the migration status is labeled by key informants as a crucial element shaping and defining the social hierarchy of respective migrants. Migration status is closely intertwined with the nature of the work the migrants engage in. Drawing on her lived experience, Lydia mentions that employers place more value on legal status than they do on the skills of migrant workers: I have friends who have less cooking and cleaning skills than myself and who didn't have any skills training back home, but who are earning double the amount of what I earn here. I have a cooking skills certificate, which I obtained from a public technical and vocational training school (TVET) back home. I am relatively better educated as I have completed high school and I have better command of English. The skills and the assets I have did not make any significant change on the nature of the job I am doing as a African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1761 maid and the terms of my employment. All that counts is having the werket (the legal immigration documents) (Lydia, Djibouti). Lydia’s story gives us an insight into how much the possession of a legal migration status shapes their everyday lived experience, defining the prospects for integration into the local job market and better living and working conditions. The majority of Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti are undocumented. These are groups who entered the country without authorization from Djiboutian immigration authorities or without an entry visa. Quite insignificant numbers of the undocumented migrants initially traveled with a valid visa and overstayed the period of time allowed to be in the country as a visitor. Undocumented immigrants are the precarious group holding uncertain migration status and are not eligible to get work permits that would allow them to engage in the Djiboutian labor market. Hence, undocumented Ethiopian female immigrants in most circumstances are employed in local Djiboutian households where they live and work as live-in maids with restricted mobility and lower wages. The official working days in Djibouti are from Sunday through Thursday and accordingly Fridays (Juma’a) and Saturdays are the main weekly off-days in the country. The other groups of Ethiopian female migrants are documented migrants having the legal documents allowing them to reside in Djibouti. Such legal immigration status often entitles them to obtain work permits. The Carte de séjour temporaire, the temporary residents’ card, valid for a year, allows the migrants to live and work in Djibouti. Owning such a legal residence permit offers the female migrants better working opportunities than undocumented ones. Furthermore, it offers them a better negotiating ground about the terms and the nature of their employment. Even though the nature of jobs that Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti engage in tends to be in the domestic care business, the documented immigrants get relatively better pay and decent working conditions as in some circumstances they are employed at households of expatriates working for international organizations, and high- ranking diplomats. Unlike the undocumented workers, they often work as weraj or temelalash, an arrangement whereby the workers commute between the places of their work and their residences. The average working hours for documented migrants working as maids is often 8 hours a day, while the live- in migrant workers work on average between 12-14 hours a day. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1762 Settlement Pattern and Social Status The subjective accounts of social class as presented by Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti point to the third key element, which pertains to the social class of migrants. The settlement pattern of the migrants in Djibouti is described as a variable indicating the class of migrants, showing their status in the migrants’ social class hierarchy. PK 12 is a highway where hundreds of trucks pass through every day while travelling on the Ethio-Djiboutian corridor. After offloading the items imported from Ethiopia, truckers wait at PK 12 for their papers to be processed to enter Djibouti city before resuming the journey back to Ethiopia. PK 12 is home to some 35 000 people. This is a neighborhood where young female migrants crossing from eastern Ethiopia to Djibouti pass through. When walking on the streets of PK 12 it is quite common to come across a number of newly arriving migrants and accordingly PK 12 is a transit and resting place for these groups of migrants as much as it is for the truckers. The small restaurants and bars in the neighborhood have sheds built to host the drivers during their days in Djibouti. These resting places, referred to as marafiya bets, are usually owned and run by Ethiopian businesswomen. Amharic is the main lingua franca in the neighborhood and people use both the birr (the Ethiopian currency) and Djiboutian Franc for their everyday transactions. The marafiya bets are mini dining houses where drivers can get Ethiopian meals, Ethiopian coffee and where they can chew qat (Catha edulis, a stimulant growing in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East). The Ethiopian madams running the small restaurants often employ young newcomers who have crossed the border recently and those who do not have the resources (both financial resources and social networks) in Djibouti city, or to travel further. Hence, PK 12 serves as a transit point for a group of young newly arriving labor migrants and as a place where they get employed for a very small fee, an income that they use to pay for their further migration. The madams owning the small restaurants are in most cases wives or partners of truck drivers. Some of them are elderly women who have lived in Djibouti for decades and have secured work permits that allow them to run businesses. During a focus group discussion held with the girls employed in those restaurants, the most accented point about the transit nature of PK 12 relates to the fact that this is a place associated with transiting to Djibouti and further, African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1763 and a place that serves the purpose of obtaining the necessary resources and information needed. The city is like an ocean and we don’t dare to take the risk of going to a place where we do not know anyone. If one has the money to buy the service of a local broker to find job in Djibouti city or to proceed further then it is less likely to find that person here in PK 12. This is the place for the destitute who lack the resources and information. (Nesra Nuri; Djibouti 12.01.2019). Arhiba is a major slum area in Djibouti city located at the center of the city. This is a neighborhood with tiny shacks made of cardboard, wood and metal junk. Arhiba is a part of Djibouti city where mainly members of the Afar-ethnic group, one of the two major ethnic groups of Djibouti, live. It is an old neighborhood, established in 1970, for Afar Dockers working at the port. It is a densely populated slum area hosting numerous Ethiopian migrants. These migrants include a group of transit migrants, migrant workers, and smugglers/brokers who facilitate the employment of migrants in Djibouti city and further migration. Given Djibouti city’s high rental cost, Arhiba provides relatively low-budget housing in small rooms of 4m2 X 5m2. Ethiopian female migrants working in Djiboutian households come to their small rented shacks during their monthly days off. Furthermore, it is also a home for transit migrants who are transiting through Djibouti and waiting for the brokers and smugglers facilitating their travels. So, the two groups of Ethiopian female migrants residing in Arhiba are the transit migrants and undocumented migrants working in Djibouti city as domestic workers. In most circumstances, Ethiopian bale bet, or akeray (landlords) married to local Djiboutian Afar men own the small shacks. Nafisa recounted: Like hundreds of other Ethiopian girls, I rented a small room with 5 of my friends and I am usually coming to this place for my monthly days off. Arhiba is a sanctuary to higawet sidetegena (illegal migrants). A documented person wouldn't reside in this neighborhood unless he/she is the owner of the place i.e. the akeray (Nafisa, Arhiba). Nafisa’s statement frames Arhiba as the place for the destitute and undocumented migrants and best shows the consensus among the Ethiopian migrants emphasizing the relationship between social class and residential areas. