The Invisible Migrant: The lack of acknowledgement of the gendered experience of female migrants

This essay will discuss how gender frames current debates on migration. I will look at how the insecurity suffered by female immigrants are not fully recognised, as discourses and policies at the EU level are mostly de-gendered, effectively leaving female migrants without security. I will then look at how the media coverage of migration tends to focus on the image of the male young migrant as a threat concerning criminal events. In contrast, female migrants are mostly posed as victims of their own culture and society (Georgiou & Zaborowski, 2017:12).

The terms ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’ are often conflated, however, for this essay I will be using definitions from Amnesty International (2021). A ‘refugee’ is considered to be an individual who has fled their country due to the risk of human rights violation and persecution; refugees seek international help as their own country has failed to protect them. An ‘asylum-seeker is an individual who has left their country for the same reasons as a refugee, but they are not yet granted asylum in another country and therefore are not legally recognised as ‘refugees’. A ‘migrant’ is a much broader term, which has no legally accepted definition, however can be seen to be people who stay outside of their country of origin. Refugees and asylum-seekers are both types of migrants, a sub-category, however, many migrants do not flee their country for fear of persecution, but leave for a multitude of other reasons. (Amnesty International, 2021).

In 2018, there were an estimated 258 million international migrants (IOM, 2018), with just under half of women. Within the European Union (EU), migrant women can find themselves in more insecure positions than their male counterparts due to many reasons including, “their lack of independent legal status, the difficulty of access to adequate health and social security provisions, and because of their particular vulnerability to both domestic and institutional forms of violence”(Freedman, 2003:2; Freedman, 2016). In 2013, The Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) produced a report, noting that dependent legal status hindered migrant women; and that many women were at “risk of losing their status following workplace exploitation or the breakdown of a relationship including experiences of domestic violence at the hands of partner or spouse in a regular situation” (OHCHR, 2013:3) despite their supposed access to independent residency. Whilst access to independent residency may be available, it can be difficult, especially for undocumented women, to gather evidence of their own documents or evidence of abuse within marriages, as many fear reporting crimes to the local authorities for fear of deportation (Engelbrecht, 2018:1). 

Migrant women also face a “particularly high level of deskilling” (Kofman, 2012:69) as their professional roles are often unrecognised in the media. This is conveyed in many countries as “literature on female migration has increasingly come to focus on their role in the domestic and caring sector” (Kofman, 2012:72), meaning that often when gender is considered in migration debates, it usually refers to the migrant mother rather than skilled female workers who are disproportionately ignored in comparison to their male counterparts (Kofman, 2012:73). In another article documenting gendered divisions in labour, “women are working in sectors other than their original training… they work at levels below their qualifications within the occupation” (Rubin et al., 2009:72). Take, for instance, the example of migrant women working as nursing aides even if they are qualified nurses.

In terms of health care, compared to other EU citizens, women who have migrated to the EU tend to have poorer sexual and reproductive health; they are screened less often for cervical cancer, they have less access to contraceptives and family planning and often have “poorer pregnancy outcomes” (Keygnaert et al., 2014:216) which include forced abortion and complications after pregnancy. Issues surrounding migrant sexual and reproductive health are largely ignored or not considered despite agencies such as the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights aiming to treat migrant sexual health issues as public health concerns (EUFRA, 2020).  Overall, female migrants often go overlooked and under-protected, with policies that neglect to consider the specific needs of women.

In 2019, there was an increase in displaced individuals, at 79.5 million with 45.7 million being internally displaced, 26.0 million with refugee status and only 4.2 million by comparison with asylum seeker status (UNHCR, 2019:2). The main distinction between asylum seekers and refugees, other than status, is that asylum seekers can be deported or be kept in a country only temporarily. For female asylum seekers, the experience can be vastly different and difficult due to the lack of safeguarding and cultural roles.

