Looking inward: migration smuggling and gender in the Global North

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Most policy, academic and law enforcement circles have long endorsed the claim that the facilitation of irregular migration is dominated by transnational organized crime. There is a growing body of work critically engaging with such claim, and which has established that the existence of informal mechanisms for mobility constitutes a direct response to decreasing and unequal access to legal, safe and orderly paths to migration. Most of this work, however, has referred to the facilitation of irregular migration as a global south phenomenon, in the process often reinforcing racialized, gendered stereotypes of smugglers as groups of foreign men organized into ethnic mafias, ‘cartels,’ militias and tribes. 

This seminar flips this script by forcing us to look inward: how does the facilitation of irregular migration take place within the global north? Relying on caselaw compiled by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (the keeper of the UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants) and employing an intersectional lens, the presentation will show the gender dynamics present in the criminalization of migrant smuggling in the EU and the US. It will demonstrate how ordinary citizens (rather than members of organized crime) are consistently among those charged with smuggling –often that of family members and friends. Furthermore, it will also show how the critical role race, class and gender play both at shaping the roles men and women play in smuggling for profit, and their unequal encounters with the criminal justice system. 

This seminar is a part of the Gender & (in)security event series. 

Speakers 
Gabriella Sanchez, Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute
Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, Senior Researcher, DIIS 

Programme
14.30-14.35 Intro, Ninna Nyberg Sørensen
14.35-15.05  Presentation, Gabriella Sanchez
15.05-15.20  Dialogue between Ninna Nyberg Sørensen and Gabriella Sanchez
15.20-16.00  Discussion with the audience

Practical information
The seminar will be in English, and will be livestreamed here on the site.
Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use our online registration form no later than Tuesday 29 September at 10.00. Livestream does not require registration. 

Due to the COVID-19 there will only be 50 seats available.