Regard actuel sur les mobilités féminines transfrontalières ouest-africaines. Quand les désirs d’émancipation transcendent les séculaires pesanteurs sociales

Abstract Among the many conditions for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, it is essential to have a gender perspective to deepen knowledge of demographic determinants. However, African mobility in general, in West Africa more specifically, remains poorly explored, more particularly with regard to female mobility, which has specific cultural and socio-economic characteristics, namely gender inequalities, situations of vulnerability and exposure to all forms of violence in the work place in particular. This paper, based on nine surveys conducted by academics in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Senegal, explores the ever-increasing visibility of women in the migratory circulation and its rooted-reality in the sub-region, despite the commonplaces of the intercontinental tropism relating to the masculinization of African migratory flows. The statistical database resulting from both qualitative and quantitative surveys reveals the importance of female cross-border migration and its catalytic vocation for emancipation, thus concluding that it is necessary to promote the conditions of free movement as a powerful lever for migration policies favorable to women’s empowerment. While calling for a more proactive consideration of the gender dimension of sub-regional mobility in the various national public policies, our paper emphasizes the prerequisites of the necessary collaborative production of scientific data between various research partners to the mobilization of the knowledge necessary for decision-making for effective public policies. Finally, the paper recommends as well the consolidation and intensification of sub-regional cooperation on migration issues, and more particularly with regard to female migration still under the influence of multifaceted constraints.