Our roots

GAATW’s beginnings represent a significant moment in the feminist movement, as women recognised that the vision of global sisterhood comes with many complexities and tensions, including those related to class, race, sexuality, and nationality. Our founders learnt the importance of listening to others before speaking on behalf of different groups of women. 

GAATW’s history represents women’s stories shaped by solidarity for political action and a recognition that alliances are built around unequal power relationships. This story also marks a moment of maturity in the feminist movement when women:

• Acknowledged that the vision of global sisterhood is fraught with numerous tensions – including those of class, race, sexuality and nationality - and began to understand that they need to listen before speaking on behalf of other women;

• Recognised that alliances, feminist or otherwise, are built around unequal power relationships;

• Understood that solidarities for political action can only be effective if one is able to negotiate different agendas.

The Launch of the Alliance

In 1991-93, Foundation for Women, a women’s rights organisation in Thailand, carried out pioneering feminist participatory action research on returnee migrant women. This early study examines the complexities of working-class women's cross-border migration, including their entry into sex work  as well as  various forms of exploitation. Its findings, presented to an international audience in 1994, resonated with feminist activists, leading to the formation of the Global Alliance against Traffic in Women (GAATW). 

Since then, GAATW has shifted the trafficking conversation from a security and control approach to one that highlights the agency and aspirations of migrants, advocating for their rights in migration and the workplace.

Context

Building A Human Rights Community, The Early Years Of GAATW 

GAATW's founding members brought years of feminist activism, which greatly influenced the early development of the Alliance. Their national and international contacts enabled GAATW to collaborate with women's rights groups globally, organising workshops on human rights and trafficking in women in Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa. These workshops raised discussions among experienced activists who prioritised listening to the voices of returnee women migrant workers, as well as organised groups of sex workers and domestic workers, emphasising their lived experiences.

In 1995, in response to the invitation of the then UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (SRVAW), GAATW and the Dutch Foundation Against Trafficking in Women (STV) carried out an international investigation on trafficking in women, forced labour & slavery-like practices in the contexts of marriage, domestic labour and prostitution.  Two years later, the research titled, Trafficking in Women, Forced Labour and Slavery-like Practices, provided substantive input to the SRVAW’s report and marked a major turning point in thinking and activism around trafficking.

Taking inspiration from the participatory research which had led to the launch of the Alliance, GAATW continued to use  Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) methodologies as a primary tool for knowledge building and collective action. The insights from the many learning workshops and consultations held during 1996-1998 around the world led to the publication of the Practical Guide to Assisting Trafficked Women (1997), Human Rights in Practice (1999), and Human Rights and Trafficking: A Handbook (2000). An FPAR project carried out in 1996-1998 in Cambodia and Vietnam also resulted in the establishment of community-based information centres for migrating women in both countries and the formation of a sex workers collective in Cambodia.