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Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women

Human Rights
at home, abroad and on the way...

GAATW Logo

Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women

Human Rights
at home, abroad and on the way...

News

Addressing Root Causes of Internal Migration in India – An inter-movement convening

HyderabadmeetingSixty CSO activists, trade unionists and representatives of migrant rights, women’s rights, worker rights and Dalit and Adivasi rights groups across India met over three days in August 2019 to think collectively about how a cross-sectoral movement could address the systemic issues faced by women migrant workers in the country.

The meeting, co-organised by GAATW, SEWA[i] and MAKAAM[ii], looked holistically at the rights of women migrant workers by analysing the structural drivers of outmigration from the states of Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. These are states of origin for internal women migrant workers going into some of the sectors with the lowest pay and poorest working conditions, including domestic work, brick kiln work, garment work, construction work and sex work.

Our discussions drew a challenging overall picture for our movements in India today: a growing asymmetry of power between employers and workers, persistent patriarchal norms and attitudes, a political economy tilted in favour of the interests of big corporations over the rights of small-scale landowners and workers. 

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Violence is not part of the Job! States must ratify and implement the Convention to end violence and harassment in the world of work

EndVAWWW

We applaud the recent adoption of the Convention (190) and Recommendation (R206) on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work at the Centenary International Labour Conference. This is a triumph for workers and trade unions all over the world, especially womxn trade unionists. We stand in solidarity with them and their ongoing struggles. It’s time now for States to ratify and implement C190 and R206. 

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Women migrant workers subjected to physical and sexual abuse, discrimination and non-payment of wages: New report

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2019 Demanding JusticeWomen migrant workers experience a continuum of gender-based violence and harassment, ranging from insults to severe physical abuse, rape and sexual assault, psychological abuse, bullying and intimidation, according to a new report published today by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women.

This gender-based violence cannot be considered in isolation from the patriarchal ideas about women’s place in society, the value of their labour, and the abuse that women experience throughout their lives.

One migrant domestic worker from Bangladesh shared, “I was being abused physically and mentally by my husband but how could I go and complain? What will society say? Because we are women we have to tolerate such abuses.”

A migrant garment worker from Guatemala said, “In our homes, people think that women have to do everything and receive less payment, and because they teach you that at home, then you think that it is normal and you internalise it.”

Women migrant workers described being pushed into precarious work with little choice because of a lack of jobs in their countries of origin, debt, economic hardship and the breadwinner role falling to women.

These dynamics are occurring in part due to macro-level economic decisions: structural adjustment policies, austerity measures, neoliberal reforms to the public sector and pubic services have increased the demand for more feminised jobs. 

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Human Trafficking – From a criminal justice to social justice approach

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Keynote speech delivered at the conference Disrupting Traffick?, University of Chicago Delhi Centre, New Delhi, India, 17 May 2019

Borislav Gerasimov, Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak here tonight. It’s a pleasure and an honour.

First I want to say a few words about the organisation where I work. The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (or for short, GAATW) is an international feminist network of NGOs advocating for the rights of migrants and trafficked persons. GAATW sees the phenomenon of trafficking as embedded in the context of migration for labour. Therefore, we advocate for measures that uphold women’s human rights and protect them from the increasingly neoliberal economic context in which we live.

I my speech tonight I will try to highlight some of the failures of the currently dominant criminal justice approach to trafficking and offer the alternative that we at GAATW subscribe to – a social justice approach that aims to address the root causes of trafficking. 

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Strengthening labour rights to prevent human trafficking and unsafe migration

Outcome of the Global Consultation on Prevention of Human Trafficking and Unsafe Migration

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1 May 2019

Bomsa 1 may
Women from BOMSA, a GAATW member organisation in Bangladesh, at a 2014 May Day Rally in Dhaka.

Forty-five representatives of 35 women’s rights, migrant rights, and anti-trafficking organisations from 28 countries met on 3-5 April 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand, to discuss the successes and failures of current initiatives to prevent human trafficking and unsafe migration.

We reaffirmed that human trafficking and other rights violations in the context of migration for work are the result of a number of structural root causes. These include economic injustice brought about by neoliberal economic policies of privatisation, de-regulation and austerity, which intersect with patriarchy and racism to devalue and informalise women’s work, particular that of migrant and racialised women.

To successfully prevent human trafficking and related rights violations, states need to address these root causes in line with their commitments under the human rights framework and the Sustainable Development Goals. Civil society needs to advocate for structural changes to systems of domination based on race, gender, and class, and hold governments accountable for their failure to protect the human rights of all people. Current initiatives to prevent trafficking through engagement with the private sector and reduction of the demand for trafficking, awareness-raising and campaigning, and provision of information to (potential) migrants, fall short of these goals and fail to address the asymmetrical power relationships between workers and employers. 

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