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.

In 1997, GAATW-Canada, a GAATW member, hosted the first North American Regional Consultative Forum on Trafficking in Women and organised an Asia-Pacific consultation on sex work in Bangkok, aimed at developing a human rights approach in line with the emerging sex workers rights movement. Reports from these consultations were published as "Whores, Maids & Wives: Making Links" (1998) and "Moving the Whore Stigma" (1997). 

GAATW’s First International Advocacy

The 1990s brought hope for feminist movements that used multilateralism and the UN system to pursue social justice. GAATW and allies pushed for a new international human rights instrument on trafficking, which acknowledged the socio-economic realities of globalisation and prioritised the rights of trafficked women and children.

The global advocacy for human rights provisions within a crime control instrument was an important experience for Alliance members. GAATW and allies formed a Human Rights Caucus and lobbied hard for strong human rights protection for trafficked persons. GAATW’s Human Rights Standards for the Treatment of Trafficked Persons was used as a lobby tool to convince states that trafficked people needed rights protection and must not be treated as criminals for having violated immigration laws of the countries into which they were trafficked. Their efforts contributed to the broadening of the definition of trafficking beyond the sex work sector, by distinguishing between forced and voluntary prostitution, and emphasises that exploitation is derived from the working conditions. 

However these negotiations revealed divisions among feminists regarding prostitution/sex work, with some advocating for stronger measures against it, while GAATW and allies emphasised recognising sex workers' rights and delinking prostitution from trafficking.

Soon after the adoption of the UNTOC, GAATW worked with members on national policy advocacy and used the Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking published by the OHCHR to lobby for stronger human rights protection for trafficked persons.

Towards Greater Accountability, Assessing Human Rights Impact of Anti-Trafficking Initiatives

At the 10th Anniversary Members Congress in 2004, many founding members and old allies of GAATW expressed concern that the crime control elements of anti-trafficking policies were violating the human rights of working-class migrants and sex workers. An eight-country study was carried out and in 2007 we  launched Collateral Damage: The Impact of Anti-Trafficking Measures on Human Rights around the World, which exposed the negative impacts that anti-trafficking measures have on the human rights of migrants, trafficked persons, and sex workers around the world. 

During 2008-2010, GAATW members engaged in advocacy for a ‘Victim-centred Review Mechanism’ to the UNTOC and its Trafficking Protocol that would engage with CSOs and trafficked persons to review state action. Sadly, despite a decade of GAATW’s advocacy on this issue, the unwillingness of many countries to commit to rigorous peer review mechanisms led to  a very formal but very weak UNTOC Review Mechanism with little opportunity for meaningful CSO intervention. 

GAATW has not only demanded accountability from states, but members of the alliance have also periodically gone through participatory reflective processes to look into their own practices. GAATW members from around the world have taken part in various GAATW FPAR initiatives to reflect on their own work in the areas of psycho-social assistance, access to justice and prevention of trafficking. These analyses led to more careful focus on the holistic wellbeing of trafficked persons, the utilisation of non-legal frameworks for accessing justice and a collective assessment of prevention initiatives.

Defending The Rights Of Women On The Move

GAATW has a long history of advocating for women’s right to work and mobility as part of its broader anti-trafficking efforts. Over the years, GAATW has developed several projects with women migrants that have contributed to strategic influence and collective action as an Alliance.

In 1997, a joint international research report by GAATW and the Dutch Foundation Against Trafficking was perhaps the first anti-trafficking study to point out that repressive migration policies such as strict border controls and mass deportation of undocumented migrants are ineffective measures. The report called for simpler immigration procedures and stronger rights protection for migrants regardless of their legal status. Along with other human rights activists, GAATW lobbied for a nuanced understanding of ‘irregular migration’, which led state representatives from the Asia-Pacific region to sign the Bangkok Declaration on Irregular Migration in 1999. The same year, a handbook was released as part of GAATW’s campaign to promote safe migration and fair working conditions. 

GAATW carried out a study on women’s mobility and reproductive health in Thailand in 2002-2005 to understand low-wage migrant women workers’ knowledge about their bodies, the impact of their work on their health and wellbeing and their access to health care in public hospitals. This resulted in the formation of a community drop-in centre led by migrant women in Northern Thailand, and a publication which explored the leadership-building work of self-led organisations of women migrants and trafficked persons. Alongside this research we also deepened our engagement with migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong and Indonesia, before expanding to several other countries from 2011 onwards.

By 2005, GAATW was focusing more  proactively on strengthening our approach to migration and labour rights through collective advocacy, research, and inter-movement dialogues, alongside our cirtical engagement with anti-trafficking policies and practices.

The following years, GAATW sought to explore how macro issues impact the conditions of migrant workers through a country study on female temporary migration programmes within the agriculture sector in Huelva, Spain, and a series of working papers on intersectionality within gender, labour, migration and development frameworks. This work reemphasised the interconnected nature of human trafficking with unfair labour migration regimes, weakening of labour rights protection and impacts of globalisation was published. 

To highlight the issue of access to justice, GAATW also engaged in research with Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand to examine the gap between available options in the legal system and workers’ reluctance or inability to access it. In another research, we highlighted the barriers experienced by partner organisations when supporting migrant workers to access justice. 

In 2018-2019, GAATW with eleven organisations across nine countries in Asia, carried out an FPAR on women’s rights to mobility and work from a feminist perspective. The report challenges prevailing ideas about what defines safe and fair migration, and to reclaim the public narratives surrounding labour migration to ensure that it is safe and fair for women workers, especially those in the informal economy.

GAATW also collaborated with the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) in 2019 to listen to and to collectively analyse the lived experiences of African women migrant domestic workers in the Middle East. In Latin America, GAATW conducted joint research on the violence and harassment faced by women migrant workers in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico. It showed how experiences of violence are interconnected to patriarchal societies and families, racism, xenophobia, and a deeply rooted neoliberal capitalist economy. In Asia, a report highlighting women's perspectives on the return and reintegration of migrant women workers from the Philippines revealed important factors related to savings, family well-being, expectations, and success that influence post-migration experiences.

Post COVID-19 pandemic, the global crisis starkly magnified the vulnerabilities and precarious nature of employment faced by many migrants, especially those operating within the informal sector. In 2022, we launched a report exploring what sustainable reintegration would mean for women migrant workers within South Asia and the Middle East Corridor. The accompaniment policy brief underscored the huge gaps between the idea of orderly return and reintegration envisioned in migration policies and the harsh realities faced by migrants in real life. 

In Canada we also examined inclusion and integration with our member , SWAN, Vancouver, in research into the significance of social and economic inclusion of migrant women in finding stable employment and accessing the labour market. The report revealed that migrant workers experience multiple forms of racism and discrimination, often leading them to depend solely on fellow nationals for work, housing, and socialisation. In another research project in Latin America, members highlighted that social inclusion and access to the labour markets are shaped by migrants’ gender, ethnicity, and migration status. Then, in a more recent FPAR on the inclusive re/integration of Southeast Asian migrants in Europe, findings showed that while support and protection for migrants and trafficked persons exist to some extent, the execution of services and programmes still fall short in providing adequate socio-economic opportunities and conditions.  

Finally, within the judicial system, we recently explored how migrant and trafficked women’s experiences of discrimination, stereotypes, and prejudices by decision-makers affect their ability to access justice.