The Forgotten Women: A history of migrant labour and gender relations in Vanuatu

Writing on the labour trade focuses on the question of whether Melanesian labourers recruited to work in Australia and Fiji were kidnapped slaves, or willing volunteers. This debate about victims versus actors tends however to be constructed from the viewpoint of the male recruit. The small minority of Melanesian women who were recruited are typically seen as motivated to go because of love or sexual relations with men, and are sometimes portrayed as ‘prostitutes‘. Through an examination of some primary sources, secondary interpretative histories and the oral history of one region of Vanuatu, this paper queries this image of women in the labour trade. It suggests moreover, that the labour trade must be seen as having dramatic effects on relations between women and men in Vanuatu's villages.