“I came with a friend… I was sleeping at the Tema Station lorry park… I bought two big thick rubbers so whenever it rained I spread one on the floor and the other was used as a cover over my body,” 30-year-old Marie, a migrant from Wungu in the Northern Region of Ghana, said.
Marie was a cola nut and shea butter seller in the north before she decided to take the trip that would put her in a position to improve her livelihood and that of her family in the village.
“My business was not moving as expected, so I decided to come to Accra and work so that I can get money to buy a sewing machine and go back home and learn how to sew,” she said.
Marie used a shed at the lorry park as her sleeping place, together with other young ladies from different regions who had also come to Accra in search of better jobs, till she got employed as a domestic worker.
For her, the job, however meagre the pay, was better than the income she was earning back in the village as a cola nut and shea butter seller.
She revealed that her new job enabled her to save money and send remittance back home to support her family, something she would not have been able to do had she remained in her village.
“It is now better for me than before migrating to Accra,” she said, adding that “Even though when I started work it was not moving as well as I expected, I am now happily working and I can send money to my family back home.”
Many young women like Marie troop to the capital of Ghana every day from different parts of the country through friends, relatives, or on their own.
Their stay often starts on rough ground as they have to adjust to the new environment and get a job. Although considered precarious, majority of these migrants believe their decision to come to Accra has been fruitful.
Internal Migration
More than 80 percent of Ghanaian migrants stay in Ghana; and among them, 70 percent go to urban areas, according to the 2000 report released by the Ghana Statistical Service.
The overall pattern of migration, as indicated by the report, is an increasing drift to urban areas by these migrants who find these places attractive destinations.
According to Dr Joseph Teye, a research coordinator at the Migration out of Poverty Consortium under the Centre for Migration Studies (CMS), University of Ghana, the big cities attract more than half of all internal migrants. He observed that migrants make up a substantial percentage of the population in these regions, an observation clearly evidenced by the aforementioned report.
Compared to Ghanaians who never migrate, internal migrants are substantially younger, more likely to be male, and less educated.
The living conditions of some migrant workers in precarious sectors
Dr Teye said rural-urban migration is not all about the negative outcomes or effects most people are quick to assign the phenomenon. Research findings have shown over time that migration has helped families secure a better livelihood.
Explaining further, he said “Most of the time, policy descriptions have been directed towards reducing rural-urban migration, with the view that people who are moving to precarious sectors are not contributing towards development.”
He noted, however, that there are great opportunities and benefits that society derives from migration, which various studies by the consortium have proven.
One such study is the recent research conducted on the experiences, livelihoods, strategies, and wellbeing of migrants working in domestic and construction sectors considered precarious.
The research presents a complex picture of how migrants contribute to societal development while improving their livelihoods and those of their families through jobs considered precarious.
Dr. Joseph Teye, Research Coordinator at the Center for migration studies
Complexities
The switch from a rural region of sparse economic investment to a bustling hub of activity (Accra, for example) is associated with the promise of opportunity, and a chance to supplement the income of a household back home. In many ways, it’s a sacrifice of the self for the benefit of a whole family.
But many migrant workers arrive in Accra to find themselves surrounded by a different set of difficulties: the city is crowded; unpaved roads are replaced by frequent spells of stop-and-go traffic, and lush vegetation give way to the vibrant network of structures, colours and concrete that form the internal framework of Accra.
The job market for domestic and construction workers in Accra is also informal, which means that most employers don’t adhere to the Ghanaian minimum wage of GH¢7.00, or the standards of employment that grace someone working in the formal sector.
As a result, living conditions of migrants, especially recent transplants, are nothing to write home about. Although male workers often find specialised jobs as gardeners, drivers, or security personnel with decent wages, most women aren’t as lucky. They often have to make-do with domestic or household work with uncertain terms and conditions.
While migrants are often vital support systems to those in less prosperous communities, they (themselves) are often weighed down by persistent hardships endured in a new city on meagre resources, coupled with separation from the families they’re working to provide for in the first place.
Negatives
Most domestic workers aren’t hired on the basis of formal contracts, so the roles they play in the household are similarly unspecified, the research results indicate.
