Becoming a Migrant, Becoming a Refugee

This chapter starts with the life story of Helen, who escaped Eritrea to Sudan when she was 17 years old. Helen’s life story goes against the dominant discourse, which presents migrant girls’ motivations mainly in terms of helping the family, sacrificing themselves for their parents and siblings, or escaping political regimes, and having no other choice. As a result, migrant girls are oftentimes presented as victims of constrained circumstances. Notwithstanding the importance of poverty and human rights violations, the girls’ narratives reveal more complex and multifaceted decision-making processes. They show elements of agency, as well as pressures, in the choice to migrate and in the way the decision to do so is taken. The stories presented and analyzed in this chapter show that girls’ choices can result from diverse factors: the struggle to survive versus following their own aspirations and desires. This chapter contributes to the theoretical debates on children and young people’s mobility and agency.