Intersectionality and the Vulnerability of Irregular Migrant Women to Sexual Assault: the Journey and Arrival to the U.S./Mexico Border

Abstract

This research looks at the sexual assault of irregular migrant women on the journey and arrival to the United States/Mexico border from an intersectional perspective. It aims to analyze this topic through understanding cultural issues and changes at the border which have fomented abuse of migrants’ human rights, and combines the academic research with data regarding irregular migration, militarization of the border, and gender statistics. The research aims to investigate how various factors and developments of the U.S./Mexico border have led to a more precarious experience for migrants, and how these situations lend themselves to the perpetration of sexual violence of female migrants. The study focuses on desk research to understand the connections between academic research and statistical information, and is interpreted through feminist intersectionality theory. The study zooms in on several scenarios of violence en route and upon arrival to the U.S./Mexico border and underlines that the situations lend themselves to particular vulnerability of sexual assault for irregular migrant women. In applying intersectionality, the space of irregular migrant women is analyzed through three axes of power: militarization, legal status, and gender. In analyzing the connections and imbrications of systems of power, it becomes clear that the subjects in question are marginalized and subordinated in various and interconnected ways. This study concludes that more meaningful and gender-sensitive research is necessary because the subjects in question are being compromised and have little feasible recourse for justice or proper acknowledgement.