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1764 Likewise, Quartier 2 is a neighborhood in Djibouti city with a large number of Ethiopian migrants. It is a neighborhood with small bars and a large numbers of Ethiopian sex workers (see section III above). The two neighborhoods (Arhiba and Quartier 2) are considered neighborhoods where undocumented Ethiopian female migrants reside in large numbers. The reputation of Quartier 2 is as a complex where young migrant girls, mostly sex workers from Ethiopia, rent places in houses owned by older Ethiopian women who have lived in Djibouti for a long time and have mostly passed through the same life experience of working at brothels. This is a neighborhood in the city where police raids, locally referred to as ‘roughs’, take place frequently, undermining the safety of sex workers and forcing them often to work underground. Informants from this neighborhood emphasize the point that the criminalization of sex work puts migrant sex workers at the risk of abuse and exploitation by local customers. Neighborhoods like Djibouti Foq, Eron and place Menelik are parts of the city where in most circumstances documented female migrants working in bigger bars, professional women and those running businesses, are residing. These are neighborhoods with high rentals and Ethiopian female migrants living in such neighborhoods are the ones who can afford to pay the high rental costs. Unlike the other neighborhoods the places are often apartments and relatively modern-style common residential flats. The settlement pattern of Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti is hence described as something exhibiting the high levels of income inequality at best. Thus, the differences are described as entities duplicated between occupation-defined classes within the neighborhoods. Factors Affecting Social Mobility of Migrants Gold (2001) argues that individual migrants and sub-groups experience social and economic mobility in host settings. Social mobility is “the movement or opportunities for movement between different social classes or occupational groups” (Aldridge, 2003: 189). Such mobilities can either be upward or downward. Cederberg (2017) likewise accents the point that international migration may involve upward or downward social mobility. Furthermore, she mentions different factors affecting the positioning of migrants in social strata such points as education, linguistic competence, and social capital. The lived experiences of Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti show how a African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1765 multitude of factors contribute to the upward social mobility of migrants and change of social status, as discussed in this section. One of the key findings of the study is that the social positioning of Ethiopian female migrants in a specific class is a complex entity. This is mainly because migrants, who are believed to experience some downward social mobility in the Djiboutian context, maintain property or businesses back in Ethiopia, which are financed through remittances sent from Djibouti. This at best exhibits what Parrenas (2001:15) calls “contradictory class mobility” whereby while their economic situation back home improves, their social status in the receiving country decreases. Thus, while the female migrants are engaged in one set of class relationships in Djibouti, their experiences show that they are engaged in quite different ones in Ethiopia. Muna’s narrative about her lived experience explains this: I am working in a hair salon here in Djibouti earning six to seven times more than what a person with the same skill and expertise makes back home. Of course, being employed at someone else’s hair salon is not such a dignified job in Ethiopia even though it is considered as being better than to be employed as a maid. So, the fact that I am working as a hairdresser here might sound as if I am doing the low paying job in Ethiopia. But now I have bought and shipped back all the hair salon stuffs I need to start up my own business in Desse, my birth town. I have already built the house I will be running my business in and also managed to buy all the materials I need. So, inshallah in few months’ time I will be a business owner in my own country which is going to be a real lewit (transformation). One of the key factors that informants mentioned during both in-depth interviews and focus group discussions was the value of social networks in shaping the social mobility of migrants. A social network is described as something that can deliver valuable resources such as access to information, and a support base that often helps migrants to advance in their careers. The networks established by the migrants and the friends they make often become major sources of information and support. Hence, as Coleman (1988) argues, social capital is not embodied in the social agents themselves, or in the physical implements of production, like economic capital, but it is mainly embodied in the relations among persons (Coleman, 1988:98). African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1766 The co-residential arrangement, or the local debal living arrangement mentioned under section III above, is one of the key ways in which the female migrants build their social networks. The co-residence in the small shared rooms in Djibouti city is one of the ways in which the migrants get the opportunity to access information. In most circumstances, well-established migrants provide different social protections and support to migrants such as hosting migrants, providing financial support, and facilitating their employment. There is a strong sense of ‘filial’ responsibility from the bale bêtes (the landlords renting their places) emphasizing the point that those with legal migration status are expected to support the desperate ones seeking help. The above discussion shows how social capital is often converted to a source of economic capital, a point that prior research highlights (Drever and Hoffmeister, 2008; Van Meeteren et al., 2009). As Van Hear (2014) asserts, migrants’ endowments of economic and social capital, or the amount of economic, social and other capital, would affect their migration trajectories, as Ethiopian migrants in Djibouti emphasize their upward social mobility. The second main factor mentioned by most informants as a key factor contributing to the upward social mobility of the female migrants is the change in immigration status. There are three main ways that immigrants use to obtain the Carte de séjour temporaire – the temporary residents’ legal residence permit. The first way is through the Afar traditional indigenization practice of the fiqmatagle, which is an Afar customary institution of assimilating non-Afars born outside of Djibouti. According to this assimilation mechanism, the non-Afar person approaches and requests an Afar family to adopt him/her to their family for lifelong fostering. The adopting Afar family helps him/her to fully integrate into Afar culture. This traditional assimilation system also helps the non-Afar to be identified as a member of the Afar ethnic group allowing the person to obtain a local residence card and ultimately become a Djiboutian citizen. The second mechanism mentioned by informants as a way of securing the legal residence permit is through marrying a local Djiboutian and having a marriage certificate proving the marriage of an Ethiopian woman to a Djiboutian citizen. The third mechanism is through paying for a one-year residency card, which costs 30 000 DJF (circa 169 USD). For the third mechanism a migrant worker is expected to be in possession of a legal travel document, i.e. a passport, which she or he has used when entering African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1767 Djibouti. Furthermore, he/she is expected to provide evidence of employment showing he/she will be employed or starting his/her own business. Informants mentioned how much social networks and economic capital shape gaining access to the aforementioned mechanisms that would allow a person to get a legal residency status in Djibouti, which ultimately is believed to contribute to the upward social mobility of the migrants. The third crucial factor informants raised as a factor affecting the social mobility of the migrants, is time. Most informants, especially the businesswomen, emphasize the value of time in defining and shaping their achievements and gaining a better financial stance. This resonates with Wright’s (2005) argument that class has a temporal dimension and current class positioning must be seen in this context. While