From One Hell to Another: Exploring the Continuities of Violence against Migrant Women

Abstract This article examines the violence experienced by migrant women on their migration journeys and in their destination countries, aiming to identify analogies and similarities. It first analyses the inhuman treatment migrant women are subject to on the central Mediterranean route between sub-Saharan countries, Libya and Italy, and on the route between Central America, Mexico, the United States and Canada. Sexual violence is used as a systematic practice of dehumanisation aimed at the submission, control and commodification of women. It then examines the working and living conditions of female migrant workers in Italy’s and Canada’s agricultural sectors. Various characteristics of this sector reinforce these women’s vulnerability, exposing them to different forms of violence. Using a social production of violence lens, the article shows there are various continuities, primarily of gender-based violence against migrant women, which are an integral part of the political economy of violence now characteristic of global migration.