DONOSO MORENO, Claudia. Women, inequality and smuggling in the Ecuadorian borders. []. , 2, 5, pp.119-134. ISSN 2477-9245.  https://doi.org/10.37228/estado_comunes.v2.n5.2017.55.

A web of power relationships at the border have perpetuated intersectional inequalities that led women to become smugglers of fuel and propane cylinders in the border zones shared with Peru and Colombia, in El Oro and Carchi provinces in Ecuador. This web is supported by systems of discrimination based on gender, class, race, and geographical location that foster unequal access to education, paid work, health services, and comprehensive care against domestic violence, creating women’s insecurity. Customs control, police, and military subsumed under national and border security aggravate the population security conditions. To address this empirical case, this article advances the concept of “feminist critical human security” to examine women’s security at Ecuador’s border zones. Further, drawing on Black feminism’s idea of intersectionality and matrix of domination, and feminist critiques of national security, this article proposes women smugglers as referents of security rather than as criminals, as the border security discourse views them.

: National security; human security; border; smuggling; inequality; women; intersectionality; Ecuador..

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