On 9 June 2025, WIDE+ hosted a timely and powerful webinar entitled “Gendered Crossings: Feminist Perspectives on Borders, Racism, Violence, and Survival.” The event convened a diverse group of feminist activists, practitioners, and experts to delve into the complex and often violent intersections of gender inequality, migration, and human rights across Europe. Discussions focused on human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and the grassroots feminist resistance rising in response.
The webinar aimed to spotlight the multifaceted challenges women and girls face in migratory contexts, particularly around trafficking and border securitization. Speakers examined the European Union’s legal frameworks on human trafficking, questioned their effectiveness, and explored grassroots efforts that center survivor agency and resilience.
The session opened with Erika Oliva, an Italian anti-trafficking expert, who gave a comprehensive overview of the EU Directive 36/2011 and its newly adopted revision, Directive 1712/2024. She noted key advances in the legal landscape: broader definitions of trafficking that now include forced marriage, surrogacy, and exploitation facilitated by digital technologies. Encouragingly, the revised directive recognizes the gendered dimensions of trafficking and underscores the need for gender-sensitive training and services. However, Oliva stressed the significant gap between legislation and practice. One particular challenge lies in the burden of proof—specifically, demonstrating when a user “knowingly” benefits from trafficked labor or services. She also flagged the directive’s insufficient attention to intersectionality, noting a lack of structural integration of race, migration status, and ethnicity in policy design.
From Serbia, Zorana Parezanović of NGO Atina shared her organization’s two-decade-long work to combat trafficking and supporting over 10,000 migrant women and children, with a focus on survivors of gender-based violence and trafficking. She emphasized the importance of long-term, holistic support—including shelter, legal aid, economic empowerment, and survivor-led advocacy. Parezanović also spoke candidly about gaps in Serbia’s asylum and anti-trafficking systems, especially in the identification of victims and the lack of specialized services. Serbia’s role as a transit country along the Balkan Route complicates these challenges further, with increasing border securitization adding layers of vulnerability. Atina, she explained, has prioritized integrating survivors not just as beneficiaries but as co-advocates in policy change and public discourse.
Jennifer Kamau from International Women Space in Germany brought a historical and racial justice lens to the discussion. She drew direct connections between modern trafficking and Europe’s colonial past, highlighting how systemic racism continues to shape migrant experiences. Kamau critiqued the constructed dichotomy of the “good” vs. “bad” migrant—an idea that underpins much of Europe’s migration policy—and highlighted the often contradictory implementation of Germany’s legalized prostitution laws in its impact on addressing trafficking. She also underscored the damaging effects of the Dublin Regulation, which forces asylum seekers to remain in the first EU country they enter, often leaving them in legal limbo and heightened vulnerability. For Kamau, EU securitization policies do not merely fail to protect migrants—they criminalize humanitarian solidarity and perpetuate harm.
Emerging Themes and Challenges
Several urgent themes emerged throughout the discussions:
A lack of intersectional perspective in policy frameworks remains a critical weakness. Even where gender-sensitive language exists, deeper issues of race, class, migration status, and sexuality are too often ignored.
Securitization of migration—through border militarization and restrictive asylum rules—continues to exacerbate the precarity of women and girls in transit or in irregular status.
Implementation gaps plague even well-drafted legislation. Member States vary widely in their enforcement and interpretation of EU directives, leading to inconsistent protection for victims.
Local and grassroots NGOs such as Atina and International Women* Space are on the front lines. Their proximity to affected communities enables them to build trust, identify survivors, and advocate more effectively for systemic change.
The digital dimension of trafficking is growing. As traffickers increasingly use online platforms to exploit women and children, prevention and enforcement efforts must adapt to this evolving terrain.
Feminist Recommendations
Building on the insights of the speakers, the webinar offered clear recommendations to advance feminist and rights-based approaches to migration and anti-trafficking:
- Adopt truly intersectional frameworks that explicitly address race, migration status, ethnicity, disability, and LGBTQI+ identity.
- Invest in local organizations that provide culturally competent, trauma-informed support, serve as credible advocates for policy reform and promote survivor-led leadership.
- Improve identification and response mechanisms by equipping border agents, asylum officers, and service providers with gender-sensitive and trauma-aware training.
- Decriminalize humanitarian aid, ensuring that individuals and organizations offering support are not targeted under restrictive migration or anti-trafficking laws.
- Enhance data collection and accountability, including disaggregated statistics on trafficking cases by gender, age, nationality, and migration status to better inform evidence-based policymaking.
The webinar powerfully illustrated that migrant women are not only survivors of systemic violence—they are leaders, organizers, and agents of change. Moving beyond narratives of victimhood or heroism, participants called for an approach grounded in feminism, intersectionality, and justice. To build a Europe that is more humane, inclusive, and accountable, we must listen to and stand with the women and girls at its borders.
Written by: Maëlann Yvin. Maëlann is a Master’s student at Sciences Po Lille where she works in human rights violations, especially regarding refugee and education rights violations and how they intersect. She is currently a volunteer at WIDE+, where she is involved in advocating for both fights.