describing the value of time, informants state that upon arrival most immigrants tend not to have basic information about the place, ways of finding jobs and they might not have networks with other co-nationals or the local community. ‘Ya gize guday new’ (it is a matter of time) is a phrase that featured often in most of the discussions pertaining to social mobility. Time is described as an entity that affects the migration trajectories mainly affecting the integration process into the labor market and occupational mobility that in turn affects the social mobility of the female migrants. The value of time in the social mobility of the migrants can be inferred from the analysis of the data collected during the fieldwork. It shows that most of the female migrants, upon their arrival, experience occupational downgrading whereby high school graduates and migrants with some skills training certificates and diplomas work in domestic services in their first jobs. Through time, movement out of domestic services is possible, in situations where the migrants develop the necessary linguistic competence and networks. The fourth factor the study found out, as an element impacting the social mobility of female migrants, is family. Informants explained this in three different ways. For the first set of informants, getting married to a local Djiboutian citizen and gaining a certain legal residence status uplifts their status from a certain social class group and entitles them to climb the social class ladder by integrating into the Djiboutian labor market. The second line of thought is for those groups of female migrants who emphasize the emotional satisfaction of becoming a mother. This second account, which African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1768 offers great importance to establishing a family life relates to the point that Van den Berg (2011) makes when discussing how social mobility is described in multiple ways. He includes the way in which migrants seek alternative forms of success by having good friends and family, being healthy and striving for a better future for their children (Van den Berg, 2011). The third line of thought has a transnational frame whereby social mobility is addressed in reference to a wider familial network. Accordingly, many informants mentioned that despite the dissatisfaction they have with their living and working conditions in Djibouti, their success stories in relation to the support they extend to their families back home is what they duly consider as an aspect of their upward social mobility. This paper accentuates the need to adopt a broader framework in analyzing the factors accounting for social mobility than a monocausal analysis, which often focuses on economic factors. The conceptual contribution to the discourse of migration research also relates to the argument for adopting a ‘broader conceptualization of migration’, as a phenomenon taking place within social fields extended beyond the actual migrants themselves to include those whom they have left behind and to whom they are connected through networks of social relations. This is a point that can be inferred from the fact that social class positioning and social mobility among the group of migrants under discussion is also framed with transnational reference. The discussion on social mobility highlights the agency of the migrants. The discussions presented here challenged pre-existing discourses stressing the passive nature of female migrants often inscribed in the victimhood narrative. Instead, it has shown that migrants are indeed active agents with their own lived experiences, exhibiting aspects of change and dynamic class positioning. This paper contributes to the wider discussion of social class and mobility by highlighting that, among migrants, a) social class systems tend to be quite fluid; b) class positions in the context of mobility are often achieved; and c) social class goes beyond being an economically-based category. Conclusion Migrants’ class trajectories reveal a complex social class positioning of migrants. Despite the common social class they have, this paper revealed that Ethiopian female migrants in Djibouti are highly stratified groups with various African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1769 social classes. As the data presented in the above sections clearly shows, social class is experienced and interpreted by female migrants in different ways, strengthening the argument for considering subjective understandings of class processes. One of the complexities of migrants’ class trajectories relates to the experiences they have whereby they concurrently experience better economic positions and a decline in social status. This dual positioning of social class is a point that key informants reference while discussing their social class position in relation to the positions they hold in the host country while at the same time referring to their probable social positioning back home. This key argument of the paper therefore goes beyond a phenomenon called “methodological nationalism” (Glick Schiller, 2009: 4), an orientation that approaches the study of social and historical processes as if they were contained within the borders of individual nation-states and rather pays attention to the multiple, shifting nature of migration class positioning. This accentuates the importance of transnational linkages and comparisons in the subjective interpretation of class among migrants in general, and the female migrants in particular. Based on the analysis of the data presented in the preceding sections, this paper emphasizes the importance of developing both a subjective framework and a transnational framework of understanding class processes in order to get a comprehensive understanding about the phenomenon of social class and social mobility of migrants. The comparison of their economic status with the community back home impacts on the way female migrants evaluate their social class trajectories, emphasizing the sense of positive distinction from those left behind. Transnational frames of reference vividly show the way migrants evaluate their migration trajectories, their class positioning and their prospects for social mobility as presented in the empirical data from Djibouti. The subjective understanding of class among the Ethiopian female migrants shows how the variables setting classes apart might not necessarily or exclusively relate to the economic status or economic capital. Such variables as immigration status and settlement patterns are used as part of the criteria to measure a migrant’s position in the socio-economic hierarchy. While outlining the elements defining the class of respective migrants, the three elements believed to set the migrants’ social class apart were: differential access to economic resources, the migration status of respective migrants and African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1770 their settlement patterns. This paper asserts that the positioning of migrants in a certain class, limits their full immersion into the receiving culture. Even though immigrants themselves might have experienced a downward social mobility in positional class terms, their outlook towards upward social mobility is framed in reference to the result that their migration bears for those left behind in terms of raising their income and catering for their opportunities in life. References Aldridge, S. (2003). The facts about social mobility: A survey of recent evidence on social mobility and its causes. New Economy, 10(4):189-193. Arthur, J. (2014). 