International migration and fear of crime: A research on women

Fear is typically seen as an individual emotion. Still, fear of crime is a social problem that affects a person's private, professional, and psychological well-being in addition to making it difficult for them to integrate into society and occasionally endangering social order. While crime and fear have coexisted for generations, research on fear of crime has only recently begun. Early studies emphasized that fear of crime is a reaction to the existence of crime. Nonetheless, there have been cases of fear of crime even when there are no real dangers. Research on the fear of crime indicates that women have more fear of crime than males have. Gender norms and the formation of gender are intimately linked to women's increased fear of crime. Not only do women often fear crime, but so do other marginalized groups in society, such as immigrants. Fear of crime can have a detrimental impact on social order in addition to badly affecting the lives of individuals, given the growing number of foreign immigrants in Turkey and throughout the world. In light of this, the current study attempts to comprehend the experiences of migrant women regarding their fear of crime, as they confront a double disadvantage as women and immigrants. The study employed a qualitative research methodology that facilitates the examination, comprehension, and interpretation of people's experiences and their perspectives and understandings of the world. 38 women who immigrated to Antalya through international migration participated in in-depth interviews; the data collected were analyzed using the MAXQDA program and evaluated in light of existing research. The purpose of the study is to determine how migrant women's fear of crime related to their gender and migratory patterns. The study concludes that immigrant women relate their precarious status to a fear of crime, mostly because of male offenders and sexual offenses. This suggests that being a woman is at the core of these anxieties. Additionally, factors such as language barriers, cultural differences,lack of social support, perceptions of foreign women, and lack of awareness of legal rights were found to influence the fear of crime among migrant women. Keywords: Fear of Crime, Female Migrant, Gender, International Migration