Maria Ahmad | Borders, Babies, & Building Bridges: A Humanitarian's Guide to Migration, Motherhood, and Global Sisterhood

What does it mean to raise globally conscious children in a world full of noise, misinformation, and borders — both literal and cultural? 

In this episode, Jessica sits down with Maria Ahmad, humanitarian, multilingual professional, journalist, and mom of two, whose life has spanned Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Latin America. Maria shares her journey from BBC radio journalist covering terrorism and elections to leading migration work for the United Nations, the realities of immigration that mainstream media gets wrong, what it looks like to raise sons who understand the female experience, and how moms everywhere — regardless of geography — can build the alliances that change the world. One of the most expansive and important conversations this podcast has ever had.

MAIN TOPICS COVERED

• Maria's upbringing in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East — and how questioning gender restrictions shaped her worldview
• From BBC radio journalist to UN migration expert — the career path she never planned
• Covering terrorism, the Obama election, and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto
• How becoming a mom transformed the way she experienced the world
• Motherhood across continents — what she observed about family, community, and village across cultures
• Raising sons to understand and advocate for women — the conversation we're not having enough
• The cycle of abuse that gets passed down — and why the work starts with men, not just women
• What migration actually is — and why everything in mainstream media is misinformation
• Women and children in the migration system — why mothers flee, and what happens when they're separated from their children
• How privileged moms can build alliances and take action for migrant families
• Media literacy for busy moms — how to navigate the noise and find trustworthy sources
• Community protection, child safety, and what grandmothers can do
• The global unpaid care labor crisis — and why it's a policy issue, not a personal one

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• NPR and PBS — recommended as starting points for trustworthy news
• The Daily Show — referenced for accessible political commentary
• International Organization for Migration (IOM) — UN body on migration
• UN Women — referenced for care labor advocacy
• Baby Voyage — company founded for traveling parents

This episode is sponsored by Collabs Creative - a boutique digital marketing company helping small business owners and creatives tell their story.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hello and welcome to the Mama Making podcast, where we hear stories of moms making impact in their own lives and in the world around them. I'm Jessica, and each week I sit down with women who are building businesses, leading communities, shaping culture, and redefining what success looks like inside of motherhood. Because motherhood does not have to stop your own vision, it can transform it.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Now let's get into it. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Mama Making Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

I'm your host, Jessica. If you're new, welcome. If you're not new, then welcome back. Today I am so excited to have Maria Ahmed on the podcast. Maria is a humanitarian and multilingual professional who has spent her career ensuring safe migration, full inclusion, and access to services and rights for migrants everywhere. She has worked across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America on a broad range of migration issues, including the protection of children and vulnerable populations. Maria is a journalist who has covered natural disasters, war, and so much more. Welcome, Rhea. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Thank you, Jessica. Gosh, that's like, um, who are you talking about? Because that's the last two decades of my life, all you know, right there. So thank you very much. All in one little bio. Thank you for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Of course, I'm so excited to talk to you. So tell me a little bit more about you, who you are, where you're from, whatever you're comfortable sharing.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Um, well, I'm I was born in Pakistan. I basically crashed my brother's um birthday party, first birthday party. And then from there, I spent the next 17 years uh in the Middle East, well, the Gulf countries in Saudi Arabia primarily, basic and the but Kuwait, Bahrain, Doha, all those areas. My dad was working with Unilever, and so we were there. And then at 17, I boarded a fight for the first time alone and went to the US uh to study. I was there for about three years, um, back to Pakistan, and that's where I started my work as a journalist. I did a lot of I spent a decade doing that. And then, yeah, found uh found my lovely life partner, moved again with him to South Africa, had two babies, and from there he decided to come home. And I thought he was British. Turned out he was Latino, and uh, home is South America, and so Latin American and the Caribbean have been my home for the last decades. That's uh I think uh the geography of my life as we go forward. There'll probably be much more uh we'll talk about because I think being a woman from what we, you know, a very terrible definition of what the so-called global south is, but being a Muslim woman, being from that particular geography, a geography that everyone has known only from mainstream media and and bringing the kind of lived experiences, it's almost like you're always questioned every step of your life, every moment of your life is always a new question. Go like, oh, is that really how it happens? And so it just freaks like a forever culturally kind of explaining one facet or another of my life. So it's been it's been very interesting. I'm very grateful for what uh life has given me. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, I'm excited to hear about more of where life has brought you, but it sounds like it started very early for you, your interest in learning about other cultures and then brought you to journalism. Tell me a little bit about that story into deciding journalism was where you wanted to focus.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

