In Honduras and Vietnam, Women Migrate To Secure a Better Future

Photojournalists Danielle Villasana and Amrita Chandradas joined the Pulitzer Center on Friday, March 5, 2021, to discuss their contributions to Women on the Move, a National Geographic report by The Everyday Project, a global network with a mission to challenge stereotypes by presenting diverse perspectives. For the project, eight women photographers documented the experiences of women migrants across the globe and the circumstances that drove them to leave their homes behind.

Villasana focused on transgender women in Honduras who, because of endemic violence in the country, which is compounded by the transphobia they experience, flee north toward Mexico and the United States. Latin America is the deadliest region in the world for trans women, accounting for 80 percent of trans homicides. Honduras in particular is one of the world’s seven most dangerous countries to be a member of the LGBTQIA community.

“As a result of transphobia and lack of access to employment options, the majority of trans women throughout Latin America and Central America are relegated to sex work,” Villasana said. “And of course, as sex workers, they face an incredible amount of challenges as well that often are very life-threatening.”

Chandradas looked at Vietnamese women migrating to Singapore in hopes of securing a marriage and, with it, a better future for themselves. About 16.5 percent of marriages in Singapore are between Singaporean men and women from other parts of Asia, with a significant proportion coming from Vietnam, she said.

“There is this impression that Singapore is a country that has transformed from third-world to first-world,” Chandradas said. “And there is this picture which is built in a lot of the other Southeast Asian countries that Singapore is this financial hub, and if they were able to move over, that they would have a much better future for themselves. You know, that phrase where they say, ‘The grass is always greener on the other side.’”

This webinar was the third in the "Stories of Migration and Immigration" series, a collaboration between the Pulitzer Center and San Diego State University's School of Journalism and Media Studies.