Borders of pain: violence against migrant women

Borders of pain: violence against migrant women

This is the final blog in the series Structures of Abuse: The Invisible Pillars of Violence, where we address one of the most brutal and silenced forms of violence: the violence experienced by migrant women. At every border they are forced to cross, the bodies of these women—and their dreams—are marked by pain. Yet alongside this pain, resistance, faith, and narratives emerge that become political denunciations and testimonies to the profound lack of empathy shown by powerful nations toward the most vulnerable.

To migrate as a woman is to enter a state of extreme vulnerability. During the journey toward the dreamed-of country, many women face both the imaginable and the unimaginable: sexual violence, disappearances, and exploitation at the hands of coyotes, corrupt police officers, criminal gangs, and, at times, even betrayal by family members or friends. Before, during, and after the journey, their bodies are treated as commodities and their pain as a business. Upon arrival in the destination country, the promise of safety and opportunity often turns into exhausting workdays in sectors that render them invisible—such as domestic labor, agricultural work, or cleaning—where they face unjust wages, discrimination, and frequently sexual harassment and even rape.

It must be made clear that not all violence against migrant women is perpetrated by criminals. Migrant women also suffer violence at the hands of institutions. When women are detained by immigration authorities, they are taken to detention centers that have increasingly become spaces of systematic abuse: unsanitary conditions, family separation, lack of adequate medical care, and documented cases of sexual assault [1].

If they manage to be released and remain in the destination country, many migrant women continue to face labor and sexual harassment in the workplace. The legal structures of receiving countries—rather than protecting them—often reinforce their vulnerability by denying them legal status, rights, and a voice. Jean Franco has described these practices as “technologies of control” imposed on racialized and feminized bodies, where the state becomes complicit in precariousness and violence [2].

Migration also entails profound uprooting: leaving behind land, language, and relationships. It is an open wound that does not easily heal. Gloria Anzaldúa describes the border as “an open wound where the Third World grates against the First and bleeds” [3]. This metaphor of the wound becomes a literal experience for thousands of migrant women.

The trauma of migration is not only physical but also emotional and spiritual. Yet it is precisely here that many women find faith, which becomes their source of sustenance. Many draw strength from prayer, from migrant communities, from popular spirituality, and from churches. Faith does not erase the pain, but it reframes it and transforms it into the hope needed to survive one more day.

Every migrant woman’s story is a political act. When their stories of survival are shared in forums, churches, or communities, they become denunciations of the oppressive structures that marginalize them. Telling what has been lived not only breaks silence; it transforms victims into agents of resistance. The testimony of a woman who crossed the desert, endured harassment in an agricultural field, or was detained in a migration center is more than a personal story—it is an act of collective memory and a seed of social and spiritual transformation.

Closing this series with the voices of migrant women is, for me, an ethical and spiritual act. The church, faith communities, and society cannot remain indifferent to suffering. Listening to, welcoming, and defending migrant women is not merely a moral obligation; it is a mandate of social justice and Christian faith. Crossing a border in search of a dream and a better life leaves a deep wound—but it is also a place where pain can be transformed into strength and hope.

Referencias: 

1. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/hundreds-of-immigrants-have-reported-sexual-abuse-at-ice-facilities-most-cases-arent-investigated
2. Jean Franco, Cruel Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).
3. Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987).