It's always funny. I think a lot of people always say that they're like, oh, I stumbled upon it, you know. And I, the one thing that, as I was thinking just now when I said to you, I'm really grateful to life for giving me the opportunities, because I'd say honestly, like, you know, when you were growing up, I remember in the in the Middle East, my father was an avid listener of the BBC News. And uh, and obviously, of course, because I always heard him. I think very early on for me at 12 or 13, because I was questioning so much of what was happening around me in terms of why was I being treated differently than other boys my age, why was my life the way it was? Why was only I going to school and coming back? So I think that kind of started me on the on the on the path of asking questions. And then I used to debate a lot about international politics and everything with my dad, trying to make sense of the world. So that's kind of where it started. And somewhere in the back of my head, it was like, oh my gosh, you know, like someday the BBC, you know. And then as life would have it, when I came back uh from the US to Pakistan, I actually started working with an NGO Internews Network, which was about training journalists, young journalism graduates in practical broadcast. So I was working there as a coordinator and from there onwards, you know, learned so much more about journalism myself as well. And voila, two years later, the BBC was moving its Pakistan, its Urdu desk to Pakistan, and I got to be a radio journalist with them. That's where I started. And I'm very, again, grateful and happy to share. I went on to do some of the some very interesting events of that time. I was sick in the middle of covering terrorism. I was one of the I was the first youngest female to actually deal with terrorism events because it was considered a very masculine subject. So working with the military, following them around, and you know, just being there with all the blood and gore at the first moment of stuff happening. I had the pleasure of covering Barack Obama's 2008 elections uh as well. So I was with Sarah McPhilane's team, which was very, very entertaining. I did Malaysia elections as well. So it was really great. I actually was awarded the best journalist award as well for that year, 2008, because I had done Nepal, Malaysia, and the US elections, as well as the assassination of the first female prime minister of the world, Benisa Yaputo, who was from Pakistan. So that's what journalism was.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

That's so incredible. What landed you, what brought your interest to politics? I know you talked a little bit about your dad loving listening to the BBC, and what what kind of steered your interest there?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

You know what they say? Um, the person is political always, you know, and I think that that struck home very, very early on. Living in Saudi Arabia was very, very tough as a young woman. Today, the Saudi Arabia that we know, which has changed over the course of the last leadership, is very different from the one that I grew up in almost 30 years ago. And so um life was so limited. My dad would take us to school. He'd pick us up from school and bring us back. And at one, we were home and we didn't have anything. We'd have like an afternoon nap, get up and do our homework, and um, and then just do some reading or be at home. Or if my parents went out to do groceries, we'd be at home because who wants to go and do grocery at Costco every other day, you know? And that was my mom's life as well, because she used to be home the whole day and she'd wait for my dad to get home and she'd do some form of grocery or shopping just so she could go out for a little while because there was no going out without him, you know? And so for us, the week was like this, and on the weekends, the best thing that we could do was like go to a friend's for a little while. There's a birthday party or something. So that limitation in itself, and being able to, at 12 or 13, I had to start covering up by law. And and it was very interesting because my dad was not in favor of it either, and he had to do it by law because if I didn't cover up, he would have to be imprisoned for that or punished for that, you know? And so I was so enraged with the idea. And I said, Where is this? You know, my father's a very spiritual, deeply religious person. And I said, Look, I want to read the Quran and I want to understand where is this? Because if God is fair and equal for everybody, this makes no sense. How do they get to be out there? And why is it that I have to cover myself up when they're the ones who are not behaving themselves, you know? And that's kind of where, you know, it was all personal and political. And that's where I started questioning a lot of it, questioning religion as well. And I think I was very, um, I was very blessed. I am very blessed to have a father who allowed me to question, who allowed me to go my way. And he was there to, you know, kind of answer me, give me sources, send me in directions that let me find my own way.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, it's so interesting. You talk about this um like intergenerational piece kind of being s um so impactful for you to have uh a dad who was giving you the opportunity to ask questions. I imagine that kind of launched you into understanding some of the cultural aspects, both from the culture that you grew up in, but then also as you started to do this international journalism, I'm sure you saw what that looks like across the globe.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Yes, very much so. I think that's also what took me in the direction of doing my master's in anthropology. Because I was fascinated by, and I think again, that came very early on because when I was questioning how God could be so different for two different genders, I think that's when I started questioning and understanding how narratives, how social storytelling, how social norms actually are different, you know. And because I was lucky to be traveling, I was seeing that there were many different forms of of being Muslim, of being a Muslim woman, of practicing Islam as well. And that was very interesting because at 12 or 13, when I was so frustrated with being Muslim, my dad actually gave me the ability to say, you know, hey, you know, if you want to step away from prayers, or because I was so mad, I was like, I don't want to pray and I don't want to do anything with Islam. And so he said, fine, you know, um, do it, go your way. Uh, but I will tell you someday you're gonna come back to this, you know. And when I and and about five, six years later, when I ended up in the US in California of all places, I ended up meeting Muslim women from so many different cultures, and they were covering and not covering, and I was like, what the you know, like I couldn't understand any of it. And so that's when the pieces started coming together as to how the world was so different in so many different ways, and I started questioning it, started understanding it, starting understanding narratives, um, and seeing everything in a different light. So I think that also is what brought me to doing my master's in anthropology, which was fascinating to being both journalists and anthropologists, because that just like opened you up so much to understanding that multiple truths can be held at the same time. And there are multiple versions, depending on where they're coming from, and everyone has their story.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, and I imagine that that only evolved when you became a mom. What did that all look like? What was that transformation?

