Research Report Time to Look at Girls: Adolescent Girls’ Migration to Sudan Dr Katarzyna Grabska May 2016 Contents Acknowledgements 4 Summary: Key Findings 5 1 Situating the Research Problem 1.1 Background to the study 8 1.2 Migration, girls and adolescence 8 1.3 Research questions 9 2 The Context 2.1 Sudan: diversity of movements 10 2.2 Locating girls’ and women’s migration to Sudan 11 2.3 City as a space: Khartoum: a multi-face city 13 2.4 Migration policies and regulations 16 2.5 Specific regulations affecting adolescent girl migrants 20 3 Methods and Fieldwork 3.1 Research methods 22 3.2 Constraints and limitations 23 4 Social profile of respondents 26 5 Becoming a Migrant 5.1 Migration motives 29 5.2 Beyond ‘poverty and human rights discourse’ as reasons for migration 30 5.3 The gender order and gender norms 35 5.4 Family circumstances 36 5.5 Decision to leave 37 5.6 The journey 38 6 Being an Adolescent Migrant Girl in Khartoum 6.1 First impressions and first encounters 41 6.2 Settling in and living conditions 42 6.3 Working and earning 43 6.4 Educational opportunities and aspirations 45 6.5 Life in the city 48 6.6 Risks, threats and set-backs 49 7 Vulnerability, Volatility and Protection 7.1 Sources of vulnerability 53 7.2 Volatility in everyday life 54 7.3 Sources of support and protection 55 2 8 Transitions and Transformations 8.1 Waiting in an inbetween place 60 8.2 Alternative youth identities and transitions 61 8.3 Marriage and migration 62 8.4 Girls’ evaluations and aspirations 64 8.5 Supporting those left behind: remittances, investments, emotions 65 8.6 Long-term aspirations 68 9 Key Implications for Policy and Interventions 71 Bibliography 74 3 Acknowledgements There are many institutions and people who should be thanked for the support they offered throughout this project. First of all, we acknowledge the generous support of the Swiss Network of International Studies (SNIS) that provided the main funding for the research. Co-funding for the research and documentary film was also received from Terre des Hommes, University of Sussex, VU University Amsterdam, Feminist Review Trust, and Girl Effect Ethiopia. We are very grateful to them for making this project financially possible. The project was carried out under the umbrella of the Global Migrations Centre at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva. Special thanks go to Dr Géraldine Ruiz for her administrative support and patience! In Sudan, special thanks go to the Regional Institute of Gender, Rights, Diversity and Justice at the Ahfad University for Women in Omdurman, and especially to Professor Balghis Badri for offering institutional support. Also, the French Research Centre, CEDEJ in Khartoum, and particularly Dr Alice Franck, have contributed in diverse and significant ways to the success of the project. Thanks go also to Jenny Edwards and Azza Aziz for editorial inputs. I would like to express my special thanks to all the research assistants, migrants and refugees, who took such an active role in making this research possible: Bana, Bisrat, Ruta, Hibret, without you this project would have never happened. Thank you for your wisdom, friendship and generosity to allow me into your lives. For most, my thanks go to all the research participants who shared their stories with us and provided insights into their very complex and vulnerable lives. This report is a testimony to your struggles. Last, but not least, to my fellow companions in this project: Professor Ann Whitehead, Dr Marina de Regt and Dr Nicoletta del Franco. You have been so inspirational, sharing, cooperative and supportive. This had made the whole project a lot of fun and made me truly believe in feminist collaborative work. Thank you. 4 Summary: Key Findings The Swiss Network of International Studies (SNIS)-funded research “Time to Look at Girls: Adolescent Girls’ Migration and Development” explored the links between migration of adolescent girls and development in the Global South through a holistic approach that contextualises adolescents’ and young women’s agency, choices and migration experiences. This mixed-method and multi-sited research focused on adolescent girls who migrate internally and internationally from Bangladesh and Ethiopia and to Sudan. The fieldwork in Sudan took place between March 2014 and September 2015 among Eritrean and Ethiopian adolescent girl and young women migrants and refugees. It was carried out by Dr Katarzyna Grabska supported by a research team composed of four research assistants who were recruited among the Eritrean and Ethiopian migrant and refugees. Reasons for migration The data gathered reveals the extremely precarious situations in which the Ethiopian and Eritrean girls found themselves at home. The combination of economic pressures faced by their families, often households experiencing crisis due