The paradoxes of vulnerability: women, migration and gender equality in Europe.

In the last two decades, anti-immigrant claims, often materializing in restrictive migration and integration regulations, are seen not only as key to the success of radical right-wing parties but also as a political mantra for almost any party contending elections in Europe. Against such background, the chapter analyses the regulation of migration-related polygamous relations and the narrative surrounding the violation of gender equality by extra-European cultures as a threat to modern European societies. The scope is to discuss how, in the name of equality and dignity, measures designed to counterbalance women’s vulnerability by enhancing gender equality and women’s dignity may become a double-edged sword when embedded in a legal framework characterised by fragmentation, lack of democratic control and unpredictability, or when weaponised to generate a “hostile environment” for the integration of migrants. The chapter argues that a case-by-case approach is required to ensure a fair balance between core values (human dignity and gender equality, to name just the most relevant ones) and the fragility of the persons involved (migrant women in vulnerable conditions), but the case-by-case approach is possible only within a coherent, stable, truly democratic and rights-oriented migration legal framework. Otherwise, the danger of entering into legal paradoxes that undermine the very bases on which contemporary constitutionalism is conceived will be high. By juxtaposing case-studies, the analysis proceeds through a comparative approach, where similarities and differences are not intended to create typologies but rather to define trends. These trends are analysed by combining the systematic method with the critical one.