Undocumented motherhood, waiting and smuggling in the Tunisian–Libyan borderlands by Ahlam Chemlali

A growing numbers of migrants intercepted at sea – referred to by the Tunisian coastguard as les rescapés (the rescued) – return to Libya via smuggling. In this presentation I empirically document the experiences of “rescued” migrant mothers who consider and/or purposely re-engage in irregular, high-risk returns involving crossing the Tunisian border back into Libya. Employing a feminist ethnographic approach, I explore 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, I also examine 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.” I argue 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.

About Ahlam Chemlali

Ahlam is a PhD fellow at DIIS – Danish Institute for International Studies, Migration and Global Order and Aalborg University, dept. of Politics and Society. Chemlali’s research explores the effects of European border externalisation in North Africa, with particular emphasis on the local and gendered effects in the Tunisian-Libyan borderlands. Prior to her PhD Chemlali worked almost a decade at DIGNITY – Danish Institute Against Torture on issues related to migration, human rights, violence, and gender. Chemlali has published in Geopolitics, JEMS, Trends in Organized Crime, Forced Migration Review and Revue Tunisienne de Science Politique.