The African Union has designated 2026 as the year of water, with a focus on ensuring sustainable access to safe water and sanitation systems to meet the goals of Agenda 2063. While this initiative aims to uplift communities continent-wide, a critical demographic often remains overlooked in these discussions—migrant women. In Senegal, these women form the invisible backbone of the economy, yet their contributions and needs are systematically excluded from public discourse and policy frameworks.
The invisible workforce behind Senegal’s economy
Every year, countless women migrate from rural areas of Senegal to cities like Dakar, seeking opportunities in domestic work, street vending, and informal trade. These women, often young and unskilled, fill essential roles that keep households, markets, and small businesses running. According to national labor statistics, women constitute 51.3% of the informal workforce nationwide, though their representation drops to 41.5% within Dakar’s urban core, where they are concentrated in the most precarious positions—jobs without contracts, social protections, or fair wages. Their labor is indispensable, yet their access to basic amenities like clean water and sanitation remains woefully inadequate, exposing them to health risks, security threats, and exploitation.
When Senegal becomes home to African migrants
Senegal has long served as a haven for migrants from across West Africa. The latest census data reveals that over 207,000 foreigners reside in the country, with women making up nearly 45% of this population. The majority hail from neighboring nations, including Guinea (40.3%), Mali (14.9%), Guinea-Bissau (4.4%), Gambia (3.0%), and Mauritania (2.1%). In regions like Kédougou, migrants from Mali and Guinea outnumber Senegalese returnees, underscoring the deep interconnections within the subregion.
However, this tradition of hospitality is under threat. A rising tide of xenophobic rhetoric, particularly targeting Guinean Fulani communities, accuses migrants of straining public services and altering the country’s demographic balance. Political figures have even called for stricter residency requirements and the revocation of birthright citizenship for children born in Senegal to foreign parents—a dangerous echo of the violence that has flared in other African nations, such as South Africa, where Senegalese migrants have also faced persecution.
Double vulnerability: gender and migration intersect
For migrant women in Senegal, the intersection of gender and foreign status compounds their vulnerability. Many work as domestic helpers or informal traders, lacking legal protections and relying on employers or networks for access to water and sanitation. When xenophobic sentiment targets entire nationalities or ethnic groups, these women become prime targets for harassment, exploitation, and violence. Fear of retaliation—whether legal repercussions or community backlash—silences them, leaving their rights unenforced and their dignity unprotected.
ECOWAS’s shift and the erosion of migrant rights
The dissolution of the ECOWAS-AES alliance in early 2025 has weakened the legal safeguards for Malian, Burkinabé, and Nigerien migrant workers in Senegal. Previously, the 1979 ECOWAS Protocol guaranteed free movement and residency rights, but these protections now hinge on bilateral political declarations that can be revoked at any time. For domestic workers without proper documentation—a common scenario given the high rates of undocumented migration in West Africa—the loss of these safeguards is catastrophic. Compounding the issue is the escalating insecurity in the Sahel, which has driven an increase in female migration from Mali to Senegal. This calls for urgent vigilance from civil society and labor unions to ensure these women retain access to essential services, including healthcare and education for their children.
The colonial legacy of borders and exclusion
To understand the current climate of xenophobia, one must examine the arbitrary borders drawn during the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, which paid no heed to existing kinship, trade, or cultural networks. Postcolonial states, grappling with fragile legitimacy, have often resorted to policies of autochtony—defining who truly belongs to the nation and who does not. This exclusionary logic, which has fueled Afrophobia in South Africa, is now rearing its head in Dakar. A decolonial feminist perspective, as articulated by scholars like Oyèronké Oyèwùmí and Amina Mama, reveals how colonialism reshaped gender categories, which were later repurposed by nationalist projects to control national belonging. Migrant women, their reproductive labor, and their children born in Senegal become the battleground for these exclusionary policies, particularly when questioning birthright citizenship.
Water and sanitation: the silent barrier for migrant women
The AU’s 2026 theme is not merely a technical slogan—it directly intersects with the lived realities of migrant women. In Dakar’s peripheral neighborhoods, where many migrant women reside, access to piped water and safe sanitation is patchy. For domestic workers living with employers, access to these basic services often depends on the goodwill of their hosts, leaving them at the mercy of exploitative labor conditions. Policies that ignore the specific needs of migrant women—whether in their neighborhoods or workplaces—will fail to deliver the justice promised by Agenda 2063.
A hospitality that transcends borders
The International Day of the African Woman should not be reduced to symbolic gestures. Instead, it must serve as a call to action: migrant women, both internal and external, are the lifeblood of Senegal’s economy. Without them, entire sectors would collapse. Similarly, without guaranteed access to clean water and sanitation for these women—at home, at work, and in their communities—the AU’s 2063 goals will remain mere aspirations. True hospitality cannot stop at national borders, nor can a water policy afford to overlook those who need it most.