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African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1774 The Human Security Implications of Migration on Zimbabwean Migrant Women in South Africa Victoria Mutambara and Naidu Maheshvari Abstract A large number of people enter the South African borders legally and illegally from Zimbabwe in pursuit of secure, better living conditions. Amongst those people are women. This paper argues that most of the women who migrate to South Africa escape from insecurity in Zimbabwe, only to be confronted with other human security challenges in South Africa. The paper presents an overview of the theoretical framework of the human security paradigm, which helps to unpack how the experiences of Zimbabwean migrant women can be labelled as forms of insecurity. Using qualitative data, the paper discusses the possible human insecurity aspects that force the women to leave their home country and the challenges that they encounter in the host country. The findings of the paper indicate that economic insecurity and poverty highly influence the decisions and choices for migration for most of the women. However, the women’s expectations of better lives and human security appear to contradict their social experiences. The migrant women face multiple forms of discrimination and violence that are constructed around their identities as women, non-citizens and black Africans. Cumulatively, most of the women experience gender-based violence and discrimination from South African citizens, foregrounded in xenophobic sentiments. Therefore, this paper reaches the conclusion that migrant women are victims of the compounded trauma of insecurities, as many of them would have encountered human insecurity consequences in their home country. Keywords: Economic insecurity, poverty, identity, livelihood, xenophobia, gender-based violence. Introduction The movement of people to other countries has become a way of life in Africa that affects day-to-day activities (Gouws, 2010: 2). Soon after the dawn of Corresponding author. University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Email: vmutambara@gmail.com  University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1775 democracy in South Africa in 1994, there was an increase in the number of people moving to South Africa from other African countries, increasing the trend of South-South migration (Sigsworth et al., 2008: 4; Isike and Isike, 2012: 93). One of the countries is Zimbabwe, which over the past decade has seen a large number of its citizens moving across borders to neighboring states or overseas as a way of escaping protracted political and economic challenges (Bloch 2010; Dzingirai et al., 2015, Crush et al., 2017 b). The twentieth century migration patterns from Zimbabwe to South Africa reflect that young unmarried and married men who were in search of jobs dominated movement, looking for greener pastures in South African farms and mines (Gouws, 2010: 1; Mlambo, 2010; Makina, 2013: 149; Crush et al., 2015: 366). However, the number of women leaving Zimbabwe to South Africa in search of better standards of living also increased rapidly. Statistics produced from the study conducted by Crush et al. (2015: 367-368) highlighted that by the late 1990s migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa was noticeably more varied than anything seen in the past. Women were migrating in significantly higher numbers and they were the breadwinners for their families. Most women in urban Zimbabwe view migration to South Africa as a panacea to the economic- related problems in their family households (Muzvidziwa, 2015: 218; Mutopo, 2010: 466; Jamela, 2013). Therefore, many Zimbabwean women relocate to South Africa in search of better economic opportunities and better standards of living. However, in their journey for economic emancipation and sustainable livelihoods, the women become vulnerable to hostile conditions that are constructed at the intersection of their different identities, particularly, gender identity, race, and their migration status (Sigsworth, 2010; Von Kitzing, 2017; Achiume, 2014; Mutopo, 2010). In South Africa, they are usually seen as an unwanted burden, taking what are often characterized as limited or scarce resources (Crush et al 2017: 2b). Their gender identity as female often exposes them to precarious conditions. This article attempts to contextualize the migration of Zimbabwean women to South Africa, document their experiences prior to and after moving, and establish the human security implications for the women. It presents the view that women migrate to South Africa as an escape from the economic insecurities they face in Zimbabwe, only to be confronted by other human security challenges that include gender- based violence and the recurrent episodes of xenophobic harassment and violence. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1776 Literature Review: Contextualization The current dispensation of the migrant crises in Europe has been portrayed by the media as one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Second World War. It has enhanced visibility on some structurally embedded issues in the discourse on international migration (forced migration). Salient amongst these issues are “the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, the responsibilities of transit and destination countries, and even more pertinent the rights of migrant women” (Mabera, 2015:15). The term ‘migrant women’ is regarded as an umbrella term that encapsulates a range of circumstances that speak to the experiences of women on the move. These include different ages, legality (legal resident, undocumented migrants or refugees) or migrating for a number of reasons that can be categorized as either forced or voluntary (Bloch, 2010; Pophiwa, 2014; O’Neil et al., 2016; Muzenda, 2017; Van Heerden, 2017). The latter strengthens the views from Dodson (2002) which note that for some women, migration is viewed as a strategic response to their challenging social, economic, environmental, political or personal circumstances. The movement of most Zimbabweans to other countries can be labelled as an example of survival migration, which can be defined as people who are forced to cross an international border to escape state failure, severe environmental distress, or widespread livelihood collapse. Several scholars posit that a number of Zimbabwean women make the decision to move to a foreign land as a way of responding to household poverty or hardships, linked to the absence of family breadwinners (Crush et al., 2017a: 6; Betts and Kaytaz, 2009). Zimbabwean migrant women in South Africa are forced to navigate not only a singular crisis at a particular location but also two ongoing crises occurring at the same time. The first crisis involves the political turmoil and the collapse of the economy in Zimbabwe after 2000, which has driven hundreds and thousands of citizens to seek better standards of living and a sustainable livelihood for themselves and their families by migrating to other countries (Crush and Tevera, 2010: 41; Crush et al., 2017b: 6). This crisis has driven people to move to South Africa as it appears to be politically stable, economically strong, and requires lower transaction costs for immigration. However, paradoxically it is far from a safe space for the migrants (particularly women) as most South Africans have over the years responded with prejudice and discrimination towards African migrants and refugees (Bloch, 2010; African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1777 Akinola, 2014; Crush and Tawodzera 2017a; Von Kitzing, 2017). Therefore, the other ongoing crisis is xenophobic intolerance and violence against African migrants in which Zimbabwean migrants have become entangled. Zimbabwean migrants who fled the political and desperate economic challenges face the intimidating challenge of looking for jobs to secure a livelihood while they continue to face discrimination, social exclusion, xenophobic harassment, violence and being labelled as the ‘other’ (Sigsworth et al., 2008; Akinola, 2014; Chinomona and Maziriri, 2015). Misago et al. (2015: 17) propound that, Xenophobia in South Africa translates into a broad spectrum of behaviors including discriminatory, stereotyping and dehumanizing remarks; discriminatory policies and practices by government and private officials such as exclusion from public services to which target groups are entitled; selective enforcement of by-laws by local authorities; assault and harassment by state agents particularly the police and immigration officials; as well as public threats and violence commonly known as xenophobic violence that often results in massive loss of lives and livelihoods. There is no doubt that vulnerability is heightened for Zimbabwean migrant women as they face human insecurity challenges in the form of xenophobia and gender-based violence. The increasing number of women migrating independently means that the vulnerability of women migrants to exploitation, abuse and discrimination also increases (Kawar, 2004: 74). Despite the possible chances of improving their lives and those of their families left behind in Zimbabwe, migration exposes the women to precarious situations and has considerable disadvantages, compared to challenges faced by men (Kawar, 2004: 75; Sigsworth, 2010: 1). While there is no limit to who is affected by the prevalent intolerances and dislike of foreigners in South Africa, scholars like Sigsworth et al. (2008: 1) are of the view that there is a gendered perspective to xenophobia, which is easily overlooked. In