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Migrant sexual precarity through the lens of workplace litigation

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  • Anna K. Boucher

Abstract

Theories of precarity have emphasized workplace isolation, worker vulnerability and a lack of control over key features of work. Migration status has been viewed as an attribute that can exacerbate worker precarity, and sexual violence and bodily injury are viewed by feminist scholars including Violence Against Women scholars as sources of such precarity as well. Nevertheless, how the interaction of workplace conditions, migration status, gender and sexual violence impact migrants needs more attention. A new evidence base, the Migrant Worker Rights Database, explores workplace violations against migrants in 907 tribunal and court cases brought by migrants in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States over a 20‐year period. The data collected for this project demonstrates that female migrants experience higher rates of sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual servitude, and sex trafficking when compared with men. Further, while such collectively termed “sexual violence” offenses comprise a small percentage of cases in the Database (1.3%), they are characterized qualitatively by key features that present a heightened form of sexual precarity when compared with citizens: misuse by employers of visa conditions, debt bondage, live‐in arrangements, entrapment and slavery, and the combination of sexual violence with economic infringements such as wage theft and physical assault. Sexual precarity, this paper argues, should be viewed as an overlapping and reinforcing form of workplace precarity that has distinctly sexual and bodily dimensions.

Suggested Citation

  • Anna K. Boucher, 2025. "Migrant sexual precarity through the lens of workplace litigation," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 458-472, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:32:y:2025:i:1:p:458-472
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.13160
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. True, Jacqui, 2012. "The Political Economy of Violence against Women," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199755912.
    2. Marvin Reuter & Morten Wahrendorf & Cristina Di Tecco & Tahira M Probst & Antonio Chirumbolo & Stefanie Ritz-Timme & Claudio Barbaranelli & Sergio Iavicoli & Nico Dragano, 2020. "Precarious employment and self-reported experiences of unwanted sexual attention and sexual harassment at work. An analysis of the European Working Conditions Survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-19, May.
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