Taking a look at legislation and policies in place to protect migrants within Europe, often little is said about the experience of female migrants. In the EU Agenda of Migration, there is a diluted sense of the ‘refugee’ identity as, “Not one of the actions/aims considered in the document makes any reference to the existence of gender-specific dimensions or to women, in particular, conditions of vulnerability and/or specificity,”(Degani, 2019:8) meaning that by de-gendering the refugee experience women are not seen as vulnerable unless ill or pregnant, with no mention of women being victimised in refugee camps or as victims of sexual or gender-motivated violent attacks despite evidence if such events. In recent years, Theresa May’s government in the UK created a hostile environment for migrants, especially asylum seekers. A litany of cuts to Legal Aid across the last decade drastically affects asylum seekers. Female asylum seekers are at a disadvantage,  as law firms will only want to take cases they can be sure will win in court to ensure no loss of profit (Khaleeli, 2013) which disadvantages women as their cases are often more complex. It is ultimately harder for female asylum seekers to ‘prove’ their refugee status for many reasons. For instance, some women may be or may have been trapped in domestic roles making it more difficult for them to gain asylum on their own. Other women rarely prioritise gathering ‘evidence’ to prove their need for refugee status as their main concern is getting to safety (Dorling et al., 2012).

In Callamard’s article on refugee women, she states that “the interconnection between development and human rights for refugee women has seldom been fully realised”(Callamard, 2002:138). Callamard argues that using ‘refugee’ as a homogenised phrase masks other aspects and complexities that many refugees face based on their gender. There is a centre level of the refugee experience that goes unnoticed, as the refugee struggle is highly gendered and often sexualised; as Callamard argues, “discrimination and violence against refugee women are politically determined and politically sanctioned”(Callamard, 2002:138). Safeguarding for refugee women is often left out of legislation, as described above. Women are at higher risk of sexual violence and coercion throughout their journey to another country(Freedman, 2016.  While men and boys do experience sexual violence in conflict settings (Sivakumaran, 2007), it is women and girls who are disproportionately victimised in this way. The de-gendered approach to the refugee experience is also a result of how priorities for those vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees are organised, often leaving out ways to safeguard the vulnerable women in the camps.  However, some countries aim to tackle gendered-migratory disadvantages, as a campaign was launched in Germany called MiMi-Violence Prevention with Migrants for Migrants, which aimed to enable more female refugees to seek out help affected by Gender-Based Violence (UNHCR, 2020). The campaign trained 45 migrant women to become mediators, and as of writing, it has so far reached 4,519 refugee and migrant women who were affected by gender-based violence due to their migratory experience; these women may not have been able to seek help without the MiMi service, for lack of knowledge of their own rights and services or language barriers (Kizilhan & Salman, 2018). This gendered approach to dealing with gender-based violence for vulnerable refugee and migrant women is an example of the successful infrastructure needed to cope with an influx of immigrants who have faced conflict.

Aside from the most vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees, migration remains framed by gender in the current rhetoric surrounding male refugees settled in Europe. In recent years Germany has changed the immigration policy drastically, with Merkels’ statement on the “decision to open Germany’s borders temporarily to refugees and migrants without any border checks” (Dostal, 2017:590) from September 2015 to March 2016. Whilst Merkel’s policy was hailed by many as a great humanitarian move, Germany was not fully equipped for the vast majority of young male refugees coming into the country; 71% of applicants were under 30 years of age. Approximately 70% of applicants were male. The reaction to the increasing number of young male migrants to Germany has suffered mixed reports, with one of the most divisive acts occurring in Cologne and Hamburg on New Year’s Eve. An orchestrated attack on white women using sexual violence of groping, which the law didn’t penalise, disturbed society and resulted in a balancing act of trying to impose changes to the law and political action from feminists and women’s rights groups, but at the same time attempting to not stigmatise migrant men as a whole (Vieten, 2018). The current political climate has turned hostile toward migrants, with policies like Merkel’s open border being unpredictably catalytic in making way for a rise in far-right politics in Europe which aim to create a more nationalist and less cosmopolitan view of the country. Amongst other growing numbers of anti-immigration parties across Europe, Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) in Germany gained popularity in opposition to multiculturalism. The rhetoric the party uses generates a moral panic based on xenophobia, with a recent report stating “racism of leading AfD politicians is not limited to foreigners but is also directed against German citizens with a migrant background” (Molkenbur & Cooper, 2018:14).

