By CELESTINE BOHLEN
PARIS - A stroll through any Paris neighborhood shows that more and more foreign-born women - illegal and legal? are pushing the baby strollers, caring for the bedridden, ironing the shirts. With an aging population, and one of the European Union’s highest birthrates, France needs help at home, particularly as budget cuts affect social services.
Recently, these women gained a small victory in a campaign by French unions and human rights advocacy groups to legalize illegal immigrants ? the “sans-papiers” - who already hold jobs. Laborious case-by-case reviews have, since 2008, yielded success in more than 2,000 cases .
Numbered photo ID cards now identify some women as members of a registered group of undocumented workers whose applications for working papers are under review.
Galina Dubenco used her card not long ago when she sent a suitcase to relatives back in Moldova. While she waited to load her cargo of gifts and clothes onto a bus, the police asked for her identity documents. It was the moment every illegal immigrant in France dreads. But with her card, the police backed off.
As France fumbles with the question of how to integrate its immigrants, this halting effort is further proof that the country can’t quite do without them. “There’s never any problem finding work,” said Fahra Itri, a 38-year-old Moroccan who’s been working in France for the past six years and who, with Ms. Dubenco and other women, turned out last month at a demonstration of sanspapiers outside the Ministry of Immigration.
“That’s what’s bizarre,” she said. “All that’s missing is a piece of paper.” According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, based in Paris, the employment rate for foreignborn women in France has risen steadily in the past decade ? from 44.2 percent in 1995 to 52.3 percent in 2008.
But the jobs are precarious and often don’t last long; the women work on their own, isolated in private apartments, and their illegal status makes them vulnerable to unreasonable demands.
Unlike their male counterparts, who work mostly in restaurants and construction, they can’t go on strike because that would mean abandoning the people they have been hired to care for.
Marshaled by Femmes Egalite, a feisty feminist organization with a 24-year history of organizing women in France and Africa, undocumented female workers are now able to show a little nanny power. “It’s the first time that the women have joined forces to push for their legalization as workers, not as wives or mothers or sisters,” said Francoise Nassoi, a regional organizer for Femmes Egalite.
The shock troops of the movement to legalize the sans-papiers are mostly men who have staged two waves of strikes since 2008 with the backing of French unions. The women have a more difficult time than the men.
Caregivers like Ms. Dubenco have no proof of their years of work - no paycheck stubs, no forged documents (which are often distributed to illegal workers by restaurants and contractors). Unlike the male strikers, who come mostly from West Africa and Asia, the women are from all over - Moldova, Ukraine, North Africa and Latin America, as well as China and other parts of Asia, which makes them a less naturally cohesive group.
Their only strength comes from collective action. “The important thing is to make them understand that they are part of a group, a collective,” Ms. Nassoi said.
