Challenges of young female migrants

Moving somewhere new whether it be down the road from your family home or to a different city or county has its challenges, advantages and disadvantages as anything in life.

But when moving to an entirely new country there are a lot of things that should be considered like whether you’ll be living alone, if you have family and friends there, what you’ll do for work, leisure and more, but there are also the things to consider such as race, gender and religion.

When moving to a new country it is only natural to do your research and find out what challenges you may be up against so that you can prepare yourself for the road ahead. But sometimes despite all the research as well as the emotional, mental and physical preparation we do, it isn’t until we are faced with the reality of it all that we able to have a greater understanding of the challenges we’ll face and sometimes depending on where you are moving to, the impact of the challenge may vary greatly for men and women.

Studies show that for many young women who migrate, they can face major issues that can place them in vulnerable positions and leave them open to gender and religious discrimination to name a few.

Depending on where you are from can depend on how you react to these challenges. For example for some young female migrants they may come from countries where gender equality is highly important and is embed in their way of life personally and professionally, only to then move to a country where women are not treated as equals in the work place or in the home. This can be very difficult to adapt to as it can often mean having to suppress who they and what they have achieved to fit into the daily life of their new home and avoid causing offense to locals. While other young female migrants, may come from countries where women are not treated as equals to move to a country where they are. This suddenly opens them up to a world of opportunities and freedoms that they’ve never experienced. This can be liberating yet equally daunting as it far removed from what they have known and can take some time to adapt to.

There are many conceptions all over the world of who people be or how they should behave based on what they look like or where they are from, when starting over in a new place this can be more evident than ever as one Haitian born female migrant explained who spent her teen years growing up in Florida, USA and then moved to the UK for love.

Moving to a new place in her teens and then again her early 20’s was as much as a challenge as it would be for anyone. But as a young and ambitious black female she felt that she was stereotyped and put into a box of who others thought she should be and was discriminated against for her differences.

Regardless of where you come from there will be always challenges when moving to some place new, but a great way to overcome them is and get involve in the local culture as much as possible.

Make the time to understand the misconceptions that may surround you in your new home; make an effort to learn the local language and speak with the people in your community as this can really help to gain a better understanding of the culture and how you can fit into it without having to compromise too much of who you are.

Author: Sara Augustus

British born, Lifestyle blogger who loves; a great quote; to travel; dance,;eat good food in good company; share positive thoughts and experiences and who is currently head over heels in love with her boyfriend… a cidade de Lisbon!