The fluid nature of most of the women’s jobs puts uncertainty around their professional responsibilities as well, which gives their employers an excuse to demand more from them.
“They want me to work like a machine,” said one domestic worker in Accra, adding, “I wake up before 4am and do so many things.”
Unfortunately, increased responsibilities and hours often aren’t met with the corresponding rise in wages that workers deserve, which are already low, to start with. Most salaries are negotiated at the workers’ villages of origin between agents and some kind of elders.
Subsequently, the figure agreed upon often makes sense to a rural community, but falls short of meeting the cost of living in the city. Many workers don’t figure that out until they arrive to the biting realities of city life.
“She finds out that what she is earning is smaller than what [other] people are earning in Accra,” Dr Teye said, adding that but “she doesn’t have power to re-negotiate these terms that have been negotiated between her parents back home and the potential employer.”
The issue of low wages and long hours is compounded by the conditions that domestic workers have to endure as well.
Many women are required to live at their employers’ houses in order to meet the long and often random hours that the work requires. As a result, some employers reduce wages for providing room and board, which usually comes in the form of a crowded shed stuffed with possessions tucked in the corner of a homeowner’s compound.
Sexual harassment is also normal within the routine of many domestic workers’ lives.
“Right from the beginning,” one woman said of her employer, “the agent told me that this man [an expatriate] likes women.”
After being hired, the woman, 22, found his advances unbearable.
“The man kept on knocking at my door almost every night… So I called to complain to the agent, and the agent said that I should agree to his proposal and give him what he wants,” she said.
A Ghanaian society rooted in patriarchal norms has, in general, done little to improve the position of a female domestic worker within the economic and societal landscapes.
They work long hours for less pay, victims to an undervalued profession without the benefit of any kind of formal government regulation.
A group of migrant taking an afternoon rest from their work
Positives
Although domestic and construction workers often shift from one kind of poverty (in rural areas) to another in urban environments, some do receive compassion from their employers.
“Truly, my madam treated me as her daughter. If not for my tribal marks, people wouldn’t have been able to know I was not her daughter… She treated me so well; she gave me anything I wanted, and for my mother too,” said Dokuma, who migrated from the Northern Region.
Excited to leave the homestead, many migrants often travel from rural to urban communities with feelings of impending prestige floating through their thoughts as well.
“People generally hold you in high esteem because you have a relation in Accra,” the sister of a recently migrated domestic worker said.
Although they frequently endure substandard treatment or living conditions in the city, migrant workers are accorded respect back home that isn’t altogether undeserved, considering what some of them are able to achieve back home.
“I can say I have achieved a lot, because I have built a five-room apartment for my mother and other siblings to lay their heads,” Kato, a gardener in Accra, disclosed.
His mother echoed his sentiments: “He sends us money to buy food; he sends me clothes and other materials,” adding, “It is through his efforts that we have roofed some of our rooms in our house with zinc… Life would have been very difficult if [Kato] had not gone to Accra. He is currently our backbone.”
Many migrants in Accra see the adversity as a necessary evil to provide for their families. The wages may be unfair, and the hours long, but the city offers a source of revenue to support people back home in undeveloped regions.
The group from the centre for migration studies and government stakholders at the dissemination workshop
The Way Forward
“The most important thing this study has shown is that the construction work or the domestic work that these people do is not a bad thing in itself, and that most of the people in these sectors are actually using migration to move not out of poverty totally, but to enhance their livelihoods,” Dr Teye noted.
He said the country’s current minimum wage policy needs a review to inculcate the regulation of wages for the informal sector where migrants fall.
According to him, the current situation leaves workers like migrants at the mercy of their employers.
“In the case of domestic workers for instance, salaries depend on the benevolence of the employers, because laws on minimum wage are not applied,” he added.
He also called for social protection initiatives to consider migrants who might be working in places without any social protection guarantees like health insurance.
“The social protection agencies must also step up their interventions to cover people like migrants,” he emphasised, adding, “because they are also contributing to the overall development of society.”
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri & Kevin Trevellyan