the wake of the recurring episodes of violence, “female migrants are unjustifiably affected, not only because the violence is played out on the site of their bodies (through beatings and rape), but also because the violence is directed towards their homes (through burning and looting), which in many cases is symbolic of a woman’s family and is perceived as a place of safety and security” African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1778 (Sigsworth, 2010: 2). Besides violence, xenophobia also manifests itself in a non-violent manner. As such, research conducted by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) before and after the May 2008 violent attacks in South Africa revealed that foreign women endured xenophobic attitudes from South African nationals in their day-to-day lives (Akinola, 2014). Most women encounter this phenomenon in the public spaces they make use of daily, for instance at work or in public transport (Sigsworth et al., 2008: 26). Women are in double jeopardy and their vulnerability lies at the intersection of the different identities they embody. Being a migrant is not the only condition for their vulnerability, but the fact that they are women exacerbates it. Migrant women are also victims of sexual and gender-based violence.2 This illuminates the vulnerability of migrant women. While there are significant reports of women being raped emanating from anti-foreign sentiments, in a country where sexual gender-based violence is pervasive, it proves challenging to know whether rapes were instigated by xenophobic attitudes or simply by violent lawlessness (Fuller, 2008: 9; Sigsworth, 2010: 2; Conry, 2015). Theoretical Framing of the Women’s Insecurities within the Human Security Paradigm The debate about the challenges and insecurities that Zimbabwean migrant women face can be situated within the framework of the human security paradigm. Human security can be defined as safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression as well as protection from sudden and harmful disruptions in the patterns of daily life (UNDP, 1994). The aftermath of World War 2 in 1945 saw the development of groundbreaking concepts that still guide states in the international system. According to Scheinin (2016: 441), under the principle of universality, the United Nations adopted the UN Charter in 1945. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted as a resolution by the UN General Assembly in 1948. These monumental decisions reiterated the principle that every human being is entitled to inalienable rights and as such addressed the questions of how territorial states should treat their 2 According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Report of 2014, gender-based violence refers to any harmful act incited on individuals or persons based on their gender. It may include sexual violence, domestic violence, trafficking, forced/early marriage and harmful traditional practices. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1779 own nationals as well as the nationals from other countries (Bloch, 2010: 234; Scheinin, 2016: 441). In global discourse, the term ‘human security’ gained prominence in the 1990s at the end of the Cold War between Russia and the United States of America (USA). The term was officially coined in the 1994 United Nations Development Report and it proffered the definition, which envisaged the protection of all human beings from both physical and non-physical threats (UNDP, 1994). A number of scholars have broadened the definition of human security to encapsulate securing of people, their physical safety, their economic well- being, respect for their dignity and worth as human beings, and the protection of their human rights and fundamental freedoms (Evans and Sahnoun, 2001; Chandler, 2004; Tibaijuka, 2005; Dzimiri and Runhare, 2012: 3). The hypothetical perspective of the human security framework thus informs this study, highlighting the importance of prioritizing individual security which focuses on the different sources of insecurity that affect Zimbabwean migrant women in South Africa. Scholars like Thakur (2003: 5) put forward the view that the threats many people worldwide experience emanate from internal conflicts, disease, hunger, environmental degradation, street crime and domestic violence. These factors underpin the important beliefs of the human security approach. The 1994 UNDP report listed seven dimensions of human security, which included economic security, personal security, food security, health security, political security, community security and environmental security. Isike and Owusu-Ampomah (2017: 3181) posited that, “The human security framework accommodates a wider range of issues that not only constitute threats to human existence, but also breed insecurity and societal anarchy. It views security from the perspective of human well- being and includes broad issues of human concern such as security from poverty, disease, famine, illiteracy, environmental plundering and unemployment, which singly or jointly, contribute to the impairments of human existence”. Looking at the migration of Zimbabwean women to South Africa using the lens of the human security framework requires an analysis of the political and socio-economic factors that are seen as ‘push’ factors from Zimbabwe, as well as an analysis of the conditions in which the women are living in South Africa. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1780 Methodology The article is based on the results of a qualitative study with Zimbabwean women migrants in Durban, South Africa. The city of Durban has seen an increase in the number of African migrants and refugees moving there, hence it seemed to be a suitable research site for the study. For the purposes of the study, 22 in-depth interviews with Zimbabwean female migrants working as informal traders in Durban Central were undertaken. The ages of the participants ranged from 18-45 years; the women were employed as hairdressers, street vendors, informal tailors and seamstresses and child minders. Purposive sampling was used in selecting some of the participants with prior knowledge of the target group. Snowballing was also used as a sampling technique and it enabled the researcher to locate other possible participants for the study through referrals. A key informant who was part of the target group assisted in some of the referrals. Open-ended interviews and participant observation were used as methods of collecting data. The women determined the places where the interviews were conducted but, in most cases,, they were regularly conducted at their work places. The women were informed of the purposes of the study and they all gave informed consent for the interviews to be used for the research study. They were assured of their confidentiality hence this paper uses pseudonyms. While all the women had a good command of English, the interviews were conducted in their home language, Shona. It enabled them to speak freely and better explain some of their experiences. The major constraint experienced during the study was the personal and emotional sensitivity of some of the issues that were discussed. Some of the women would openly discuss and trivialize issues that bordered on gender-based violence and xenophobia in their own lives. However, in one- on-one interviews, they would not share much about their experiences. This was possibly influenced by the idea that they were aware that they were being audio recorded and the identity of the researcher being Zimbabwean. Hence, some of the women refrained from sharing ‘too much’ personal information, possibly due to the fear of being judged, so they would give general responses they felt did not reveal too much of their own personal experiences. To analyze the data, all the interviews were transcribed and they were coded by selecting words and sentences that were related to the experiences of the women prior to leaving Zimbabwe and their experiences in South Africa. The codes were African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1781 then sorted into themes that sought to answer the research questions relating to the human security conditions of the women before leaving Zimbabwe and in South Africa. Research Findings While the narratives included many issues, there were issues that appeared reiterative and were centered on two dominant themes presented below. They include the reason why the women decided to move from Zimbabwe to South Africa, and the experiences of the migrant women trying to integrate into the South African society. Migration an Escape from