WASHINGTON (May 8, 2025)- Women and girls face disproportionate risks of gender-based violence (GBV) due to systemic gender inequality and discrimination that persists throughout the migration process, writes Rosa Celorio, Dr. Gabriella Nassif, Dr. Mary Ellsberg, Dr. Carolina Jiménez Sandoval in Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.
Women constitute for half of the world’s migrants and refugees, often fleeing for the same reason as men; escaping natural disasters, or seeking educational and economic opportunity. Though women experience an increase in their vulnerability to gender-based violence while migrating due to inequitable legal systems, patriarchal social norms, and conservative religious ideologies.
Mass deportations, raids, and political actions are increasing violence against migrants, especially women and girls.
For more context on the matter, please consider Rosa Celorio, the Burnett Family Associate Dean and Distinguished Lecturer for International Law at the George Washington University Law School. She has more than 20 years of experience working on women’s rights issues, including as a Senior Attorney for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and its Rapporteurship on the Rights of Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (now UN Women), and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. She teaches and writes frequently on issues of women’s rights, gender, human rights, and international law.
If you wish to speak with Dean Rosa Celorio, please contact Media Relations Specialist Shannon Mitchell at shannon [dot] mitchell
gwu [dot] edu (shannon[dot]mitchell[at]gwu[dot]edu).
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