The Continuum of Violence in Chile's Protection System: From Gender-Based Persecution to Trafficking Vulnerabilities and Migrant Women's Resistance Strategies

This thesis examines the gap between Latin American countries' progressive laws on international protection and their restrictive implementation. Despite recognising gender-based violence as persecution, women fleeing such violence are often excluded from refugee protection. Using a decolonial feminist lens, the research examines how gaps in the Inter-American system create vulnerabilities that heighten the risk of trafficking and exploitation for asylum-seeking women. It focuses on the "protection continuum" in reverse—a multidimensional trajectory of violence from persecution, through border exclusion, to exploitation in destination countries. Chile exemplifies this protection paradox: despite adopting the 1951 Convention, the Cartagena Declaration, and the Belém do Pará Convention, it has some of the lowest refugee recognition rates in the region, largely rejecting claims based on gender-based violence. Beyond documenting these structural failures, the thesis explores migrant women’s resistance strategies and the alternative protection mechanisms provided by civil society, which often become the only support. It contends that resisting gender-based violence is a political act, positioning migrant women as active agents of resistance rather than merely victims.