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Crime and Punishment of Somali Women's Extra-Legal Arrival in Malta

NCJ Number
239800
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 52 Issue: 3 Dated: May 2012 Pages: 514-533
Author(s)
Alison Gerard; Sharon Pickering
Date Published
May 2012
Length
20 pages
Annotation

This article looks at Somali women's experiences of extra-legal border crossing of the European Union's southern border.

Abstract

Based on qualitative interviews with women who have travelled irregularly to Malta, and key state and non-government organization stakeholders, this article considers the layers of exile and vulnerability engendered by Malta's attempts to secure the EU border. The article traces the gendered and racialized processes of immobilizing irregular migrants through legal and administrative policies of mandatory detention and the Dublin II Regulation, and through social and economic policy in Malta. The article concludes that border control operating at the point of arrival both contains and punishes women, even when they are legally accepted and released, keeping women suspended in a constant 'state of arrival'. (Published Abstract)