Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Abstract

Worldwide, women's equality remains elusive in the social, political, civil, economic and cultural spheres. Such reality presents a challenge in the movement of persons across state borders because, globally, the world is experiencing a feminization of migration. In turn, the feminization of migration effects threats to the health and safety of migrant women, whose well-being is in peril at all stages of the migration journey – from the country of origin, to the transit states, to the receiving state – from smugglers and official actors alike. Because the globalization discourses exclude the movement of persons and focus on the movement of goods and services, migrants become invisible. This work suggests a paradigmatic shift in the way institutions engage migration – from a system that treats migrants as disposable people and focuses on legality of presence to a human rights-inspired one that centers on migrants' well-being and dignitary interests. In support of this shift, this essay employs the overarching frameworks of glocalization and of marginableness to fill the existent void in the current conversations on migration. Three premises are foundational in the discussion: one, woman is not a monolithic category and its meaning is culturally dependent so it is imperative not to exclude any "woman;" two, there is no monolithic migrant woman and some, such as LGBT migrants, face mutidimensional challenges; and, three, the human rights system utilized is not the existent one but rather one reimagined without it being tethered to its western, heteronormative, patriarchal, colonialist, racialized, sexist origins. Such a reimagined human rights paradigm provides the foundation for migrants' protections in their perilous journeys.

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