News

'Trafficking Representations' Call for Papers, Anti-Trafficking Review Thematic Issue

Written on 03 June 2015.

Deadline for Submission: 8 January 2016

The Anti-Trafficking Review calls for papers for a themed issue entitled 'Trafficking Representations.' Work that migrants do in the sex industry and other irregular employment sectors is increasingly characterised as exploitation and trafficking. Representations of trafficking and forced labour are pervasive within media, policymaking, and humanitarian debates, discourses and interventions. Of late, the notion of 'modern slavery' is on show in campaigns aiming to raise funds and awareness about anti-trafficking among corporate and local enterprises and the general public. Celebrity interventions, militant documentaries, artistic works and fiction films have all become powerful vectors of distribution of the trafficking and 'modern slavery' rhetoric. These offer simplistic solutions to complex issues without challenging the structural and causal factors of inequality. They also tend to entrench racialised narratives; present a narrow depiction of an 'authentic victim;' and confuse sex work with trafficking. Such representations play a key role in legitimising oftentimes problematic rescue operations that can involve criminalisation, detention and arrest of both non-trafficked and trafficked persons as well a justifying restrictive labour and migration laws that exacerbate migrants' precarious living and work situations.

GAATW International Secretariat expresses condolences following Nepal earthquake

Written on 27 April 2015.

GAATW-IS would like to express our deepest condolences to all those affected by the earthquake in Nepal this weekend. The loss of life, personal and public property including monuments of national heritage is unimaginable. Our thoughts and prayers are with our members, partners and friends in Nepal, WOREC, Shakti Samuha and all other members of the Alliance Against Trafficking in Women and Children in Nepal (AATWIN), Pourakhi, ABC-Nepal and People's Forum.

We are saddened at the loss of one of our colleagues, Bhawani Shiwokoti from Pourakhi. We had visited her in Dolakha recently and again met up in Godavari as part of our project work, and it is impossible to believe that someone as full of life as her is no longer with us. Our thoughts are with Bhawani's family.

Landmark legislation on human trafficking adopted 15 years ago, but harmful anti-trafficking laws and practices persist and are set to continue – GAATW says

Written on 10 April 2015.

Embargoed until 03:00 GMT, Wednesday 15 April 2015

15th Anniversary of the UN Trafficking Protocol

The UN Trafficking Protocol is praised as landmark international legislation against human trafficking, however 15 years after its adoption trafficked persons have seen little benefit and in some countries national laws cause more harm than good – says the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) on the launch of the Anti-Trafficking Review, issue 4.

The new issue of the Anti-Trafficking Review looks at the impact of the Trafficking Protocol (in full: Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children) and questions whether the 15th anniversary is a time to celebrate progress in anti-trafficking or address the problems it has caused.

GAATW at the 13th UN Crime Congress

Written on 10 April 2015.

Next week GAATW will be at the 13th UN Crime Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. We will be co-organising some events as well as speaking on a couple of other panels. Come and say hello if you're there!

Women’s Voices Shut Out of UN Political Declaration on Women’s Rights

Written on 10 March 2015.

NEW YORK—UN Member States today adopted a Political Declaration on the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women after several months of closed-door negotiations, in which women's groups were largely excluded.

Nearly 1,000 women's rights and feminist organizations worldwide have issued a statement decrying the lack of transparency in this process. Historically, the Commission on the Status of Women has adopted declarations or "agreed conclusions" after a two-week session that includes robust civil society participation.

Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women