Economic Insecurity And Poverty One of the first questions asked was, what influenced the women to leave Zimbabwe to come to South Africa. Most of the participants indicated that they left Zimbabwe because of the worsening economic situation. This was a salient theme as most of the participants revealed that they decided to migrate from Zimbabwe to emancipate themselves from economic insecurities. Loveness, a 39-year-old woman, working as an informal tailor, spoke about her own reason for leaving Zimbabwe: I came here because of three things, mari, nzara, nhamo chaiyo (money, hunger and poverty, I mean extreme poverty). That kind of poverty that leaves you with nothing to cook for meals made me to leave. When I decided to leave, I left my kids without enough food to sustain them for a long period. This narrative corroborates the views of Dzingirai et al (2015) who posit that the main trigger of migration in Zimbabwe appears to be linked with poverty. Following the closure of a number of industries, many people are no longer employed and have been living on less than one US dollar a day (Bracking and Sachikonye, 2006; Raftopoulos, 2001). This pushes them to migrate to neighboring South Africa with the hope of escaping poverty. In the same vein, Lefko-Everett (2010: 269), whose study examined the reasons that drove women to leave Zimbabwe, articulate that economic challenges and insecurity in the form of poverty and unemployment are the main push factors for female Zimbabwean migrants. Human security is intertwined with food security and it is underpinned by the idea that the realization of human rights to adequate African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1782 food is essential. The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement (UN, Article 25). However, participants like Loveness revealed that the decision to migrate was influenced by the food insecurities she encountered. Joyce and Mercy, both young women in their late twenties working as hairdresser and manicurist in one of the salons in inner-city Durban, also shared some of their reasons for moving to South Africa: I came here to South Africa in 2008, when things got difficult. When I left, things were not okay, there were no jobs, most of the companies had shut down and there was a cash crisis. Before I came here, I was involved in buying and selling of different products. However, it was difficult to sustain the business as many did not pay in time because of the cash crisis. I started to plait hair when I came here to South Africa; as it is right now with the little that I can manage to get from my job, I am able to take care of my family back home, as well as take care of my well-being (Joyce). I am 28 years old and I came to South Africa in 2013 in search of a job because in Zimbabwe I cannot say there was anything tangible that I could do. Even though I was a hairdresser, it was not easy to find clients and people would not pay you after doing your job. You could go for a week, up to three weeks without receiving any money for the job that you would have done already. My sister Eunice was already here, and she encouraged me to move. I had also seen when I had previously visited her, how she would get her money instantly as soon as she finished working with a client. It motivated me that is why I came here to South Africa (Mercy). The above narratives demystify the assumption that all women leave Zimbabwe for South Africa out of extreme desperation and poverty. Instead, some of the women had jobs but they viewed South Africa as having better employment prospects. Some women make the decision to migrate from Zimbabwe to South Africa as a response to the protracted prevalence of the economic insecurities in their country. The participants revealed that life in African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1783 Zimbabwe was becoming unbearable and it was becoming difficult to maintain a sustainable livelihood and well-being. The shrinking economy, soaring inflation, widespread shortages of food and basic amenities, and unemployment proved to be a powerful force driving most participants to leave Zimbabwe (Crush and Tevera, 2010: 1). Many of the women also revealed that their main goal was to secure employment as the economic insecurities in Zimbabwe influenced the existence of high job shortages. The likelihood of at least having an employment opportunity in South Africa and earning an income influenced the women to migrate. Because of South Africa’s fairly stable political and economic situation, the women perceived that life would be better in South Africa, with the abundance of jobs and better living conditions (Crush et al., 2017b: 3). One of the women, Tendai, a 30-year-old hairdresser, said: Kumba kwaiva kusina chekuita (back home, there was nothing that I could do to sustain myself), with no jobs. And you will be thinking that maybe if I go there, things will be better, and I can find a job. Eunice, a 37-year-old woman, said: The reason I came from Zimbabwe in 2008 was because of the political situation that the country was facing. Our government was not in an amicable state, everything was not okay. And when I decided to come here, my main intention was to come and work so that I could support my family. Back home I used to be a hairdresser, but because of the economic situation which affected the cash flow, we were no longer getting customers. It is undeniable that the need to construct a secure and sustainable livelihood through gainful employment in other countries is an important driver of migration for most of the participants. Based on the drivers of migration from Zimbabwe, a number of scholarly work labels Zimbabwean migrants as ‘economic migrants’ who leave in search for better economic opportunities for their well-being and that of their families left behind (Bloch, 2010; Makina, 2012; Crush et al., 2015; Dzingirai et al., 2015; Hlatshwayo, 2019). The challenges that the women encounter intricately link to different ranges of human security consequences, which border on political, food and economic security. The ongoing changes in the Zimbabwean political economy are an economic limitation that hinders most of the women from reaching their full African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1784 potential as they find it difficult, if not impossible, to make a living. The memories the women have about the economic crisis in Zimbabwe are constructed around their everyday experiences of the scarcity of basic commodities like flour, maize meal, sugar and cooking oil (Crush and Tevera 2010; Dzingirai et al., 2015:16; Mcduff, 2015). As the women spoke of their experiences, one could sense their confusion about the degree of poverty affecting their country, which used to be regarded as the bread-basket of Africa. Some of the women have vivid memories of how it became difficult to find employment. These experiences reveal how the women’s lives shifted to not having any options to sustain their livelihoods, leading them to migrate to South Africa. The move to South Africa seems to have been influenced by the idea that one would be able to secure a sustainable job as soon as one reached one’s destination. For most of the women, they left for South Africa from Zimbabwe with the perception that South Africa had many sustainable job opportunities. While the women aim to ensure economic security for their families through the provision of basic needs and food, one of those basic needs is quality education. Veronica and Hildah said: I came here to South Africa in 2009, and my main intention was kuzotsvaga mari ye vana vechikoro (to raise school fees money for my kids) (Veronica). I came from Zimbabwe in 2007. The economic crisis was too bad for us, mabasa kwainge kusina (there were no jobs), everything was so difficult, especially for me, I had children, the educational system became very weak, teachers were no longer coming to class. The conditions were just deteriorating, and I decided to come to South Africa (Hildah). The political and economic challenges aggravated some human security concerns, which included the provision of sustainable quality education for the citizens. It influenced the inability to pay school fees by guardians, which contributed to poor educational systems. Some women like Veronica left Zimbabwe for South Africa with the hopes of securing enough money to send home to ensure a sustainable well-being and a good education. Prior to migrating, most of the women anticipated to find better opportunities that could enable them to send remittances and take care of their