INTERNATIONAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN WOMEN

National boundaries have recently been loosened by international capitalism and challenged by ethnic strife in Africa and the former Yugoslavia, but people have long been on the move. The slave trade moved millions of people, while South Asians moved to East Africa and Fiji as indentured labour. From 1500 to 1800 comparatively small numbers of Europeans moved to the colonies, this number increasing dramatically between 1815 and World War I. Ten million Russians moved to Siberia and Central Asia, 12 million Chinese and 6 million Japanese to East and Southeast Asia. During World War II many Europeans were displaced across state borders and many migrated after the war. More recently there has been a reverse flow of people from south to north, often following the contours of colonialism, as temporary or permanent labourers in Europe, and later the Gulf States and Japan. People moved from Egypt and other Arab states to the Gulf States, from poorer South and Southeast Asian countries to comparatively rich neighbours; in the Pacific Samoan, Fijian and other Pacific Islanders have made significant communities in Auckland, Honolulu and Sydney (Pettman, 1996:65–6). The status of a country in this international flow can change as its economy improves. Italy was a state of emigration after World War II but now attracts migrants from north and sub-Saharan Africa (Pettman, 1996:66).