Human Mobility, Covid-19 And Policy Responses: The Rights And Claims-Making Of Migrant Domestic Workers
Human Mobility, Covid-19 And Policy Responses: The Rights And Claims-Making Of Migrant Domestic Workers

Author(s): Smriti Rao, Sarah Gammage, Julia Arnold, Elizabeth J. Anderson
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Psychology, Essay|Book Review |Scientific Life, General Reference Works, Geography, Regional studies, Sociology
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Covid-19; migration; policy response;domestic workers;
Summary/Abstract: It is clear that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) attacks our biological and socio-economic vulnerabilities. Sharp variations in mortality rates have forced us to acknowledge pre-existing inequalities of class, race and gender in the ability to ‘be safe, be well’ even as a disproportionate amount of the economic pain and suffering of this crisis is being visited upon the poorest and most vulnerable. One unique feature of the COVID-19 response is the need to curb mobility to reduce disease transmission. These curbs on human mobility (notably not matched by curbs on flows of capital) directly impact the vast flows of human migration that the global economy is built upon today. And while the bulk of public attention and policy intervention in most countries has been focused on domestic effects, international migrant workers have long been ‘essential but disposable’ workers of the kind most affected by the health and economic effects of the pandemic.

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