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Oh my god. Oh my god, like I was like, nobody told me what it was gonna be like to be a mom. And you know, I often joke with my parents, and and my dad admits it. He's like, I've gotta say this, you know, you guys have it way harder, way tougher. You know, you have got screen limits to deal with, you have got all kinds of stuff happening on YouTube that you need to monitor. You have video games that are happening. So he's just like, I am hands down, you guys are way better parents than us. I'll tell you this, Jessica. I never wanted to be a mom. You know, I was growing up, I had this very fixed idea of what a woman's job was, and I wanted no part of it. I didn't want makeup, I don't want jewelry, I don't want to be a housewife, I don't want to be a mom, I don't want to be a wife. I had nothing. I just wanted to be a professional woman, this idea in my head, right? And um, and then, you know, false, false alarm, and I'm like, oh, it would have been nice to be, you know, like and my husband's like, okay, that's news to me. And I said, yeah, me too, you know. And yeah, well, I became mom, I think honestly. I'll say, Jessica, you know, it's just that statement that they say um that your heart is outside of your body, and you know, you leave it open in the world. It was like that, you know, up until that, I was very this daring journalist who was in the middle of like, you know, very gory situations. And I remember a year, a month and a half after my son was born, and there was this terrible, terrible massacre of children, school children in the north of Pakistan. And I remember bawling like a baby, having in my arms my baby. Just like, you know, and since then I was just like, okay, I can't see the news anymore. It can be on paper. I can read the letters and I can't see figures, right? So um that I think I really carried all of that into being a mom. And honestly, sometimes my kids now, God bless them, they're now 11 and 10. And just this morning I was telling my daughter, she's like, Mom, I think this friend of mine, you know, she's just having a complete meltdown. And I'm like, remember, Anya, what do I say about this? Yes, mom, every behavior has a story. I get it. I'm like, okay, so let's just be kind and try to, you know, see what's behind her behavior. She's just had a baby sister, maybe she wants more of your attention, comes into play as to me being a mom, you know, my 11-year-old boy, very much. I sometimes feel like I probably am inundating him with a lot of information because he'll be like, oh mom, why can't we do this? Well, honey, we're part of the bycott and divest movement. We're not doing this because so-and-so product is involved with this war. And he'll be like, Okay, mom, I guess we're not gonna eat this for a couple of weeks now. So it's, you know, it's it's I I I think I take them hand in hand. I share everything with them. And I think that I think on recent times, in the last decade or so, I've heard many child experts and psychologists also say that children are far far more intelligent, far more resilient than we actually give them credit for. And I have found that being able to talk to my kids and communicate with them, perhaps borrowing very much from what my father did in my teen years, I've probably started that way earlier with them. I'm able to explain to them what the dangers are of, you know, private chat servers or watching programs unauthorized or whatever, right? And I think it's I think I'm doing okay. I think I'm doing okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, I I think your dad is right. We are really up against it with the amount of information our kids have these days and what they're taking in versus generations before. So I definitely agree on that front. But I'm interested to know being someone who has been immersed in different cultures and different parts of the world in that same raising children vein, what has mothering looked like across the global picture from your uh viewpoint?

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Oh, that's very interesting. It's a very interesting question because um I remember uh a very dear friend of mine, she runs her own company called Bebé Voyage. And uh we met up in Mozambique when uh I gave birth to my daughter in 2015. The idea of Bebé Voyage was actually what do parents like us do? We're these uprooted parents who are going traveling because of our work and we don't have support networks wherever we go. We depend so much on our domestic carers for being our sounding boards and often helping us with our kids. A lot of it was like, okay, when we travel, her focus was very much on making traveling easier with kids. But I also got the opportunity to see again mothering and parenting from so many different uh from so many different points of view. I think one of the things was very much also about being able to break, break or challenge the norms in every different culture that I was part of. You know, how were my values going to stand up or meet the social norms of every culture that was in, you know, and that's kept shifting. Honestly, I feel like my I c carry my Muslim identity very uh very upfront and very boldly. And of course, the children have had a tough have had a hard time with that, have had a very tough time, particularly being in South America, uh, you know, where religion is not very much a part of it. And of course, we are probably the only Muslims for miles and miles in the country, you know. So it's all been very um, it's all been very distinct. I I must say that one thread that I found very common in the South Asian, South African, and Southern American culture is very much, and the Middle East, is the family units look so similar. Family networks look so similar. Holding together family is such an important part of all these cultures. And I think I've been very lucky in that way because that that's exactly where where I got my support from, where my networks were. And being an immigrant, being in in transit all the time, I think that was the beauty of being able to have other women who are going through the same stages that we were actually able to make family for each other. So honestly, my my my son's first memory is of Simone, my friend Marianne Perez's son Simone. And so, you know, and we carry these friendships and we carry these relationships across borders and cultures and time zones. And I think it's been some of the most beautiful parts, you know, I think being able to be a mom who can meet the other mom, even if you've passed that stage, but you're able to just share a little bit of wisdom that can just show up on a dark day and really help them, or just really be there and be like, you know, um, how about you just go take a how about you go take a nap and I'll make you some Kari and I'll leave it there for you, you know? So those those I think are universal. Motherhood everywhere is very, very difficult, very lonely at the best of times. And I think I've been I've been lucky to be able to have received and given back.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

I I love the idea that we, while we're across different nations, all of us as moms are isolated and and having a challenging time, no matter what the world looks like for us. You mentioned that one of your son's first memories or experiences were alongside another family. In terms of raising sons in in the world today with a more feminist lens, I'll I'll categorize it. What are your thoughts, given your cultural experiences, both within your own culture and ones that you've kind of steeped and immersed yourself in? What are your thoughts in that area?

