The Difficult Inclusion of the Gender Perspective in the Protection of Migrant Women in Latin America

Abstract

The text addresses the feminization of the migration phenomenon in Latin America, highlighting, in particular, the causes, contexts, and specific vulnerabilities suffered by migrant women. Likewise, International and Inter-American standards are analysed, stressing the need to include the gender perspective to allow the construction of specific rights to protect migrant women. Lastly, some final reflections about the significant achievements obtained in the protection of migrant women so far, thanks to the inclusion of the gender approach, will be offered. This result has been possible thanks to the implementation of gender-sensitive regulations and policies, understood as those measures that include the gender perspective. These measures are in contrast to gender-neutral policies, which instead opt for a neutral approach that does not consider the gender (or sex) of the recipients of the norms. However, there are still pending challenges, which represent a significant obstacle to the fundamental protection of women’s rights in human mobility.

Keywords: feminization of migration, migrant women, vulnerability, fundamental rights, Latin America.