Female Autonomous Migration [FAM] is an expanding phenomenon in the Republic of Niger. It mainly involves poorly educated women who temporarily move from the countryside to the city. Many of them are also married. Their migration enterprises are usually condemned by Nigerien society. Like in other Islamized countries, after marriage, female spatial mobility is strongly constrained and depends on their husband’s consent. Therefore, the social visibility of female autonomous migrants threatens one of the most important local institutions, which is marriage, by calling into question their husbands’ ability to exercise marital authority. The aim of this paper is to show how FAM may be related to dysfunctionalities existing on marriage, especially when husbands do not comply with matrimonial agreements, which are, like in other Islamized contexts, providing financial support to their families. Based on a field research carried out with Nigerien migrant women, it will be argued that FAM is frequently related with economic and social decapitalization and female disempowerment at a rural level. Starting from a perspective that privileges the analysis of local impact of global social forces, it will be shown that although marriage is still the greater vehicle for women’s social promotion, economic and political and environmental pressures tend to destabilize marital balance, harming mainly women and offspring. Therefore, in this particular context, FAM has become a survival strategy put into practice by women to cope with the adverse effects caused by marriage dynamics imbalance. Sometimes, a temporal decision may transform itself into a definitive solution, especially when they are abandoned or repudiated by their husband, or left them. The paper finishes concluding that FAM is a social phenomenon that tends to reinforce gender inequalities in two crucial ways. First, since mostly of these women need to provide for their children and themselves, they have problems in boosting their savings. Consequently, they have more difficulties in coping with emergency situations and investing in their social network expansion. Second, because of social stigma associated with FAM. When divorced women return to marital market, their bargaining power has been impaired, undermining their capacity to find themselves a new suitable husband.

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Female Autonomous Migration,Marriage,Islam,Republic of Niger.