families back in African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1785 Zimbabwe (Bloch, 2005; Makina, 2012)3. Under economic security, the human security concept notes that every child has the right to social safety, education and vocational training (Isike and Owusu- Ampomah, 2017: 3181). However, the women’s narratives reveal that this privilege is compromised by the political situation in Zimbabwe, increasing the human security consequences for the women and their children. Experiences of Zimbabwean Migrant Women in South Africa The women’s expectations of better lives and human security appear to be in contrast with their social experiences. Zimbabwean migrant women face multiple forms of discrimination and violence that are constructed around structures like their identity as women, non-citizens, black Africans and poverty-stricken (Hlatshwayo, 2019: 168). Cumulatively, most of the women revealed that they experienced gender-based violence and discrimination from South African citizens foregrounded in xenophobic sentiments. One of the negative experiences that the women revealed was the prevalence of gender-based violence in the form of intimate partner violence. This was reflected in Joyce’s narrative. She explained that she was a victim of intimate partner violence from a local South African man with whom she was in a relationship. She was a victim of gender-based violence and her vulnerability was constructed around the idea that her partner felt entitled to her, as he was the one who had a bigger role to play in ensuring a sustainable livelihood and security in South Africa. She stated: Taidanana, but the problem was that aigara achingondirova (we were so much in love, but the problem was that he would frequently beat me). He was so possessive, and he would not even want to see me speaking with other males. He somehow had the belief that he had made me the person that I was at that time. We did all the formal introductions, what was only left for us was to travel to Zimbabwe so that he could pay the bride price. After much thought, I called off the negotiations because I really thought hard of how my future would be with someone who always degraded and abused me. The previous weekend before 3 In a study carried out by Bloch (2005), the sample indicated that 85% of Zimbabwean migrants sent remittances to their relatives and families in Zimbabwe. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1786 the breakup he had beat me up so badly because I had decided to go out with my friends and not him. After that night, I told myself that (hwaisava hupenyu) I was not going to live like this for the rest of my life and I would not put myself in prison (Joyce). Although the experiences of migrant and non-migrant women regarding intimate partner violence appear to be similar, what increases the vulnerability of migrant women is their immigrant status. This status is shaped by different factors, which include immigration policies that exclude and limit their access to some basic services. The other factor is staying in South Africa illegally which intensifies the women’s dependency on the perpetrators and in most cases restrains the women’s options to respond to their insecurity in the form of gender-based violence (Kiwanuka, 2010). As Joyce continued to narrate her story she shared that, at that time she was not legally documented in South Africa and at some point she envisioned herself with a South African identity book and citizenship which she hoped would bring more security for her livelihood. This reveals that some Zimbabwean migrant women have relationships with local South African men with the anticipation of marriage, which could eventually lead to attaining South African citizenship. Their compromised agency, worsened by financial insecurities and in most cases, structural factors like legality, position migrant women as victims of xenophobic gender-based attacks. This, in turn, compromises their personal well-being and security. The misconception of migrants as the ‘other’, criminal and undeserving of protection, affects various migrants differently, but migrant women are mostly affected and more vulnerable (Von Kitzing, 2017:8). The excitement and anticipation for better jobs, opportunities, and economic and social security is easily shadowed by their lived realities as they are viewed as the ‘other’ and are exposed to a range of insecurities in South Africa. The women who were interviewed for this study revealed that it was difficult to experience the security and the life-changing opportunities they imagined they would encounter in South Africa (Kihato, 2009; Dodson, 2010; Chinomona and Maziriri, 2015; Crush et al., 2015; Dzingirai et al., 2015). Living conditions are often difficult and with most of the participants being involved in informal trading, they struggle to make ends meet. A visit to one of the women’s homes revealed that some of the migrant women reside in dilapidated, overcrowded and poorly maintained blocks of flats where the rooms are usually divided with African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1787 cardboard boxes and there is poor sanitation. These conditions, coupled with a significant percentage of the women being undocumented, heighten their vulnerabilities. The study revealed that women are not only susceptible outside, but also within their homes. Women remain in abusive relationships as a way of ensuring that they have access to basic goods, such as shelter, clothing and food. Their relationships, with both foreign and local men, are influenced by their need to depend on someone who they feel can provide for and take care of them. However, this leads to the women normalizing intimate partner violence and viewing it as tolerable. Vivian, a 37-year-old Zimbabwean woman who lives in inner-city Durban and operates an informal children’s daycare center, revealed that she is accustomed to her partner abusing her, but she is dependent on him. It is important to note that they are both foreign (the partner is Nigerian) which sheds more light on the fact that local men are not the only ones who perpetuate gender-based violence and abuse. My Nigerian boyfriend is not always nice to me, especially when he is frustrated, he can even beat me up… I just tell myself that it is part of life, no relationship has got no issues…. He gives me good money’ (Vivian). The continued presence of economic insecurity in the lives of the women (not being able to buy basic foodstuffs to support their livelihoods) is also linked to their own personal well-being and security being compromised. It influences migrant women to normalize human insecurity red flags like the existence of gender-based violence and domestic violence (Von Kitzing, 2017; Hlatshwayo, 2019). The proponents of the human security concept assert that security also involves personal security, which includes safety from violent crime, all forms of physical abuse, rape, and gender-based violence on sexual orientation (Isike and Awusu-Ampomah, 2017; Dzimiri and Runhare, 2012). Therefore, one is inclined to argue that Zimbabwean migrant women turn a blind eye to their personal security hoping to attain economic security and sustain their livelihoods in a foreign land. Trivializing Sexual Violence towards Migrant Women Gender-based violence can also be expressed in the form of sexual violence and harassment. Some of the participants felt that both local and migrant men African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1788 sometimes behave like sexual predators, who feel entitled to expressing sexual innuendos and, in most cases, belittle the existence of sexual harassment. It appears that some men do not see any harm in sexually violating women as they are socially conditioned to believe that it is normal and acceptable for a man to touch women inappropriately without their consent. They see nothing wrong in their actions, operating from a position of entitlement and believe that it is normal for men to extend and impose such behavior on women. This is strengthened by what Eunice said: The one thing I understand about males when it concerns women is that if they are attracted to you, they can even do the unthinkable, anokwanisa kungosvika, okubata kana maprivate parts, (they can even just touch your private parts). It does not matter whether you are foreign or what, because I once encountered it. The above narrative shows that both migrant women and local South African women can fall victim to sexual violence and harassment. Therefore, this paper purports that the sexual harassment of migrant