This post is also available in: Spanish
This story is the second of two parts. Read the first story here.
In 2018, I joined MCC’s then-Nicaragua and Costa Rica team as Connecting Peoples Coordinator (CPC). That year, MCC Honduras and MCC Guatemala-El Salvador had learning tour to Guatemala and Honduras on the theme of migration. Together with a group of people from the United States and the Connecting Peoples Coordinators from the Honduras, Guatemala-El Salvador, and Mexico programs, I heard fascinating stories about migration, learned about our neighbouring countries and, of course, MCC’s partners and their work in their respective communities.
I remember a moment when the CPC for Mexico shared a beautiful banner printed by a Mexican collective with us. On the banner, they had compared human mobility with the monarch butterfly, whose migration, they told us, is difficult, but beautiful to see.
Today, I have this banner hung up over my desk, and I often think about the phrase that accompanies it: “Migration is beautiful.” Is there really anything beautiful about leaving your home and family?
Eblim Efigenia Suarez Castro, 32, is from central Yoro in Honduras and studied education. Before she decided to leave Honduras, she had been working as a primary school teacher.
“I decided to leave because of the economic situation in our country,” she told me. “I have three children, two teens. Of them, the oldest, was about to start university. I wanted a better future for them.”
With this in mind, she left for Spain.
A cold welcome
The hard reality of her decision struck her hard from the moment she first set foot on Spanish soil.
“The person who was supposed to help me settle in Spain had scammed me. When I arrived, she robbed me and I was left alone in the streets of Madrid. I had no idea what to do.”
Luckily, Eblim was able to contact a friend from university who was also living in Spain at that time. Through her friend, she found another contact who helped her find a place to live during her first few months in the country.
“I was unemployed for five months,” she remembered. “My friend helped me buy a metro card, food, she helped me with the rent. It was so disappointing, because my mother was in treatment for thyroid cancer and I couldn’t send her or my children anything. I tried not to worry her, I told her everything was okay.”
But nothing was okay for Eblim. She wasn’t able to find a job until the fall, when she got a position caring for an elderly woman on the weekends. This was in addition to another job; between the two, she was able to pay off some of the debt she had accumulated over the months she had been unemployed.
A precarious position
According to data from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), “a large percentage of [women migrants] find employment as domestic workers in their destination countries.”
For women migrants, domestic work and senior care work are two of the most common areas of employment. All too often, they are underpaid and exploited. As they are generally undocumented, there is no system in place to protect them. Abuse and discrimination are the order of the day.
“I was able to pay my debts, and send a little to my family,” Eblim acknowledged. However, the situation was very frustrating for her. “The woman I was caring for was racist, she was always making comments about how foreigners were taking jobs away from Spanish people, and how the support we received from the government was never enough for us.”
Eblim felt pressured to learn a new vocabulary and to do things differently from the way she was used to.
“Sometimes I would think to myself, ‘I’m a professional. Why am I putting up with this?’”
Eblim’s experience echoes CEPAL’s most recent report: “The vulnerability of paid domestic workers in this context is the result of a lack of regulation, the low possibility of being able to exercise their rights to association or to collective negotiation, and the lack of social value assigned to this type of work.”
In Spain, as in other receiving and sending countries, there is an urgent need for policies protecting domestic workers.
According to CEPAL “it is urgent to think about responses to care needs from a gender perspective, as women—paid or otherwise—are responsible for the majority of caretaking responsibilities.”
The pandemic arrives
And then the pandemic arrived, and Spain shut down. Eblim was once again forced to depend on her friends to survive. Because she wasn’t registered with the city, she couldn’t seek social assistance like Spanish citizens and registered residents.
“I just didn’t want to be there anymore. It seemed unfair to me that other people in the same situation as me could be registered, but I couldn’t. My employer returned home with paid vacation and government support, but I couldn’t get anything.
“I decided to go back home. A friend sent me a link to the repatration flights that the Honduran government was running for stranded Honduran citizens. I didn’t think twice about going back.”
Return to Honduras
After returning to Honduras, Eblim was contacted by the Mennonite Social Action Commission (CASM by its initials in Spanish) through a database of returnees maintained by the municipality. Through them, she has been able to take a number of courses. She’s currently enrolled a diploma on migration rights and policy.
“Right now, I’m on the 4th module,” she said. “It’s really useful: we don’t know what our rights are when we migrate and what information and support we’re not receiving from the government. When I was in Spain, I didn’t report the person who scammed me because I was afraid, because she told me I was illegal. But actually, I could have done it, because for the first three months, I was there legally. I never had the courage to report her. Later, I heard that she was doing the same thing to other people, and no one has done anything to stop her.”
When I heard this, I thought of all the experience Eblim has now, and the tools she has to support others. When I asked her if she would try to leave again given what she knows now, her response was even more inspiring.
“No, I wouldn’t do it again, because life is over in the blink of an eye. So many people have died over there in Spain. So many people have died in Mexico, on their way to the United States. Definitely not. Time helps us appreciate what we have before they’re gone. My mom is still in treatment for cancer. And I want to be with her.”
Eblim was able to to get her teaching job back, so she doesn’t have to worry about having enough money for food and rent. Even though the situation for education professionals has gotten worse over the last three administrations in Honduras, she has faith in God that the situation will improve.
I thank Eblim for giving me the opportunity to share her story, and also for helping me remember that migration, like butterflies, can be beautiful when it helps us remember what’s really important in life.
Wendy Vado is the Connecting Peoples Coordinator for MCC Nicaragua and Honduras.