Examining women's experiences in the process of accessing and utilizing national identification documents in labour migration: a case of women labour migrants in Uganda

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the experiences of women in the process of accessing and utilizing and utilizing national identification documents in labor migration. The study focused on the women labor migrants in Uganda, aged between 18 to 35 years. These particularly included women returnees from middle east as well as prospective young women migrant workers in the process of traveling to middle east for work My motivation to write about topic was the ever increasing demand for the national IDs despite its mandatory nature for one to have one. Also, the increasing demand for the passport by the labor migrants of whom majority are women. Holding a national identification document is not only a means of accessing state-provided social services, but a question of identity and citizenship. Although national identification processes significantly bestow citizenship on individuals and also facilitates service delivery to individuals, quite a significant number of women find challenges in registering and accessing these national identification documents. In Uganda, just like many countries, gender-based differences in both formal and informal laws and regulations make it more inconvenient for a woman than a man to obtain an ID or the foundational documents needed to get one. This additional burden combines with other aspects of gender inequality that put women at a disadvantage such as high literacy levels, constrained mobility outside the home, to contribute to a wide gender gap in ID access. Gaps equally exist in use of national documents. Therefore, this study intends to explore the experiences and the challenges women labor migrants interface as they apply for the national IDs, and how this affects their rights. Comprehensively, the study contributes towards enabling the reader to appreciate how gendered, seemingly neutral state processes like issuing national identification documents can be. The study utilized the qualitative approach through Key informants and In-depth interviews as well as observation. This approach brought forward a wealth of previously and current untold stories of women labor migrants. The study results demonstrate that the main reasons why women apply for national IDs is to access social services, the mandatory nature of possessing an ID to qualify as citizens, and to be able to travel for work as migrant workers. The results further illustrate the experiences of women in accessing and using national IDs, and the challenges women labor migrants face in using the national IDs. Some of these experiences were sexual pacification, bribery and exertion and giving false information. The main challenge faced in using national IDs was ID confiscation. Conclusively, my study highlights the need for the government of Uganda to centralize the ID processing system through creating a one stop ID processing center that can incorporate different institutions that process IDs. Once the Ministry of Internal Affairs, NIRA and the Directorate of Interpol and International Relations are merged under one umbrella. This too will limit government expenditure, reduce unnecessary movements, curb corruption and reduce costs and other resources spent in pursuing IDs from different places. The government urgently needs to address the sky rocketing underemployment and unemployment, gender mainstream its sector, as well as break the national ID monotony by availing and alternative or supplementary IDs or documents that would serve to access essential services.