Gender in Migration Policies in South America: a case study of Argentina, Brazil and Chile

During the last decades, the world has experienced the phenomenon of feminization of migration. Migrant women are often subject to double discrimination, by being migrants and women. Therefore, this thesis analyses the migration regulations and policies of Argentina, Brazil and Chile, in order to understand their degree of gender sensitivity. The primary research question is: are women at a disadvantage during the immigration or asylum-seeking process, compared to their male counterparts? The investigation will be based on a content analysis of the legislation, labour migration policies and asylum regulations of the three countries, through an interpretative approach. Argentina, Brazil and Chile have current migration laws that were written envisioning mainly the image of the male migrant, basically not accounting for women’s specificities. They all lack proper labour migration policies that actively seek to improve the labour insertion of female migrants. Lastly, although the asylum regulations tend to be more gender-sensitive than the migration regulations in the three countries, Argentina is the only one to mention gender-specific forms of persecution as an eligibility criterion. Therefore, despite great progress in terms of migrants’ access to basic rights, all three countries still fail to deliver a gender-responsive approach to migration.