Listening Across Borders: Reflections on Migrant Care Workers and the Future of the Care Economy

Written by Roxanne O’Connell, Head of Programmes 

Beginning a New Conversation 

Last week in Nairobi, I had the privilege of participating in my first convening for Equidem after taking on the role of Head of Programmes. It was a meaningful milestone for me personally, but more importantly it marked the beginning of a new area of work at Equidem focused on improving the systems that shape the lives and rights of migrant care workers. 
The workshop brought together worker-led organisations, trade union partners, civil society groups, researchers, and representatives from government and business to reflect on the realities faced by East African migrant care workers travelling from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

This corridor is one of the most significant labour migration routes for care and domestic work today. Thousands of women from East Africa migrate each year to work in households and care roles in the Gulf, supporting families, economies, and care systems across borders. 

Care work is essential to economies and households around the world. Yet the workers who sustain these systems, many of them migrant women, often remain invisible in policy discussions about labour rights, migration governance, and the future of the care economy. 

Our aim in convening this group was simple but ambitious: to create a space where those closest to the issue could collectively map the migration journey, identify structural challenges, and outline pathways for change. Rather than beginning with abstract policy debates, the workshop began with lived experiences and evidence from the ground. Participants mapped the migrant worker journey across four stages: pre-departure, transit, employment, and return. What quickly became clear is that vulnerability is rarely confined to a single moment. Instead, risks accumulate across the entire migration lifecycle. 

One participant reflected: “Migration systems often assume that once a worker reaches their destination, the process is complete. But what we see is that vulnerability starts long before departure and continues long after workers return home.” 

Across all four stages, a common thread emerged: access to accurate information and meaningful protections remains limited.  Many workers leave home without clear information about contracts, rights, or working conditions. Recruitment systems often involve complex documentation processes and opaque fees. During transit, workers may encounter harassment, discrimination, or sudden changes to travel plans and documentation. 

For many migrant care workers, particularly from rural areas, with limited formal education, or navigating migration processes in unfamiliar languages, these systems can be extremely difficult to navigate. Language barriers, lack of reliable information, and dependence on brokers or informal networks can heighten vulnerability long before workers reach their destination. 

And once they arrive at their destination, the risks often deepen. As another participant shared: “Workers are recruited with promises of decent wages and conditions, but when they arrive they often receive completely different contracts. By that point they are already indebted and far from home.” 

Contract substitution, where workers are promised one set of employment terms but receive another upon arrival, remains one of the most pervasive and difficult challenges across migration corridors. 

Participants also discussed how recruitment and transit systems can introduce new vulnerabilities rather than reducing them. Hidden recruitment fees, misinformation about job conditions, and unsafe travel arrangements continue to place workers at risk. 

The return phase of migration also emerged as an area that receives far too little attention. Many workers return home with unpaid wages, unresolved legal claims, or significant psychological trauma. For women migrant workers in particular, these experiences are often compounded by stigma, lack of psychosocial support, and limited economic reintegration opportunities. 

As one participant put it: “We talk about migration as an economic opportunity, but we rarely talk about what happens when women migrants come home with debt, trauma, and no reintegration support.” 

Why Research Matters 

The discussions in Nairobi drew on Equidem’s newly released research briefing documenting rights violations across care migration corridors from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Too often, policy debates about migration governance and labour standards take place without directly engaging the workers whose lives are most affected. Migrant care workers, especially those hired informally, remain underrepresented in official statistics and policy discussions. 

The convening therefore brought together evidence from the research alongside the perspectives of worker-led organisations and trade unions, ensuring that the conversation was grounded both in data and in lived experience. 
Evidence grounded in worker realities is essential not only for understanding where systems are failing, but also for designing solutions that reflect the experiences of the people those systems affect. 
 
Emerging Issues Requiring Greater Attention 

While many of the challenges discussed during the workshop are longstanding, participants also highlighted several emerging issues that require deeper attention: 
> Climate-related changes in countries of origin increasingly shaping migration decisions and economic vulnerability 
> The rise of digital platforms mediating care work, creating new regulatory gaps 
> Barriers to freedom of association and collective organising for migrant care workers 
> Heightened risks of gender-based violence and harassment in domestic and care work settings 

Centering Worker Organising in Migration Governance 

These discussions also underscored a broader structural reality: care work remains one of the most gendered sectors of the global labour market. Workers frequently labour in private homes with restricted mobility, limited monitoring of labour conditions, and few pathways to seek support when abuses occur. 

As one trade union participant noted during the discussions: “Workers need more than awareness campaigns. They need the right to organize, to speak collectively, not only with their employers but also among themselves, and to access support when their rights are violated.” 

This insight was echoed across the room. Addressing the challenges migrant care workers face is not something any single organisation or actor can solve alone. The systems shaping labour migration span recruitment agencies, employers, governments, and global labour markets, and understanding them requires bringing together many different perspectives. 

As one participant reflected at the close of the workshop: “We often work on different parts of the migration system, but when we come together like this we can finally see the whole picture.” 

In many ways, that reflection captured the spirit of the convening. Different actors, worker organisations, trade unions, researchers, advocates, and policymakers, often hold different pieces of the puzzle. The goal of the workshop was not to recreate knowledge that already exists, but to create a space where those pieces could be brought together, allowing participants to better understand how the system operates and where change is possible. By connecting insights from lived experience, research, and organising on the ground, conversations like this can help move us closer to identifying practical pathways for reform. Each actor may contribute only a small piece, but together those pieces can help build fairer, more accountable, and more worker-centred migration systems. 

For Equidem, that is exactly what this convening sought to do: create a space where these different perspectives could come together, deepen our collective understanding of the system, and begin imagining how it can change. 

The conversation in Nairobi is only a starting point. But it represents an important step toward ensuring that migrant care workers and the realities they face, are placed at the centre of conversations about the future of labour migration and the care economy.