Around the world, women of colour, migrant and refugee women, and women in the global south, have played vital roles in movements for peace, freedom, and equality. But in a patriarchal and racially unequal world, these women’s contributions are often overlooked, with powerful male, often colonial leaders being cast as the protagonists of history. Appreciating the role of migrant and refugee women in movements around the world can do more than just correct the record. Recognising their efforts, both past and present, can remind us just how much the struggles of the most marginalised impact us all, and also give us hope that it’s not just heads of state that have the power to make change.
Perhaps the most striking example of this has been the impact of Palestinian women on the global movement to end the genocide in Gaza. Here in Naarm, Melbourne, this month marks over 100 weeks of continuous demonstration. In Sydney, on Gadigal land, organisers have announced that protests will continue despite the fragile ceasefire reached earlier this month, vowing to continue until Palestinians have the right to determine their own future, free from occupation, bombardment, starvation and isolation. These local movements have brought thousands together to march in solidarity and recognition that our struggles are all connected.
In Australia, Palestinian women journalists, activists and organisers have led and informed this movement at great personal and political cost, often for very little recognition. Plestia Alaqad, a citizen journalist who reported from Gaza, faced continuous threats on both her and her family’s life, before fleeing to Australia only to be labelled a national security threat. Palestinian novelist, lawyer and researcher, Randa Abdel-Fatah who for decades has regularly spoken out against human rights abuses in Palestine, faced an extraordinary, coordinated smear campaign resulting in the suspension of the Australian Research Council grant she had been awarded. Migrant and refugee women more generally have also faced serious harm and backlash for standing in solidarity with Palestine, as both Hannah Thomas and Antoinette Lattouf’s cases exemplify.
But despite this, migrant and refugee women continue to call for change. And these contemporary stories reflect the tenacity of many historic Australian movements led by migrant women, whose wins were long-fought, hard-won, and rarely remembered.
We saw this in one of Australia’s earliest struggles for the equal right to work. In the 1970s, a group of migrant women who met at the Illawarra Migrant’s Centre filed a complaint against BHP that they were not hired on the basis of their gender. The claim did result in BHP changing their policies to hire women, though initially, not the migrant women who actually brought the complaint. It took over 14 years for the Illawarra migrant women to finally be awarded compensation and full-time employment from BHP, despite the company hiring other women far earlier.
Today, the equal right to work for women is often taken for granted, yet the migrant women who fought for this right are rarely remembered, nor is the enormous pay gap migrant and refugee women still experience. Those who are at the forefront and struggle the longest for change are sometimes the last to be recognised or rewarded, but that doesn’t mean their effort wasn’t worth it.
In the same vein, when it comes to Palestine, we will all benefit from a lasting peace. And remembering the struggle of those at the centre can help us focus on what still needs to be done. As powerful male leaders compete over who will get the recognition for this ceasefire, we should turn our attention to Palestinians, especially Palestinian women, who continue to be excluded from peace planning, while starvation, displacement and violence continue. While there’s more to be done, migrant and refugee women will continue to organise and campaign for a fair world, just as we always have.
This article was first published in edition #150 of The WRAP on October 2025.