A similar moral panic around male migrants occurred in Rochdale in England, in which gangs consisting largely of South Asian men lured working-class girls into sexual exploitation (Gill & Harrison, 2015). The main focus of the media dialogue on the attacks and surrounding issues with migrants became about race and nationality, rather than the criminal affairs and the victims. Tufail(2015) looked at an investigation by The Times, which was published two years after the initial sentencing of six offenders for the grooming of underage girls in the Rochdale area; however, The Times reported that “in the confidential police and council documents they had accessed, there was a reluctance to investigate and prosecute Asian offenders due to fear over exacerbating community tensions,”(Tufail,2015:31 ). This information enabled a rise in far-right groups, including the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), in the 2015 general election. In Tufail’s article, he argues that the media discourse following the attacks, which emphasised their religion, allowed for Islamophobia to be used against all Muslim communities in the country(Tufail, 2015). The growth of this new far-right is boosted by, “namely explicit racism, broad anti-immigrant politics,” (Mulhall, 2019:1), and whilst 60% of the public in 2018 agreed that immigration was good for Britain, Islamophobic views of Muslims still remain at high levels, with, “32% of people believed that there were ‘no-go areas’ in Britain where Sharia law dominates and non-Muslims cannot enter, with almost half of all Leave voters (49%) and Conservative voters (47%) stating that this was true,”(Mulhall, 2019:15) meaning there still remains a hostile view of those who are ‘different’ allowing xenophobia to be used by far-right politicians. In popular media outlets, views of Muslim immigrants, whilst not exclusively gendered, often do vary along gender lines, with women and men being viewed differently.

In Steiner’s article analysing the use of Muslim description in four Swedish newspapers, she notes that in one issue of a Swedish paper(Dagens Nyheter), Muslim women’s oppression in  Iran and Saudi Arabia is highlighted alongside the fear that these oppressive norms could become more apparent in Swedish society as an effect of immigration (Steiner, 2017) treating Muslim women as victims of their own cultural oppression as well as propellants of an oppressive culture which would clash with the ‘superior’ notion of Western liberalism. Muslim women are often viewed as ‘veiled’ and oppressed, as Western superiority in liberal terms deems covering oneself to be patriarchal. Muslim men, however, are often referred to as a threat, with Muslim women being vulnerable to their aggressive behaviours; one article focused on sexual assaults carried out by ‘immigrants’ posing all immigrant men as a sexual threat to both other migrant women and Swedish women (Steiner, 2017). Steiner notes that possibly the only positive view of the Muslim woman is that in many French media outlets, of a rebellious woman breaking out of her oppression (Steiner, 2017).

In conclusion, gender often goes unrecognised as an integral part of the migratory experience for immigrants and refugees settling in Europe. In today’s political climate, immigration is a divisive issue, with far-right political parties making rise off the back of policies of open borders and moral panics about immigrants posing a threat to a nation. Female immigrants are often left out of policy and legislation that is supposed to help them; without specifying gender, many women are not prioritised regarding their health, documentation and safety. Female migrants remain at higher risk of sexual assault in refugee camps, often with a lack of specialised health care for sexual and reproductive health. Male immigrants, however, garner a bad image in the public eye in Europe, with moral panics surrounding increased crime rates and media reporting focusing on race and nationality more so in terms of immigrant perpetrators.  Gender needs to be considered more often in migration debates to safeguard the most vulnerable women and avoid demonising male immigrants as a collective group.