Books

Displacement, Human Rights, and Sexual and Reproductive Health. Conceptualising Gender Protection Gaps in Latin America. 

By Natalia Cintra, David Owen and Pía Riggirozzi, Bristol University Press, published Jun 1, 2023, ISBN 978-1529222791

Focusing on the flight of women and girls from Venezuela, this book examines the gendered nature of forced displacement and the ways in which the failures of protection regimes to be sensitive to displacement’s gendered character affect women and girls, and their sexual and reproductive health.

Highlighting how categorical legal distinctions between ‘refugees’ and ‘migrants’ fail to capture the dynamics of forced migration in Latin America, it investigates how the operation of this categorical divide generates responsibility and protection gaps in relation to female forced migrants which act as determinants of sexual and reproductive health. Drawing on the voices of displaced women, it argues that a robust political ethics of protection of the forcibly displaced must encompass all necessary fleers and be responsive to the gendered character of forced displacement and particularly to effective access to sexual and reproductive health rights.

Moving Forward. Health, care and violence seen through the eyes of displaced Venezuelan women in Brazil.

By Pia Riggirozzi, Bruna Curcio, Tallulah Lines, Natalia Cintra, Practical Action Publishing, April 2023 

Compiling photographs and testimonies from Indigenous Warao and non-Indigenous Venezuelan women displaced in Brazil, ‘Moving Forward offers a candid and often shocking insight into migrant women’s experiences. It specifically looks at the challenges these women face, their vulnerabilities, and their unwavering dedication to their families and communities in the face of adversity.

The photobook addresses three main themes: caregiving and self-care; gender-based violence; and barriers to sexual and reproductive healthcare. It calls to attention the failures of programmes designed to protect migrant women and girls, and the need for responsive, gendered, and culturally-sensitive policy to support them.

Some photographs are artistic. Others are shocking. All, although full of love, paint a picture of the extreme and specific issues migrant women and girls face today, which impede them from enjoying the rights, dignity, and respect they are entitled to.
‘Moving Forward’ is an accessible book for the general public as well as students and policymakers committed to women’s rights, sexual and reproductive health, and the gendered experience in South-South corridors of migration.