Migrant Women in Greece and in Libya: Leaders in a COVID-19 World

Greece/Libya, 5 Mar 2021 – This year, we celebrate the 2nd International Women’s Day during the COVID-19 health emergency. Globally, migrant women have been and continue to be frontline workers, pouring themselves into supporting their communities as healthcare staff, scientists, professors, and service providers – many working in essential services. Women are holding families and communities together as societal safety nets are threatening to unravel.

On this International Women’s Day, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) pays tribute to women’s leadership during the COVID-19 response as they continue to fight for a more just and equal world. 

Programme participants in IOM’s various initiatives across the world show how women and girls on the move expand their horizons and brave challenging paths to success.

Voices from a migrant camp in Greece

Zahra M. and Sakineh R., two women born and raised in Iran to Afghan parents, today are living in a migrant camp in Greece. They decided to take matters into their own hands when educational activities had to be shut down due to COVID-19. “At first, we stayed home, we didn’t know what to expect. We followed the health protocols, but as the time went by, we decided to create a more educational and entertaining environment for our kids. I teach English for beginners as a volunteer. I feel happy and proud, because through this difficult situation I was able to rely on my own strengths and contribute to my community,” recalls Sakineh.  

With the support of the IOM team on-site, Zahra and Sakineh launched classes, taught by around 30 people living in the camp, on subjects such as English, Farsi, mathematics, and handicrafts, while strictly following COVID-19 health and safety guidelines and protocols.

“No one missed any of our classes. We feel happy and content for contributing [to] our community. The lack of education was among the reasons that we left Iran. We didn’t want the same thing [to] happen here,” explains Zahra.

She sees herself as a leader who would like to “serve my community and be by their side in the most difficult situations” and noted that she found women leaders to be “confident [and] work with courage and patience to achieve the best for the society.”

Zahra and Sakineh believe that migration gave them the opportunity to find themselves, and “opened a whole new world of opportunities,” and they are not going to let COVID-19 get in the way of anyone’s education in the camp.

Zahra and Sakineh are just two of the many women around the world who migrate for better educational opportunities.

Fatima H. is a 29-year-old mother of three born in Pakistan, also from Afghan migrants. She, too, is living in a camp in Greece with her 9-year-old son. Meanwhile, her daughter, 15, and another son, 12, live in a shelter in Germany.