Original Language
English
ISBN (PDF)
978-92-9268-893-6
Number of Pages
166
Reference Number
PUB2024/010/EL
Year of Publication
2024
Add to reading list

Linkages Between Trafficking, Smuggling, Labour and Migration Policy Regimes: Socioeconomic Implications for Women Migrant Workers

This report provides a situational analysis of women migrant workers in the countries of study (Côte D’Ivoire, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Sudan and Tunisia), and a legal and policy analysis of legal frameworks pertaining to migration, anti-trafficking, anti-smuggling and labour laws/regulations in these countries from a gender equality and women’s rights perspective. The research explores how gaps and inconsistencies between legal and policy instruments, independently and together, contribute to these phenomena, including the lack of socioeconomic integration. Significant gender discrimination and inequality as well as gaps and incoherence within and across policy domains and legal frameworks, pertaining to migration, employment, trafficking and smuggling, exist at national, bilateral and regional levels. This means that many women migrant workers fall through the cracks and face heightened insecurity, human and labour rights violations.

  • Acknowledgements 
  • List of tables and figures 
  • Abbreviations and acronyms 
  • Executive summary 
  • Section 1. Introduction and methodological approach 
    • 1.1. Objectives and scope
    • 1.2. Methodological approach
    • 1.3. Gender equality and rights-based analytical framework
  • Section 2. Methods and analysis 
    • 2.1. Legal and policy analysis.
    • 2.2. Primary data analysis
    • 2.3. Secondary data analysis
    • 2.4. Limitations of the data and ethical considerations
  • Section 3. Major corridors, countries and routes .
    • 3.1. Situational analysis of migration, smuggling and trafficking in the regions under study
    • 3.2. Countries in focus: Patterns and flows of migration and stocks of women migrants
      • 3.2.1. Countries of origin: Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and the Sudan 
      • 3.2.2. Countries of destination: Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia 
    • 3.3. Women migrant worker stocks and flows within the country corridors 
  • Section 4. Legal and policy analysis
    • 4.1. Gendered intersections: Labour migration, migrant smuggling and human trafficking
      • 4.1.1. Skills and pathways 
      • 4.1.2. Recruitment and pre-departure
      • 4.1.3. Labour and employment
      • 4.1.4. Social protection
      • 4.1.5. Access to services
      • 4.1.6. Legal protection
      • 4.1.7. Access to justice
      • 4.1.8. Migrant return and reintegration
  • Section 5. Key issues, challenges and recommendations. 89
    • 5.1. Key issues and challenges
    • 5.2. Recommendations
      • 5.2.1. Collect gender- and sex-disaggregated migration data
      • 5.2.2. Formulate evidence-based gender-responsive policies 
      • 5.2.3. Domesticate international legal provisions and norms taking gender into consideration 
      • 5.2.4. Create regular migration pathways 
      • 5.2.5. Regulate recruitment systems in gender-sensitive ways
      • 5.2.6. Protect the rights of both documented and undocumented women migrants 
      • 5.2.7. Respond to gendered challenges during return, recovery and re/integration
      • 5.2.8. Combat the gendered root causes
      • 5.2.9. Enhance women’s and girls’ capacities through an equal opportunity for education and training 
      • 5.2.10. Build synergies, partnerships and cooperation
  • Section 6. Conclusion