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Gosh. My first reaction to that is like, all right, let's get into it. Let's go, Jessica. Give it to me. Let's let's let's bring it up and and be and be ready for the be ready to be hearing a monologue for the next two hours. Because oh my God, oh my God, it is, and and uh, and having a son and a daughter and and looking at this world, embracing and and trying not to bury, you know, not trying to raise your daughter and bury your son under all he needs to learn and all that she needs to unlearn, you know. Gosh, no one's ever talked about this. I feel the thing is just so buried in there. But honestly, you've touched uh very much something which is very, very passionate for me right now as the mom of a son. Because, and and and I think I'll say right off the bat that anyone, you know, I there there's there's no apologies for the fact that many people will probably be like, oh my gosh, she's definitely not a feminist, because this is something that I'm still not hearing on so many from so many influencers, from so many psychologists, etc., which I think is rather unfair because it's almost like this conversation is so female focused. It's so much about how there's a toxic masculine brand out there and how the focus is so much on what girls have to unlearn and what they should be learning, etc. etc. And for me, the conversation is so it is so half, it is so incomplete because we just can't leave out. I think right now we're 48 to 52 percent, uh, you know, 48% men globally and 52% women. I don't think we can, I'll I'll say that we we can't do this without men. We will not be able to do this without other men. And also uh also I don't want to leave my son out. This 48% also includes my son. I am not willing to throw in the towel on my son. I am not giving up on him. And what we are doing right now, most of the work around uh around this is about uh we because we seem to kind of separate the fact that our boys are tomorrow's men, and we are only talking about today's man and how today's man is so m so toxic, you know, and we value our self-care and our self-preservation and everything. We also need to talk about where this man came from, you know, and I'll share something very intimate because we're three sisters, and I grew up with a father who, on one hand, is extremely progressive, liberal, forward-looking, and taught his girls to be professional women, to learn English because that was going to be the language of the future, et cetera, et cetera, and dream big and we can go and do everything and supported us through our life decisions always. But as a husband, he was not a good husband. He is not a good husband. He is not a protective husband. He has abused his wife on at multiple different levels, right? And yet, here we are, and for the last decade, I have spoken to him about the Me Too campaign. I have spoken to be to him about harassment, about sexual harassment. I have fought and won a sexual harassment case at my university, the first of its kind in Pakistan about 15 years ago. I am that daughter who brings it all back to him. Of course, my sisters do that equally, basically, you know. So the thing is, I now and it's not it's not just I remember on my my first coming in my culture, it was very, very common, uh, you know, to to have an arranged marriage. And my mom, my first marriage was arranged by my mother to someone who I didn't know. We just literally met in the afternoon. That very stereotypical idea of a girl taking a tea tray and being showed off like a lamb and being chosen for marriage was literally what happened to me. And that guy abused me. He would be verbally abusive. He would call me names, he would blame me for stuff, etc. And at one point hit me as well. I was obviously very, very depressed. And this was literally right before I was supposed to move into his family's house. And my dad noted me being very depressed and he said, Hey, what's up with you? And I didn't, I just because in my culture it was like, Oh, it's okay, it happens to you know to all women. And so I was like, it's all, you know, I'm this is not something un unusual. And because he kept on persisting, I eventually told him. He literally picked up the phone that very moment, called up the guy, and said, You know what? It's been a pleasure knowing you. Thank you very much for the last six months. My daughter will not be getting married to you. I'm sending you the divorce papers tomorrow morning. Literally, that was the phone call. And my mom is like, have you lost it? This is fair place. This is pretty common. We're gonna talk to him, blah, blah, blah. My dad's like, no, there is no conversation. She's gonna get married to him tomorrow and move to Canada. I don't know what's gonna happen to her there. So this man had a flip side when it came to his daughters. So there is all this to say. These men are not some foreign alien versions. There's been a history. My dad, I'm sure, saw this in his culture, which is what he then replicated, you know. The point is we need to go back there and do that work rather than just cutting off people in the name of self-care, feminism, or whatever other label we want to stick on it. Because as I said earlier, I am not willing to throw in the towel on my son, on my nephews, on my adopted nephews, and all the boys who come to my home and call me Auntie Maria. I'm not ready to give up on these young men.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's so many of us women who identify as feminist and are are all into the movement, and then we have sons, and we're like, okay, wait, what do we do now? I think we feel this deep, I'll speak for myself. I feel this deep responsibility to raise a son who is aware of what our world looks like today, whether it's where where we live in our city, in our our sphere, our social sphere, or beyond. I feel a deep responsibility to raise him in a way that is not only like acknowledging and embracing what it is to be a woman, but an ally to women and understanding what we go through as women and moms and what we're up against. And I feel overwhelm about like, all right, well, where do where do I start? How do I start to teach him um the values that I have as a woman and make them understandable to him, but also not want to um put this narrative on him that like all men are bad, all men do bad things, and not allow him to um live in that like masculine taking care of providing physical behaviors that are associated with men often. I would love to know your perspective on this, given that you have so much different cultural experience, both your own and observed and immersed in. I would love to hear your thoughts or words of advice in this area.

