Listening to the lived experiences of trafficked persons and incorporating their feedback in anti-trafficking initiatives have always been a practice among many GAATW members. The International Secretariat has also taken a number of steps over the years to ensure that state and non-state actors consult trafficked persons while planning their anti-trafficking work.
However, this is work in progress. While organising survivor-testimony sessions and seeking their input on assistance measures are not difficult, ensuring their participation in all aspects of anti-trafficking work is fraught with many barriers. On this World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, I would like to reflect on our work to centre the voices and concerns of survivors and suggest ways to make it better.
I remember a consultation organised by GAATW, AWHRC (Asian Women’s Human Rights Council), SANGRAM (a sex workers’ support group based in Kolhapur, India) and VAMP (a sex workers’ collective based in Sangli, India) in March 1999. It had brought together organised and individual trafficked persons, organised sex workers, academics and activists from Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand and Taiwan. It was my first international meeting as GAATW staff and the respectful discussion among people who were genuinely trying to understand complex concepts such as choice, consent, and exploitation by listening to lived experiences was truly educative. Colleagues did not always agree with each other. There was vast diversity in terms of class, caste, religion, ideology, language and sexuality. Women who had been rescued from brothels and formed their own survivors’ collective or were staying at shelters shared space with sex workers who were organising for their rights. Academics struggled to find a language that people with no formal education would be able to understand. The discussions made it clear to me that intersectional conversations, however difficult, are the only way to move forward with social justice work. I also learnt that the rights of sex worker and rights of trafficked persons are not mutually exclusive.
Oral statement by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) for Panel 1 of the UN Multi-stakeholder Hearing on Trafficking in Persons, “The Global Plan of Action and enduring trafficking issues and gaps”, 13 July 2021
On this International Workers Day, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) would like to take a moment to honour the legions of workers who have helped us tide through a year of unsettling crisis.
During the pandemic, our physical, health, nutritional and even emotional needs are met by a constantly available stream of workers who care for us—including domestic workers, cooks, childcarers, home tutors, to workers who continue to churn out essential household goods—many of whom are low-wage, migrant workers. Many of these workers, in their ceaseless provision of care for us during the pandemic, have no equivalent “caring” services at their disposal.
Feminist Fridays: Conversations about Labour Migration from a Feminist Lens is a collaborative initiative of Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX), Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), Solidarity Center, and Women in Migration Network (WIMN).
During the course of six sessions, we will think through complex issues and build/share knowledge and learn from each other. We will start with a discussion on ‘what is a feminist lens on labour migration’ and will move on to feminist research, advocacy, organising and media. The final session will be on imagining feminist futures on labour migration. Panellists will come from academia, NGOs including migrant worker led organisations, trade unions and media.
Rationale
Labour migration, within and across national borders, is part of the lived experience of many women and men in today’s world. In 2017, ILO estimated that there were 164 million international migrant workers: 96 million men and 68 million women. According to UN/DESA, prior to the onset of COVID-19, the number of international migrants had reached 281 million. This was in line with the upward trend in international migration for over two decades. While most countries do not document labour migration within their national borders, there is enough evidence to conclude that the number of workers who migrate from rural to urban and industrialised areas within their own countries has also been growing over the last few decades. And despite the disruptions created by COVID-19, people continue to move within and across borders.
Alongside the rise in scale, complexity and diversity of migration, it has also been the subject of increased policy interest. The international community has recognised linkages between international migration and development in recent UN instruments, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
The reality of labour migration, however, tells us that states’ commitments are yet to be realised. A large number of internal and cross-border migrants work in the informal economy and earn very low wages. Many migrant workers are on short or fixed-term contracts and do not have adequate rights protection. It needs to be noted that the steady rise in labour migration is taking place alongside global trends of falling labour force participation, decent work deficits and rising unemployment that has been exacerbated in the last year due to the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic. Indeed, the precarity of migrant workers is integrally linked to the pattern of capitalist development, and social-structural conditions in which the production and social reproduction of labour take place. More than a year into the pandemic, the crisis in the world of work is a stark reminder that the current models of development have failed a large number of people, depleted natural resources and caused harm to the eco-system. If the current economic regime and development paradigm continue, exploitative labour schemes will also continue, despite the promises made in the international instruments.
We are celebrating International Women’s Day in the midst of a deadly pandemic and major threats to human rights and freedom. For every one of these challenges, women have been at the forefront of the resistance.
From the ‘Wall of Moms’ in Portland, USA protesting against racial injustice and police brutality, to the ‘Women in White’ of Belarus demanding free and fair elections; from the demonstrations against the coup in Myanmar and for democratic reforms in Thailand to those to #EndSars in Nigeria; from the movements for a new constitution in Chile and for legal abortion in Argentina to those against the Citizenship Act and the Farmer’s Bill in India, women are showing that they will no longer put up with violence, injustice, oppression and despotism.
The original revolutionary goals of International Women’s Day – from over 100 years ago – remain relevant today. COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on low-wage workers, informal workers and health care workers, many of whom are women and migrants. Women have absorbed the economic and psychological cost of the pandemic through increased unpaid working hours and care work. Much of this labour is unrecognised. Women's full and effective participation and decision-making in public life is necessary to center these struggles and bring about social and economic justice.
Throughout thepandemic, women have shown that they can lead through empathic communication, anticipatory policy making and building resilience of communities. It is fitting then that this year’s IWD theme is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”. We salute our feminist sisters who lead in big and small ways:at home, in communities, at the national level and in the international arena. We are in solidarity with women who struggle to realise their fundamental rights to access to water, forest, land, food security, healthcare, education and decent work.
Twenty-seven members and partners of GAATW are celebrating IWD 2021 with the launch of a campaign entitled Women Workers for Change. The campaign starts with the premise that all women are workers, regardless of the work they do and whether or not they are paid for it. The broad frame of the campaign will include a number of specific local change agendas identified by women workers. As the campaigns progress, our colleagues from Asia, Africa and Latin America will share their strategies, challenges, and successes with each other. All through the year, we will bring you stories of this collective learning process.
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Listening to the lived experiences of trafficked persons and incorporating their feedback in anti-trafficking initiatives have always been a practice among many GAATW members. The International Secretariat has also taken a number of steps over the years to ensure that state and non-state actors consult trafficked persons while planning their anti-trafficking work.
