Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights in Transit: A Grounded Exploration of Mobile Women’s Health Needs

The sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of migrant women remains underexamined in both policy and academic discourse, in part because of dominant nation-bound and residency-based assumptions embedded in state institutions, assumptions that prioritise fixed populations and marginalise those who live in conditions of mobility. This study explores how female international students (FIS) in South Korea experience and articulate their SRH while navigating social and institutional contexts that render them peripheral. Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty-eight FIS currently or formerly enrolled at Korean universities, as well as with a migrant women’s rights activist, a counsellor at a nonprofit organisation, two government officials, and five FIS who had supported peers facing SRH-related concerns, the study reveals a range of health-related challenges. These include menstrual health problems, limited access to contraception and maternity care, unsafe abortion practices, risky sexual behaviours, mental health struggles, and substance use. Contrary to the common assumption that FIS enjoy relative privilege as globally mobile, highly educated women, the findings show that their health vulnerabilities are shaped by legal status, institutional inattention, and sociocultural exclusion. This research calls for greater empirical and theoretical attention to the SRH of mobile women, whose health is not only socially determined but also materially shaped by the legal, spatial, and institutional configurations of the societies they move through. Understanding and addressing these dynamics is essential to advancing SRH rights in contexts of transnational mobility.