The lonely crossing of female immigration in Portugal

The number of women in migratory flows has increased considerably in recent years. The transformations resulting from this increase generate the need to understand these phenomena from a gender perspective. Considering this general premise, the focus of this article is female immigration in Portugal. Thus, our main objective is to understand how the process of female immigration in Portugal takes place, from its inception, in the face of a sudden break in national ties, to settling in Portuguese society and the use of support networks that are satisfactory for the safety, integration and social inclusion. This article presents an analysis of the female immigration process in Portugal based on data collected through the Voices of Immigrant Women project. The methodological approach of this study is quantitative, and the data was collected by a questionnaire addressed exclusively to immigrant women living in Portugal, forming a non-probabilistic snowball sample of 62 immigrant women. According to the results obtained, the majority of the women surveyed indicated that they feel there are not enough personal and institutional solidarity networks that promote the integration and social inclusion of immigrant women. We can therefore conclude that we are dealing with a lonely and somewhat neglected migratory journey in women’s international displacement, which requires specific policies from a gender perspective.