SPEAKER_02 26:09

You're very kind. You're very, very kind to say I might have advice. I think I'm actually gonna pick from exactly which use that actually is taking all of this in. And I feel like in a very different way, this is the cycle that stops with us. This is the cycle that we've got to break. This is where we put the brakes on. We read everything, we hear all of this, and we've got to say, what is it that I can filter out of here and share with my son to make him a better human being? More than anything, first of all, a better human being. Later on, a better boy, a better man, a better husband, partner, whatever it may be, you know. And I think that I think that going back again perhaps to the communication is is, I think, very important. But of course, filtering that, making it age appropriate for them, you know, is very, very important. And I think that it's and I think that if we we we perhaps the easiest way that they can understand it is when we personalize it to us as their mom. I've noticed just this morning my throat was off and I was just not being able to speak. And he got out the laundry, which is something he hates doing. He got out the laundry, he undid the dishwasher, he's thinking about all of these things. There's little moments when I'll just be like, hey, honey, I left my pads there. Can you bring them to me? Or hey, honey, you know, your sister's coming up, you know, she's probably gonna have, you know, cramps or stuff like that when she's having her period, you know, be there for her. And while you're there for her, your classmates are already gonna start doing it. So if you ever see that a classmate of yours has gone to the bathroom and she's taking too long to come back, then probably just go knock gently and ask her if she needs a jumper to cover her skirt and come out. You know, be her ally. Don't laugh at her. It's a very embarrassing moment. It's not something she can control, but it can happen. And it's happened, obviously. It's happened to me. And I've told them, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm bleeding so much. Um, you know, this happened. So these are the things I feel like if we start normalizing, talking about this, you know. And and I talk about the fact that look, honey, your dad was really good at cooking as well, you know, because it's also how much kids see we were laughing together. I remember this was almost three years ago. He had a school project or something, and he came back and he's very proudly telling us about it. You know, they asked me what my parents do and what the house runs like. And I told them that my mom does all the cooking. And my dad is usually busy at the office, and his father was horrified. He's like, Honey, I cook at least three times a week. I feel like shriveling up and dying in embarrassment over what your teachers must think of me. And I said, Hun, your mommy learned how to cook after she got married to daddy. This is not something mommy likes. Mommy loves being in the office, you know. And, you know, but it's so much of what they see rather than, you know, what is inherited that narratives that are running in their own heads, right? So it's, I honestly feel like I don't have much advice to say, but just being very cognizant of what we are exposed to and how do we actually turn around and do the storytelling for them so that they can, you know, pick up the nice stuff and they don't necessarily need to be exposed to all the dark and gritty at a very young age.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah, no, I love that advice of of just communicating through what you're experiencing as their mom. I grew up with sister, a sister as well, and my husband grew up with a brother. So like I feel like I'm teaching two people the the female experiences in the world. But it's it's so amazing to be able to um like I feel like it's a gift to give to my son and also my husband to like better understand what the world looks like for for women today and how we can be as a family open to communicating about it and being more um aware of what it all looks like.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. There's so many nuances, you know. It's like you never read about it. And I'm just like thinking, I'm like, I need to get my daughter to read like how the brain, how the female brain is versus the male brain, you know, because I could have saved myself from so much frustration with my husband had I just known that it's not just he's just being, you know, intentionally cruel to me. It's just that it just he just doesn't see it, you know. He's just he's not seeing totally.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

So I would like to talk a little bit more about your experience with migration, safe migration and inclusion, access to services for migrant families. How did this work start? Where did it come from? And what has the journey been?

