Bad Deals and Tragic Pacts: The impact of the EU’s management of migration through the externalisation of its borders on ‘Women on the Move’

Abstract

In recent years the EU has become increasingly restrictive in its regulation of irregular migration flows despite its outward sustained discourse of safeguarding human lives and the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. As part of this restrictive strategy, the EU has invested heavily in the securitisation and the management of migration through the externalisation of its borders. The EU-Turkey Deal struck in 2016 paved the way for further agreements with third countries with poor gender equality and human rights records, such as Libya and Tunisia. This externalisation of migration constitutes an important feature of the New Pact on Migration and Asylum adopted in 2023 with the aim of establishing a common asylum process at EU level. Asylum seekers, particularly girls and women are placed at added risk from these restrictive policies and policies of externalisation, as apart from dangers faced by all asylum seekers, they are at increased risk of human trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation, and others forms of gender-based violence. Despite offering a short-sighted measure to a complex problem and the adverse humanitarian repercussions and gross human rights violations, particularly on female refugees and asylum seekers, such deals and pacts constitute an integral aspect of the EU’s strategic agenda of managing migration through the externalisation of its borders. The article proposes a number of alternative solution-oriented measures which safeguard fundamental human rights and freedoms, in particular the right to asylum for refugee women and girls.