In September, GAATW hosted a workshop on bridging movements and building alliances during the Transnational Meeting in Sofia organised by LevFem (Bulgaria) and Transnational Social Strike (Italy). This brave and ambitious meeting of more than 130 activists focused on the world's most pressing crises as seen from a European perspective: health and care workers' and migrants' precarious rights (especially refugees and those seeking international protection), Russia’s war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, the situation of prisoners, and more.
The GAATW workshop wrapped up four days of discussions on solidarity and dissent. Sixteen participants, mostly women, learnt about the Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) methodology and reflected on the challenges and need of joining efforts across movements and contexts. Within this three-and-a-half-hour session, we used as a case study the findings and experiences of our research project on the Southeast Asia - Europe corridor to explore the role of the basic FPAR principles - ethics of care and viewpoint theory, and their contribution to building a more egalitarian world. We also explored the meanings and value of agency - for ourselves as well as for our collaborators, and ultimately for women migrant workers. We succeeded in building a safe and protected environment and deep conversations, which was appreciated as a learning experience for accompanying women migrant workers in taking control over their lives. We also explored the need to bridge the women's rights, workers' rights and migrants' right movements as well as the strategic and practical obstacles for achieving this.
Having tested the design of the workshop, and enriched with all these experiences, we are keen on reaching out to interested comrades with a similar induction to the FPAR methodology as a firm foundation for advocacy efforts in the next year.
CHS Alternativo and the Peruvian Ombudsman presented the VIII Alternative Report, a document that analyses the actions of public institutions against human trafficking during the 2020-2021 period.
It shows that the budget for combating trafficking has been substantially reduced in the last eight years, reaching just 0.12 Sol per person, which is minimal. "In terms of practicality, this means that the State invests less per person than what a piece of bread currently costs," said the Ombudsman Eliana Revollar Añaños. The document also points out that the COVID-19 pandemic and the political crisis have had an impact on human trafficking. Traffickers have innovated in their recruitment methods and have moved to the digital space, through social media networks. In addition, they have taken advantage of the vulnerability of those who have lost their jobs, live in situations of violence, or require urgent economic assistance.
On the other hand, during the state of emergency, state services that were not considered essential were left neglected, which is why arrests, investigations, prosecutions, and convictions for trafficking were postponed, leaving a climate of impunity that allowed criminals to operate with lower risk of detection and sanction.
The report pointed out that there is no single registry of victims with information on the complaints, legal status of the persons under investigation, protection measures, sentences, methods of recruitment, transit and destinations, and it is not known what happens to the victims when they are rescued. This is information of vital importance to generate the appropriate measures to combat exploitation. Another point of concern that the report highlights is that the channels for reporting cases of human trafficking are not known to the public or the victims.
The VIII Alternative Report also indicates that there are a large number of male victims of labour exploitation or forced labour, apart from young women trafficked for sexual exploitation.
Group photo of the SouthEast Asia participants at the Women Workers Forum held in Bangkok in July 2022. Photo by Jennifer Janssen
In July, we organised a convening of the Southeast Asia partners of the Women Workers Forum (WWF) programme in Bangkok. The core aim of WWF is to create a supportive space for workers’ political education through peer-learning processes, which would aid in realising their rights at work and strengthen their self-organising. Building their collective strength and voices is a way to challenge the invisibilisation of women’s work in society. It is premised on the belief that women workers can set their own learning agendas and articulate their visions for change, with external agents such as NGOs only supporting the process. We hope that through the process of mutual learning and increasing awareness, women workers will be able to engage with the state, employers, and other stakeholders to make their demands for dignified work and living conditions. The programme’s partners span several countries across Southeast, South and West Asia.
Migrant women’s experiences of social inclusion and access to the labour market are shaped by their gender, ethnicity, and migration status according to our new research report ‘I spent many days on the road but I made it here’: Socioeconomic inclusion of migrant and trafficked women in South America.
Migrant and trafficked women are employed in precarious conditions within the informal economy, and relegated to gendered work such as the domestic, care and cleaning sectors. The burden of care work and the gendered division of labour shape both their access to paid work and their roles within families.
The women’s migration journeys were fraught with challenges and uncertainties, yet these also illustrate their courage and resilience in trying to improve their lives. Most women spoke of hardships such as spending days on the road, sleeping on the streets, going without food, facing racist or xenophobic behaviours, and fear of sexual attacks. Many had taken on large debts or exhausted their life savings. Yet, the hope for a better life kept them going. A Dominican woman in Uruguay shared, “we took a bus to Brazil, where we stayed in a shelter for three days. I didn’t sleep…I remember we left the countryside on a Tuesday and arrived on a Saturday, we hopped from bus to bus.”
Describing her harrowing journey, a Venezuelan woman in Brazil said: “After sleeping for three days on the street and the fatigue of the 13-day bus ride across the border, my body couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to die.”
Many women’s experiences with socioeconomic inclusion in the destination country were closely linked to their responsibility for unpaid care work. Most women continue to be responsible for care giving and household work within their families while also being the breadwinners. This double, sometimes triple, workload has many impacts: it negatively determines their access to job opportunities and relegates women to irregular or lower paying jobs, affects their physical and emotional health, and causes “time poverty” where the very idea of free time does not exist. As one Venezuelan woman in Peru said: “It has been difficult for me to achieve a balance between family and work life because I work, I sleep very little, I have very little time left to care for my daughters and every now and then I get the chance to take a little walk once a week or every fortnight […] I work until very late, so there is not much free time.”
Last month we supported our members and partners from Women's Initiatives (WINS), the Telangana Domestic Workers Union, the National Network of Sex Workers India, the Andha Domestic Workers Union, and the Centre for World Solidarity, to write to the Indian Minister of Labour ahead of a national meeting in Tirupati of the Ministers of Labour from all the states and Union Territories.
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In September, GAATW hosted a workshop on bridging movements and building alliances during the Transnational Meeting in Sofia organised by LevFem (Bulgaria) and Transnational Social Strike (Italy). This brave and ambitious meeting of more than 130 activists focused on the world's most pressing crises as seen from a European perspective: health and care workers' and migrants' precarious rights (especially refugees and those seeking international protection), Russia’s war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, the situation of prisoners, and more.
Migrant women’s experiences of social inclusion and access to the labour market are shaped by their gender, ethnicity, and migration status according to our new research report ‘I spent many days on the road but I made it here’: Socioeconomic inclusion of migrant and trafficked women in South America.