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Um well, thank you first off for your interest and again the opportunity to talk about this. I think immigration, again, you know, not something I'd ever actually thought about. But of course, you know, I was a month old when my mom traveled to the Middle East or the Gulf, you know, for the first time with me and my brother, because my dad was there. So, you know, life in transit was always my norm, never thought about it. And uh, and and so I guess it was that thread was there. But where I shifted specifically into migration, I would say very, very specifically, was um when in 2009 the US-led war against terrorism in um in alliance with Pakistan was happening at the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And that I was covering that as a journalist at that time. And so we had about three million people who moved from up north because the Pakistan military was bombing the borders to basically get out the terrorists, according to them. And so this three million people overnight had become homeless. They had like moved into families, houses, and everything. And I because I was covering that, I was just looking at it firsthand. I was seeing it further firsthand because obviously migration, the way I had migrated, had always been a very privileged version of it. And so these people were suddenly displaced in their own home and they didn't know where to go. So while I was just doing this, there was an opportunity to also become the communications consultant for one of these projects where um they were trying to communicate about the importance of this or something along those lines. And so that was that little piece of consultancy I was doing at that time. And and next thing I knew, I was being offered a job by the International Organization for Migration, which is the UN body on migration. And so we started off, I was a one-off consultant, and there the idea was we want to provide information to the people who are being affected by either disasters or by conflict as to where is humanitarian aid available, where should they go, what should they do? So it was very, it was very small. I was the only person working on it initially. And this was 2009, September, November, and December, September through December. No, actually, no, July, yeah, in June, in June about 2010, we had these overnight floods hit Pakistan. We had over 21 million people who were affected, and the floods were moving from the north to the south. We had so many people, all of these 21 million people displaced within the country overnight that we just didn't know where to start. I had to put together a team of 200 people and we started working on all of this, providing humanitarian aid and everything. And so that lived experience of migration for these people, I was, you know, I was in tents with them, I was in the rains with them, I was in vaccination rounds with them, I was watching them put up tents and watching those tents get flooded away again with the next round of rains, watching children get sick, setting up schools in tents for them. That whole experience, you know, that I really, really connected to and it became my thing. Simultaneously, my father became a refugee in the United States as well. And we ourselves became a family which was torn across borders. So everything that I was doing out there suddenly came home. So that live path and experience also became a whole different layer that helped me understand people and their needs very much. So yeah, so this is what this was 2010, and here we are, I think almost 16 years later. It's been what I do. Um, and and I work around a range of its work. So it's on borders, I work with border governance officials, I work with country representatives, ministries of interior, foreign affairs, UN delegates, so anyone and everyone, including fundraiser, donors, other stakeholders who are part of it, engaging technology because obviously all our documents today are one big database, you know. And so where passports read, how are ID documents made? How does fraud happen? You know, how does trafficking take place? What happened during COVID? How does social media become a part of all of this? You know, so just very, very huge, deep and intricate layers of all of this that I work at that I've worked over for the last 16 years. So this is the migration story. And of course, interwoven with all of this is my own migration. Again, privileged, but migration all the same between the southern hemispheres of all continents.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

I think it's so interesting. We get so I live here in the States and it we get so focused on what's happening in our own countries that we don't realize that migration is happening everywhere and displacement is happening everywhere. What are some of the common threads that you see with all of all of the migration work that you're doing between moms and women kind of navigating these spaces and how we can all empower each other through these experiences?

SPEAKER_02 36:03

So I think the one broad one that I would say is that we being privileged in one way or the other, um, you know, maybe by not being a refugee, by maybe being a privileged tourist migrant or being someone who's able to have a passport which is not penalized because it's on some blacklist or because there's some pla political status quo between your country and the other country that you want to visit. These are all traveling in and migration privileges that almost nobody thinks of as we are traveling, we're going for holidays with the family and all of these things. So I think first and foremost is actually recognizing that, that you know, anytime you're able to pick up your passport and just make a plan about going somewhere with your family, there you are. That's your first privilege. I think secondly, I think that when we that we should know that although a lot of so-called policies and everything are made, everything that is said about, and I would say almost everything, I would go as far as saying 100% of what we hear about immigration in the news is just complete, absolute misinformation. It is completely lies, which are motivated by political decisions and political motivations of the moment, literally. Over and over, there are global studies showing how migration brings in our diversity, innovation, good business growth, you know, betterment for society, diversity that actually opens up each other's minds, closeness, intimacy between neighbors, you know, how we allow ourselves to connect and just be human. So there are so many different things out there where now, now if someone believes the narrative in mainstream media about migration, is it's just simply because of their choice. It's because they don't want to actually get in and challenge their own thoughts and challenge their own limited beliefs, and that's why they want to go with that. It's not a lack of information, it is not a lack of studies, research, and evidence. It is by choice that they are choosing to be a bigot or a racist or xenophobe against immigrants. That's the second thing. I think specifically to talking about moms, and this is your question comes at a very apt time, that because for right now, I'm actually doing the evaluation of the national integration plan for immigrants in Uruguay, which was developed about three years ago by various departments of the government. And my work right now is looking at it. How much did this program actually do for the integration of female immigrants in the country? And you'd be fascinated to see that there are most immigration national plans, do not actually specifically look at the scope of how women are gonna be going through the immigration process, you know. And a lot of the immigration being in this region has been Venezuelan, has been Cuban. We're seeing the Cuban one come through right now. The situation is so bad. We see women, women are fleeing because of gender-based violence. They are fleeing because they want to have safer places for their children. These are literally the two top reasons why women are coming. Women are not grifters, they're not drifters, they're not coming because economic impact they just want security. Security is the number one reason. And so it is absolutely heartbreaking to see news that people are being deported. And you more often than not, you will actually see mothers, young mothers, you know, and babies being stripped of their moms. I still cannot get over the horrors of how a couple of years ago children were separated and kept in detention centers. I cannot imagine the nights that those journalists have had who covered those stories, who actually heard those children in the warehouses that were being run by Amazon. It's horrors that I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine what must go through those moms' minds every second of the day, not knowing where their children have been lost in the system. We have, as as moms, as women, we have tremendous responsibility. We have tremendous alliances to build. We have to get out there and fight it at every step in any platform in any way that we can. We have to build these alliances. We really need to be there. And I'll share something very quickly here. I hold a Pakistani passport. My husband holds a Latin American passport and a British passport. My children are British, Pakistani, and Latin American at the same time. They hold three passports. And one of the things that my husband has been working on for the last eight years is my right to a nationality post-naturalization in the country where I am in Uruguay right now. Because in case of any emergency, and he had the foresight, being a diplomat himself, he had a foresight to think about this. Because he said if there's an emergency at any point in time, the kids and I can simply jump onto a plane to the to the UK. You'll be left behind. And there have been times at the border where I have been separated from my children. And the horror of that, Jessica, is something that can literally, it's just it's giving me goosebumps right now. And I am a person who I consider myself a privileged person because I can talk to border officials, I can tell them what is wrong with the documentation, I understand what's happening. Imagine people who cannot do that because they don't know what's happening, because they don't have the language, they don't have the resources, they don't know where to go to. And especially mothers. Oh my gosh, mothers. It's that pain is here for all those mothers. I hold it in my womb and it's something that I carry with me all the time.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Yeah. What are ways that we can start to like we were saying, this stuff is unfortunately happening most everywhere. What are things that we can do as women and mothers to start to build those alliances that you're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 42:02

