Gender stereotypes in human mobility: reflections and challenges from the Global South

Despite the significant and continuous presence of women in mobility processes, the androcentric and paternalistic agenda based on gender stereotypes continues to dominate legislation on migration and refuge, particularly in the Global South. This chapter critically examines the dilemma and crossroads of regulations at the international and Argentine national levels, focusing on the different legal treatments of migration and forced displacement and their impact on the construction and validation of the migrant subject, as opposed to the refugee subject. This analysis draws on decolonial and intersectional feminist perspectives and focuses on the case of Senegalese women in Argentina and highlights the anachronism created by legislation regarding the construction of stereotypes of suffering and positions of inequality. The research is based on the triangulation of official statistical information from the Argentine National Directorate of Migration and the National Commission for Refugees, with interviews conducted with Senegalese women. Results show that the Argentine migratory legislation classifies people deserving of asylum according to their compliance with vulnerability and suffering patterns, blind to the specificities and complexities faced by migrant women, like Senegalese. They end up resorting to the asylum system to regularize their migratory status but with negative results, due to the systematic pattern of exclusion in the treatment of asylum applications.