Word: migrants
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...Normawati, 50, and her close friend Ibu Herlina, 53, who describe themselves as Yunus' adoptive grandmother and mother, respectively. However, the child's situation is not unique, and Normawati (who like many Indonesians goes by a single name) is not unused to it. Indeed, the campaigner for migrant-worker rights and her daughter are raising several children of half-foreign parentage who were abandoned by raped migrant mothers. There are dozens of children of similar backgrounds in Jakarta and its environs. (See pictures of migrant workers in the Gulf...
While globalization has turned much of the world into a wide-open labor market, it has also created complex human and societal dramas. Women account for up to 50% of the world's 100 million-strong migrant-worker population - and there is no effective entity to protect their rights and dignity. In 2008, Indonesians working abroad, commonly as domestic staff in the Middle East and parts of Asia, contributed about $6.8 billion to their national economy via remittances, according to the World Bank. And while statistics are difficult to come by, there are increasing reports of many who are physically...
...into Ibu Herlina's care. Their adopted mother points out that the children share "Arab" facial features, in contrast to most of their siblings, who have "Asian looks." Her home, consisting of a modest house and a dormitory-like shelter, is filled with 10 children who were abandoned by migrant workers. Only a few of the biological mothers have made contact with their children. (Watch an audio slideshow about China's internal migrant workers...
...many cases, Normawati explains, female migrant workers are raped and then dumped on the streets by their employers, who refuse to give them their passports after discovering that the women are pregnant. The women are then arrested by police and placed in jail. Sometimes they are deported before the child is born. Herlina claims that airport officials have called her to ask what to do with the babies who are left behind by mothers...
...didn't wink at the law. After receiving handwritten letters from prison inmates describing awful conditions and brutal treatment, he appointed a lawyer to handle the case, a decision that led to an overhaul of the state's prisons. While most people in Texas were glad to use migrant laborers as indentured slaves, Wayne helped their children get an education in the state's public-school system...