So I think within the US, I think there's some great infrastructure where um young moms can actually get guidance. You know, I think volunteering at organizations, helping women understand what their rights are. Like with many other things, we always say prevention is better than treatment. So actually getting people to getting immigrants to know their rights before something happens, you know, helping them develop emergency toolkits, you know, um, of what they should know, what should they have on themselves at all times? What documents do their children need? Maybe for me and my husband, for example, and this came about as a need, a practical need, because we always were traveling without work. Maybe actually having a hard drive or a cloud where you have all your documents. So if your documents get taken away from you, they get ripped, you at least have a photograph of your documents available with you, you know? So it's things like that. It's very scary. It's very scary. But actually developing small workshops for young children. There's a certain age that they can't understand. Imagine just leaving your five-year-old on the other side of the border. They're very young to understand this, you know. They they you cannot anticipate. But yes, maybe your nine-year-old, your 10-year-old, having them know things, you know, just things like, hey, honey, this can, and I have told my kids about this. Hey, honey, this can happen at some time. Don't worry about it. Everything's gonna be fine. These are the numbers you need to know. This is what you need to do. So again, you know, I think walking through every possibility that can happen. And this I'm saying because your audience is very global, honestly. I'd say it looks very different in very different countries, you know. Actually being, you know, part of NGOs and movements which are fighting, you know, again, going back to those, the detention of those children, you know, helping journalists, supporting journalists who are actually following the story. Do not let the story die. Don't let it just be a headline from one week to another. Support those journalists, support independent journalism, which is actually doing good work on migration stories. It's all these little ways that um that we can work with, and of course, go to NGOs and volunteer your time. Because sometimes these children just need to be held and hugged, you know. Their nervous systems need to calm down, they need to get out of that cortisol cycle, you know. Try figuring out how you can help them. Okay, they've lost a parent. We don't know when the parent's gonna come back. But what can we do for the child, you know? So it's different levels. And I feel like anyone, everyone, where it can help in one form or the other, find ways that you can contribute to this.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Yeah. And I think so much can be done on a small local level. I know for me here, I live in a community that has a large Hispanic population and there's so many moms and women who are gathering together to make these toolkits and get these um these families the information that they need in our local area. So I think it shouldn't be underplayed or undermined how important local organizations are to uh a migration commun migrating community um I would love to ask more given your journalism background what kind of advice do you have for us moms and women who have a bit have busy days whether we're in the office or we're working for ourselves and our plates full with family how can we navigate the media noise and be more media literate in in a world that's like full social media, everything gets posted, nothing is vetted. How do we become more media literate in this busy crazy world?

SPEAKER_02 45:48

Oh gosh, this is not this is not prepaid publicity NPR QKED you know news channels like the NPR again supporting public journalism, you know, understanding I know nobody has time for this but understanding how the news network works how the how the communication how the media network works you know what newspaper is owned by what channel and what channel is owned by what owner who is supporting what political party I know this is a very long chain to to follow and to know but honestly I feel like there are a couple of avenues again the US being so developed in this I think looking up sources like the NPR for example the PBS for example you know our are starting points. I think most of us now have unless you are a serious news reader and moms unfortunately don't have not that they're not but unfortunately don't have the time so often our news is actually on a TikTok video or something. I think be very very careful of who you're consuming, what you're consuming, you know, from one day to another you'll be like oh I've been watching this kid or this guy or this influencer or political analyst for four years now you know and everything makes sense what he says and whatever. And then you know one day their their stream starts getting flooded depending on where they have gotten their influence from and um and and then I mean we all know there is is paid brand strategy this um paid content which obviously is not going to be it's not a it's not a it's not an Adidas brand or an IQ brand that somebody's marketing so it's not going to be very easy to see. It's just woven into the narrative so you know I do think honestly that there are some brilliant voices like Trevor Noah and uh others you know who have been been walking that line have been educating have been making us laugh at the same time but yet have also been raising issues you know the daily show for Gottix what what brilliance you know um Jimmy. So it's uh I feel like it's you know don't don't I'm not asking you to go into a lot of depth. I'm just saying pick your few even if they're just three pick your three and get your news from them.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Are there any other things that you think are really important for moms to know about supporting those bridges to um other moms in other countries or in your local community or about um like just strengthening those bonds between mothers across the globe or anything about the work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