women by local South African men can be considered xenophobic, premised on the assumption and perception that migrant women would not expect these kinds of sexual advances from random unknown men in the streets. The fact that most migrant women have less protection than South African women who can easily seek recourse from the relevant authorities, increases their vulnerability to xenophobia (CSVR, 2016). According to Von Kitzing (2017: 12), most migrant women do not report cases of sexual harassment and abuse to the relevant authorities. This positions migrant women as vulnerable, and any sexual harassment towards them can be labelled as xenophobic and acknowledged as a form of insecurity. This connotes that for the migrant women, human insecurity concerns are exacerbated by their inability to seek recourse influenced by their identity. One key guiding principle of the human security paradigm outlines how important the security of an individual is. However, the latter narrative reveals that human security concerns are easily influenced and compromised by structures such as identity. The fact that the women are ‘migrants’ plays a huge part in downplaying their access to basic human rights like reporting gender-based violence cases to the relevant authorities. African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1789 The Concepts of Identity and Security Sigsworth et al. (2008) posited that traditionally, women are the bearers of culture. However, the concept of identity and belonging is one issue that has become a distinctly gendered problem for foreign women. Some of the women who were interviewed expressed the concern that clinging to the aspects of one’s identity renders them more vulnerable to xenophobic violence. It is worsened by the other identity of being a woman. This is reflected in the narrative given by Charity: It becomes worse when you cannot speak isiZulu. At times when you become resilient shouting back using the local language the perpetrators become apologetic. However, once you speak English and they pick up that you are not a local, they will take away everything from you, especially us, women, it’s like they will be preying on us more. While Charity is aware of stories of men being mugged, she believes women are easy targets and that perpetrators take advantage when they notice that one is not local. While most tragedies appear to be general crimes, foreignness makes many women more vulnerable. Zimbabwean migrant women are often noticeable through several characteristics that distinguish them from the local South African population, hence, they are more prone to being exploited and being affected by xenophobia. Sigsworth et al. (2008: 17) referred to these different characteristics as ‘markers of difference’. These visible aspects include the language that Zimbabwean migrant women speak, their accents when they speak English or when they attempt to speak the local language, as well as their clothing. This is consistent with the study by Lefko-Everett (2010: 280) which established that some Zimbabwean women changed their style of dressing to avoid being noticed. The women who were interviewed revealed that they migrated to South Africa in search of an ‘economic haven’ away from the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe. However, their experiences of South Africa portray feelings of powerlessness and insecurity. They live in constant fear of what they might come across daily. Because of their differences, they are often labelled with the derogatory term Kwere Kwere, which is usually used by locals when referring to foreign nationals. While the idea of xenophobia is generally associated with African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1790 bodily harm and physical violence against migrant women, xenophobia can be exhibited in a subtle manner through verbal abuse. Participants revealed that during their stay in South Africa they had encountered at least one incident of verbal abuse in the public transport they use daily. The relentless name-calling appears to be a source of hurt, humiliation and insecurity for many Zimbabwean migrant women. It increases their feelings of being socially excluded and insecurity in a country where they believed social integration and security would be easy to attain (Lefko-Everett, 2010: 208). Although there are several scholars (Chireka, 2015; Dodson 2010; Crush and Tawodzerwa, 2017b) who have published work pertaining to the challenges that Zimbabwean migrant women encounter in South Africa, very few addresses how the concept of human security can be included in the discourse of female migration, xenophobia and gender-based violence. While violence against women and the rights of women are integral to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the sad reality is that during xenophobic conflict, women are always caught in the middle. As established by Fuller (2008: 8), migrant women are inevitably placed in a position of double jeopardy because of their identity as women and as migrants or outsiders. However, the anti- migrant hostility and the incidents of gender-based violence they encounter, go unreported because of the women’s fear to face hostility from police or possibly the general feeling of not wanting to cause unnecessary trouble premised on their social position as outsiders in another person’s territory (Fuller, 2008; Sigsworth et al., 2008; Charman et al., 2012). Scholars like Waiganjo (2017: 39) have proposed that the xenophobic sentiments in South Africa have affected several migrant women through violence that is incited on their bodies through sexual assault, emotional abuse and beatings. Waiganjo (2017) further noted that the violence that migrant women encounter, whether emotional or physical, is embedded in patriarchal structures that exist within cultures that strengthen gender inequality, revealed in ideas, attitudes and practices that are expressed during war and conflict. Hence, African scholars like Mama and Okazawa-Rey (2012) have noted that during war and conflict, atrocious acts of human insecurity against women are often used as a weapon of violence. The prevalence of the moral ills of society such as gender-based violence and xenophobic conflicts in the spaces they live and work make it difficult for most African Human Mobility Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (December 2019) 1791 of the women to feel safe and be easily integrated into society. The violent cycle of gender-based violence, coupled with the protracted existence of xenophobia, renders migrant females insecure and vulnerable. In fact, scholars like Von Kitzing (2017: 1) maintained that “the intersectionality4 of their ‘illegality’ and womanhood highlight their particular vulnerability and showcase the fluidity of xenophobic and gender-based violence”. This alternatively jeopardizes their security, and in many ways speaks to the fact that civil society has not yet reached a position where they can fully consolidate the human security of migrant women in South Africa. Conclusion Going beyond the discussed themes, the women’s daily experiences are premised on their multiple identities. Although the experiences of the women are specifically tied to their identity as migrants, it cannot be denied that some of their experiences, such as intimate partner violence, are like those of the local South African women. The changing aspects of their class, gender and nationality certainly construct their experiences, but they share many experiences with other women. Therefore, the experiences of the Zimbabwean migrant women inform us of the broader experience of being women (a vulnerable and marginalized group) in South Africa. Kihato (2009: 187) noted that, “migrant women certainly share class, gendered and ‘outsider’ characteristics with others, including categories of women of South African origin”. For instance, most of the challenges and questions about safety, domestic violence and the insensitive reaction of the police to gender-based violence, reverberate with many of the experiences of local South African women. However, these experiences are more likely to be intensified when it comes to migrant women who are even more susceptible due to their migrant status. To combat the experiences of human insecurity that migrant women encounter, it is essential to start from the grassroots, tackling issues that affect local women in South Africa as well. 4 The concept of intersectionality was coined by the scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989). 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