to the death of one or both parents or separation, abuse experienced from relatives or step-parents, lack of educational and work opportunities, and in some cases religious and political pressures, provided the background to girls’ decision-making processes with regards to migration. As the results of the survey, life stories and focus group discussions reveal, each girl had specific, often very personal, reasons for leaving their places of origin. Yet, they all departed in what could be described as a ‘search for a better life’, often escaping extreme difficulties experienced at home. Helen, from Karen in Eritrea, was 21 years old when she arrived in Sudan, Everyone is coming to Sudan. I think of it as a transit country because I want to go farther. I don’t want to stay here. I want to go somewhere else. […] My plan was to change the life of my family and mine. Life is changing. A desire to help families who had stayed behind, many of whom were in very dire economic or political circumstances, was expressed by both Eritrean and Ethiopian respondents. Also, gender and generational pressures from their families played an important element in the girls’ decision-making processes. A number of girls in Eritrea, and also in Ethiopia, left in order to avoid arranged marriages. Despite laws in both countries prohibiting under-age marriage (under 18 years old) and changing social norms around early marriage, girls as young as 12 still face the danger of arranged marriages often against their will. Young Eritrean girls and women refugees often referred to the pressure of national service, the lack of work opportunities, political and religious persecution, as well as the impossibility of achieving a life one would like to have. Their migration motives, however, are more complex than this. The image promoted by the Eritrean diaspora of external possibilities, and the visible impact of migrant remittances, combined with a changing youth culture, contribute to Eritrean youth wanting to migrate abroad. Both girls and boys deliberately choose to escape in search of a better future for themselves, and their families. Other key factors behind the decisions of both Ethiopian and Eritrean adolescent girls and young women to migrate are linked to the gender norms that operate in both societies. Family circumstances also had a decisive impact on girls’ decisions to migrate. In families that experienced some type of crisis, for example the death of one or both parents, divorce or separation, parents’ health problems, or parents’ absence due to the political situation, adolescent girls were more likely to migrate. Being an adolescent migrant-refugee girl in Khartoum Arrival: Using personal, family or friends’ networks, or at times, brokers, girls arrive in the city usually without proper documentation. Arriving in the dusty city of Khartoum is usually met with both excitement and relief after a long exhausting trip. ‘When I finally reached Khartoum, on the back of a pickup filled with other Eritreans, after weeks of travelling on foot, running and not eating, and being stressed, I felt relieved’, said Bana, a 17-year old who came to join her sister who had been in Khartoum for six years. I saw Bana on the day she reached her sister’s house. She was one of the lucky ones who had a family connection in 5 Khartoum and who had a place to stay, rest and get some food. Bana slept for three days because of her exhausting journey. Other girls who do not have connections to the city, find arrival in Khartoum an overwhelming and threatening experience. Kibra was 17 when she arrived from an Eritrean refugee camp in Ethiopia transported by a smuggler. As she had no money to pay for the journey, she was made to work for the smuggler. Settling in: Settling in is a process that takes time: time to get to know the city, establish new contacts and relations, and gain some social and financial capital. The living conditions of migrant and refugee communities vary depending on their financial situation, social status, access to social capital, and support networks. The majority of them, however, live in miserable conditions. Most of the respondents lived in overcrowded accommodation, usually sharing with close or even distant family members, or other girls or women from their places of origin. There is a great solidarity among the Eritrean members of the Catholic Church who tend to help each other. The Ethiopian and Eritrean Pentecostal churches also have strategies to support their members with accommodation. Some churches, for example, rent housing and provide accommodation to those of their members who are in difficult circumstances. This creates a space of safety and security for the migrants. Work: Among the respondents interviewed for the research, the majority had some type of employment, such as cleaning or selling tea.