I'm very glad you asked that because that's something that I really do want to share with all moms and this is a conversation that just came out with the Epstein files. And I'm sure that you must have had that conversation in your circles and probably on with other guests as well. Um and I'll say the following I was actually just recently in the US in California and I had the one of my aunts who lives there and the other one who was visiting from Pakistan. One of them has recently become a grandmother the other way uh the other one's daughters are also pretty old at university and etc. And so we were talking about the Epstein files of course and we were talking about how it all works how does this happen how does really grooming trafficking smuggling of children happen through the social media how it's happening through um you know games that we all thought were like really safe for our children and next thing you know Philadelphia has a child who has been you know trafficked a Down syndrome child who's been trafficked from California all the way to Philadelphia state through roadblocks and you're just horrified like oh my God how did that happen you know so things like that that we were having conversations with and you know and of course my aunts uh from the different societies in that way and of course my cousins as well young mothers themselves questioning exactly this you know we've got very full sort tables and plates and careers and and a life what do we do with this how do we protect our children what do we do and I think that one of the things that women I think know very well is that community and network is what gets things done for women first of all I think it's the way it gets things done for everybody but specifically for women we know our sisters have got our back and that's how we survive you know how we survive breakups how we survive walking out of jobs how we survive cervical cancer and how we survive family breakups you know so we we know all that right and that was one of the things that I was saying to my aunts you know the one who's a grandmother and she said but I don't I don't really understand what could I do actually and I said you know what actually the thing is we need to understand that at every stage of our life we have something different to offer for example if you cannot do this right now let's suppose you cannot actually be first of all I think as a woman who is 62 years old living in the society of Pakistan and traveling between the United States and Pakistan the number one thing that you can do you can start getting grandmothers around around your kitchen table around your coffee table and you can start talking to them about this. Start educating yourself start learning what happened with the Epstein thing start learning what's happening with esports which Roblox, Minecraft, etc are now called basically esports. Start learning how does this work start understanding what the dangers of YouTube are. Your daughter is a lawyer she it knows this because this is part of her work and she's of this generation but if you don't know about it educate yourself and then start educating other grandmothers because um young moms are leaving children with you. If you are actually just slamming them onto the iPad and leaving them there, you should be observing what's happening to your child. You can actually be educating yourself on how to have a conversation with a young child so they know how to protect themselves so they know what they're looking out for. Let's suppose you can't do that. Okay then maybe what you can do right now is empower your daughter to reach other women take care of her daughter so that she has more free time. Make her food you know leave food frozen food in her in her fridge so that she has more time to dedicate to get out there so she can do her work and she spends some loving care time with her child. But other than that she knows everything else is taken care of so the thing is all of us have different roles at different parts of life right now you're a grandmother if you were younger you'd have a different role if you were a lawyer you'd have a different role if you were a gendarist you'd have a different role if you worked at the Immigration agency you'd have a different role. My point is look at yourself. Where are you? What can you do right now and give that support because anywhere there is a woman a mother needing some kind of support and I'll end with this there are right now there's a global movement going on by leading female actors like the UN women or the labor organization or many others who are looking at the fact and of course we've read a lot of evidence about this is that women invariably carry more of the care labor which is unpaid. So back policies that are providing support to women back policies where moms can actually have childcare at work back policies where mothers are able to count on decent care for their children so that they can actually earn a good livelihood. It is appalling that I actually have to make the choice of taking care of my child rather than going to work something that I trained my entire life for because paying a nanny is the same thing as earning and or not earning, you know, it's appalling that this is the reality of women everywhere in the world right now we're losing out on our youth on our working years because we don't have policies that work that work for us you know and so um and and and again I'll connect this with the part where we talked about men and boys when you're talking about destroying toxic masculinity we also need to open up opportunities for men to be able to connect with their babies to have emotional feelings to express that love to be able to change diapers and take paternal leave so support policies where men also have a share in the labor of care and love and emotions because it is also their right it's not just because we need it that it's also their right so yeah find where you are and what can you do because there's a lot to be done. Well is there anything that you would like to plug to our audience honestly I think um if I have managed to leave anyone thinking with the with what this one beautiful life that they can do something with, you know, that they've reached out to one mom, they've been able to connect they've been able to provide support if that's something that I've managed to achieve thanks to you today with our conversation today, I think that already is more than enough that I'm leaving everyone with because um that that's um the root that you give it the colour you draw the flower grow the tree and the rest will happen by itself because um I think that if we can actually feel the pain of another mother of another woman the way it feels to us when it's about our children a part of our body then there ain't no fury and wrath like the fury and wrath of a mother whose cub has been touched. And imagine if we pulled all of that together globally imagine everything that we would change. Oh thank you so much this has been amazing thank you very much it'll be an honor I'd love to and I hope we'll be talking again in the future with many different things because gosh this this hour went by so fast. I loved every minute thank you so much again for having me for all the very lovely questions for have and honestly I feel like I'm walking away with uh nothing unsaid you know you got me at all the right places so thank you for doing all of that thank you for being an excellent journalist thank you very much I hope everyone enjoys the episode if this conversation resonated with you I'd love for you to follow the podcast wherever you listen and share it with another mom building something meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

If you want deeper behind the scenes reflections that I don't share anywhere else join my email list at the Mama Making Podcast dot com. Thank you for being here and I'll see you next time.