By the wayside: gender dimensions of stranded migrants during the COVID-19 crisis

In 2020, migrants around the world became stranded in transit and destination countries for reasons that first started with the imposition of travel restrictions, but went well beyond these initial restrictions within a matter of weeks to also encompass harsh lockdowns and a massive reduction in air travel globally. Loss of jobs and income, lack of employment, lack of flights, loss of residence permits and lack of resources to return home were among the factors that affected mobility and left people stranded in vulnerable situations all around the world. In exploring the gender dimensions of stranded migrants this chapter finds that aggregate data on stranded migrants - internal and international - is rare, with no data available on gender or sex disaggregation, meaning that we do not know with accuracy the demographic profile of the migrant population stranded during the initial phase of COVID-19. Further findings highlight that while gender-related differences in impacts of being stranded are evident from the literature, there was very little account taken of gender-specific issues and gender-sensitive responses to stranded migrants. This is despite several decades of evidence-based policy dialogues that had resulted in the development of international guidelines on migrants in countries in crises, which clearly articulate the criticality of gender-sensitive responses. Considerations of gender were put by the wayside to such an extraordinary extent as to be largely invisible during the pandemic notwithstanding the profound gender-related differences experienced by stranded migrants around the world.