The Long Journey of African Migrant Women

This chapter emphasises the complex motivations behind migration, as opposed to a linear and simplistic view of migration as merely a passage from one point to another that is part of a wider migration project entirely predetermined before departure and driven by a single and unique cause. It then traces the journey of these women until their arrival in Europe, thus describing the various forms of violence they have experienced in the process and, in relation to such violence, assessing the role of political and institutional mechanisms, gender and kinship structures, community networks, and the different intermediaries in charge of taking migrants across the border respectively (bearing in mind, however, that these various actors and mechanisms are, in fact, deeply intertwined).