How Does the European Union Talk about Migrant Women and Religion? A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Agenda on Migration of the European Union and the Case Study of Nigerian Women

Paola Degani,Cristina Ghanem

doi:10.3390/rel10010027

Abstract

Women with different identity and migration origins represent one of the most significant groups in the migration flows of the Mediterranean in recent years and the intersection of their religious identity and gender has been often neglected in migration policies. The paper applies the method of Critical Frame Analysis (CFA) to analyze the ways in which European policy documents address the intersection between gender and religious diversity. Through the CFA, the article examines the European Agenda on Migration and the priorities identified in the text. The analysis of the document is based on recent case studies of trafficked Nigerian women, which provide examples of the dangerous invisibility of ethnic and religious women in the priorities highlighted in the policy document of the European Commission. The CFA results show that the European Agenda on Migration, in responding to the increased number of arriving migrants from Africa and in designing a new approach towards mixed migration flows, lacks any reference to the gender perspective of migration and gender mainstreaming is missing from the text. The neutrality of the document and the securitization frame applied does not take into perspective the importance of recognizing a gender and intersectional dimension of migration flows, which impacts primarily women coming from African countries beholding strong religious beliefs.

Highlights

The scope of this paper is to examine whether the discourses advanced by the institutions of the European Union reflect an interest in the intersectional dimension of migrant women’s condition due to their belonging to multiple levels of discrimination, namely: gender, ethnicity, and religion.Migrant women are an interesting research subject when it comes to intersectionality, as their condition intertwines various kinds of constructed narratives and unequal power relations.The European Agenda on Migration presented on 13 May 2015 by the European Commission is a political document devoted to improve the situation in the Mediterranean and its severe and tragic implications
The analysis of the document is based on recent case studies of trafficked Nigerian women, which provide examples of the dangerous invisibility of ethnic and religious women in the priorities highlighted in the policy document of the European Commission
The Critical Frame Analysis (CFA) results show that the European Agenda on Migration, in responding to the increased number of arriving migrants from Africa and in designing a new approach towards mixed migration flows, lacks any reference to the gender perspective of migration and gender mainstreaming is missing from the text

Summary

Introduction

The scope of this paper is to examine whether the discourses advanced by the institutions of the European Union reflect an interest in the intersectional dimension of migrant women’s condition due to their belonging to multiple levels of discrimination, namely: gender, ethnicity, and religion. The European Agenda on Migration presented on 13 May 2015 by the European Commission is a political document devoted to improve the situation in the Mediterranean and its severe and tragic implications. The response of the European Commission to the “refugee crisis” started with the publication of the European Agenda on Migration on 13 May 2015. This document provides a blueprint to address the situation by outlining an overview of the various feasible measures. It is important to note that this situation, which is Religions 2019, 10, 27; doi:10.3390/rel10010027 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions

Methods

Results

Conclusion