A Mother’s Choice: Undocumented motherhood, waiting and smuggling in the Tunisian–Libyan borderlands

Anecdotal evidence suggests growing numbers of migrants intercepted at sea by the Tunisian coastguard return to Libya via smuggling. This article empirically document the experiences of “rescued” migrant mothers who consider and/or purposely re-engage in irregular, highrisk returns involving crossing the Tunisian border back into Libya.

Employing a feminist ethnographic approach, this paper explores how undocumented motherhood is experienced and shaped in the context of EU-sponsored counter-smuggling and border enforcement. Building on fieldwork in Medénine, in southern Tunisia, the study examines the considerations of migrant mothers “stuck on the move” concerning clandestine navigation and redirection in the complicated temporal and spatial context created by international organizations and EU-sponsored forms of “protection.”

The study documents that border enforcement and counter-smuggling policies not only impact everyday life and mobility for undocumented mothers and their children but, as gendered practices, also trap and confine migrant mothers and their children in a cycle of protracted vulnerability, indefinite waiting, and uncertainty in which opting to travel with smugglers becomes the best bet and last resort.