A/HRC/41/38 14. The present study is focused on migrant women and girls, given that they are uniquely and disproportionately affected by gender-based discrimination, abuse and violence. The Special Rapporteur seeks to examine migration through a gender lens, with a focus on relevant gender-based human rights concerns relating to migrant women and girls. He also looks into the root causes of women’s migration, and the specific challenges that women and girls face at all the different stages of migration. He begins with the premise that gender intersects with other social issues, such as class or caste, migration status, nationality, ethnicity, age, disability, race, sexual orientation and gender identity. Taken together, a complex map of stratification emerges with its own dynamics of discrimination, exclusion or inclusion and power relations. Migrants are constantly entering and leaving those stratified societies, which explains why gender relations and issues are constantly changing and fluid concepts.6 15. There is no universally accepted definition of an international migrant. 7 Included within this broad term for the purposes of the present report are migrants in regular or irregular situations, stateless persons, victims of trafficking in persons and smuggled migrants. The Special Rapporteur recognizes that some of those persons fall under the protection of specific international legal frameworks 8 and many of the categories overlap, but all of them are protected under international human rights law. B. International human rights framework governing gender and migration9 16. Inherently, all human beings are entitled to all human rights. There is no hierarchy of human rights, as all rights are universal, inalienable, indivisible, interdependent and of equal importance. Beyond that, certain legal protection regimes have been created for groups of non-nationals, including refugees, trafficked persons and migrant workers, to address particular situations and specific vulnerabilities. As such, the legal and normative framework to protect international migrants cannot be found in a single treaty or mechanism, but is instead diffused through a rich set of instruments and related principles and standards. States are expected to uphold the standards that apply to specific groups (such as migrants, children and victims of trafficking in persons) in a coordinated manner and with due consideration of international human rights law that is applicable to everyone. In applying such regimes, however, care must be taken to avoid creating hierarchies of vulnerability based on categorization.10 While, in principle, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants (including irregular migrants) are normatively located in distinct legal categories, they often move and live in similar physical spaces and are likely to have similar protection needs, such as those in relation to their right to health or to freedom from arbitrary or prolonged detention. Migrants are also likely to pass through different legal categories during their journey, particularly when migratory journeys are long and hazardous. 11 17. International human rights law requires that every person enjoy his or her rights without discrimination, including on the basis of sex or other status. Discrimination based on sex is prohibited under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights for the enjoyment of all rights enshrined in them. Where there are differences in the treatment of nationals and non- 6 7 8 9 10 11 Nicola Piper, ed., New Perspectives on Gender and Migration: Livelihood, Rights and Entitlements (Oxon, Routledge, 2007), pp. 1–2. According to OHCHR, an international migrant “refers to any person who is outside a State of which he or she is a citizen or national, or, in the case of a stateless person, his or her State of birth or habitual residence”. (OHCHR, Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights at International Borders (2004), p. 4.) OHCHR, “Migration and human rights. Improving human rights-based governance of international migration” (Geneva, 2013), pp. 14–19. A team of professors from Diego Portales University contributed to this section with an analysis of applicable international human rights standards. OHCHR, “Migration and human rights”, p. 14. Ibid., p. 19. 5