Realising Rights

Written on 02 October 2011.

SELF-ORGANISED GROUPS IN THE ALLIANCE: Affirming the role of very small organisations and directly affected groups – including trafficking survivors, migrant women, sex workers, rural women, women workers, and returnee migrant women – in anti-trafficking efforts.

GAATW has always highlighted the pivotal role of women directly affected by trafficking and/or anti-trafficking measures in anti-trafficking efforts. The self-organised groups (or groups comprising women with direct experience of the issue they are working on, e.g. domestic worker-led groups) in our membership have articulated: how anti-trafficking measures have impacted their lives; how they envision human rights based anti-trafficking practices; how processes of personal recovery and activism intersect; how policies intersect with women's aspirations and their realities; the difficulties in accessing support if they operate outside of mainstream NGO frameworks; and an analysis that stems from lived experience of various issues.

Self-organised groups' issues and priorities will be woven into the 3 programmatic directions above and integrated across all GAATW programmes. However, we will also continue to maintain spaces for collaboration with self-organised groups that may fall outside of the 3 directions above.

SOG Members List (Click on the names of the organisations below to read more about their work and contact information)

• Action for Reach Out (AFRO)

• Asociacion Civil de DDHH Mujeres Unidas Migrantes Y Refugiadas en Argentina (AMUMRA)

• Association of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Hong Kong (ATKI-HK)

• Cambodia Prostitutes' Union (CPU)

• CRIOLA

• DMSC

• Sindicato de Trabajadoras Domesticas(SINTRASEDOM)

• Movimiento de Mujeres Unidas (MODEMU)

• National Domestic Workers Movement (NDWM)

• Sanayar-thi Pan

• Self-Empowerment Program for Migrant Women (SEPOM)

• Shakti Samuha

• Sex Workers' Network of Bangladesh (SWNOB)

• Genera

Relevant Publications

• Respect & Relevance, GAATW Report 2007

• Speak Out, Take Action (Sex Worker's organisations in Bangladesh, Cambodia & India raise their voices against police brutality, GAATW 2004)

• "Partners in Change" Conference (2002) – stories of women's collectives & report

• Advocacy video project on Overcharging - IMW's say NO to Overcharging

Communications

Written on 02 October 2011.

All of the above roles depend on a diverse range of communication with our networks. The primary goal of GAATW’s communications work is to promote global representation and equal access to relevant information and knowledge that is essential in strengthening the Alliance. As the International Secretariat of a diverse network, GAATW engages across many communication styles, cultures and media to share and exchange information between Member Organisations.

GAATW’s communication services will continue to reflect the needs of the Alliance, in order to provide clear and timely responses in the anti-trafficking discourse. GAATW-IS aims to provide effective communication services through publications, online resources, and multi-media projects to carry forward the voices and knowledge of members, partners and affected groups at local, regional, and international levels.

Research

Written on 02 October 2011.

The GAATW International Secretariat (GAATW-IS) will continue to use research, participatory learning, advocacy and communication tools to realise the vision and mission of the Alliance.

RESEARCH
GAATW’s research plays a substantial role in shaping and shifting global anti-trafficking discourses. Much of GAATW’s research has been action-oriented, feeding local or international change processes and done in collaboration with Members and allies.

Members’ involvement in research projects will maximise the knowledge and experience within the Alliance and ensure that research activities are relevant. In general, our research prioritises documenting women’s experiences and agency in order to advance global anti-trafficking discourses, strengthens our advocacy messages, creates a sound evidence base with the objective of promoting and protecting the human rights of trafficked persons, and expands knowledge in under-researched areas.

Overall, we seek to destabilise the dominant perception of women as victims in isolated, crime-centred responses to trafficking. Instead, we strive to present a complex picture of empowerment through migration, work, and human rights based approaches.

What we do

Written on 07 April 2023.

GAATW works in a three-year programme cycle. Developing the Alliance’s strategic direction for the following three years is done in consultation with Member Organisations, and other individuals, networks, and organisations that work in partnership with GAATW. This consultation happens primarily at the triennial International Members Congress and Conference (IMCC). Strategic discussions also happen at regional or thematic consultations held during the multi-year programme.

In the past two planning cycles (2005-2007 and 2008-2010), GAATW adopted a two-pronged, approach involving (1) critical engagement with the anti-trafficking framework and (2) linking trafficking with gender, migration, and labour frameworks. This approach was not new for GAATW, which since its inception, had understood trafficking experiences as gendered and occurring in a broader context of migration and work and thought it critical to engage with the anti-trafficking framework. However, by separating gender, labour and migration and analysing their intersections with trafficking we were able to better engage with related movements and understand lines of overlap and tension.

At the beginning of 2020, GAATW adopted a new Strategic Plan to guide our work in the next ten years. Read more

Advocacy

Written on 10 April 2023.

From GAATW’s beginnings in the early 1990s, advocacy has been a core part of our work. GAATW-IS supports Member’s advocacy by developing advocacy tools for Member Organisations; ensuring evidence-based policy making; identifying opportunities for advocacy in international human rights treaty bodies and mechanisms; advocating for human rights principles in criminal justice frameworks; shifting public narratives around trafficked persons by working with media; and calling for the accountability of anti-trafficking stakeholders in all responses to trafficking.

GAATW identifies opportunities for advocacy at the international level, both to advocate to the governments of the countries we research and to share our analysis with other states and the broader NGO community.

Achievements to date include: joining a coalition of groups to call for an internationally recognised definition of trafficking, now enshrined in the Human Trafficking Protocol; demanding and ensuring greater human rights protections for migrant women through the United Nations process; raising awareness of the dangers of anti-trafficking approaches that are not grounded in the lived experiences of trafficked persons; and building a strong network of advocates for trafficked persons’ rights worldwide.

GAATW’s international advocacy work has been facilitated by the Alliance successfully obtaining consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations in 2006.

From GAATW’s beginnings in the early 1990s, advocacy has been a core part of our work. GAATW-IS supports Members’ advocacy by developing advocacy tools; ensuring evidence-based policy making; identifying opportunities for advocacy in international human rights treaty bodies and mechanisms; advocating for human rights principles in criminal justice frameworks; and pushing for feminist responses to trafficking by anti-trafficking stakeholders.

GAATW conducts advocacy at the international and regional level, to both influence international laws, policies and practices in the sphere of migration, labour rights and anti-trafficking, and also to encourage progressive reforms by the governments of the countries that our Members work in. GAATW also seeks to influence the advocacy priorities of the broader NGO community through our research and analyses.

Achievements to date include: joining a coalition of groups to call for an internationally recognised definition of trafficking, now enshrined in the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children; demanding and ensuring greater human rights protections for migrant women through the United Nations processes; raising awareness of the dangers of anti-trafficking approaches that are not grounded in the lived experiences of trafficked persons; and building a strong network of advocates for trafficked persons’ rights worldwide.

GAATW has been granted consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations since 2006.