25 April 2024
On 23 of April, during its last plenary meeting of this mandate, the EU parliament adopted the final text of the recast of the EU anti-trafficking Directive1. We, the undersigned non-governmental human rights organisations, welcome some progress that has been made in the revised Directive. It is positive that sanctions for...
For the PDF version, click here.
Joint civil society recommendations for the trialogue negotiations on the revision of the EU ‘Anti- Trafficking Directive’ (2011/36/EU on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and...
22nd November, 2023
For the PDF version, go here.
GAATW International Secretariat and members stand in solidarity with Bangladeshi garment workers who are protesting the new minimum wage proposed by the Labour Department, which...
For the Spanish version, go here.
GAATW organised a panel at the IWRAW virtual Global South Women’s Forum(GSWF) on 29th October 2023. GAATW organised it with its members and partners from South East Asia and Latin America. They are...
Berlin, July 2023
1. Background and Context
Over the last three years GAATW, together with ten partners from Southeast Asia and Europe, has used a feminist participatory action research methodology to learn about the experiences of 259 Southeast Asian women migrants who were...
In 2023, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) together with ten partner organisations from Southeast Asia and Europe researched Southeast Asian migrant women’s experience of migration to Europe, and of their reintegration at home...
In 2018, the International Secretariat of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW-IS) worked with partners in nine migrant-sending and receiving countries to document the lived experiences of women workers with regard to their migration . The research went beyong taking note of the forms and levels of violence that women migrant workers faced: it took a close look at the structural inequalities embedded into the current migration regime that allow such violence to persist.
This Report draws on the findings of a feminist participatory action research (FPAR), through which project partners spoke with 214 women migrant workers across the nine countries. Most of the women came from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, and a smaller number from Benin, Guinea and the Philippines. For most, the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), Lebanon and Jordan were the main destinations.
This report is based on the thematic issues that came out of the country reports, which include:
Sending countries need to evaluate the effectiveness of labour mobility restrictions currently in place, in consultation with women migrant workers, and identify how to facilitate women’s access to legal routes for migration.
Information on safe migration needs to reach potential migrants not at the pre-departure phase, but at the pre-decision phase. Safe migration messaging is not reaching the target community through the current channels of communication. Women migrant workers trust the messages they hear from other returnees and the recruitment brokers/agents.
Despite the vital role that they play in improving the lives of women migrant workers, there is limited interaction between civil society organisations in sending and receiving countries. Cross-regional knowledge and information sharing can support both programme and advocacy planning and implementation.
Women migrant workers do not ask for rescue but for the tools that will equip them to renegotiate the power dynamics between them and the agents and employers: they want to be able to report, reduce, and remove themselves from situations of violence without fear of criminalisation and further violence. Such tools will require policy interventions that consider their lived experiences.
In 2018-2019, the International Secretariat of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW-IS), in collaboration with eleven organisations across nine countries in Asia, carried out a Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) on “Safe and Fair Migration: A feminist perspective on women’s rights to mobility and work”.
The research aimed to deconstruct dominant understandings of safe and fair migration and reshape these concepts from a feminist perspective. It was our collective effort to deconstruct and reshape a narrative of labour migration that is safe and fair for women workers, especially those in the most marginalised segments of society. This study serves as evidence to fight for the rights of migrant workers and amplify women’s voices in the local, regional, and international migration agenda.
The reports show that Safe and Fair migration cannot happen in a silo – the factors that produce gender segregated labour markets, industries dependent on flexible, underpaid and overworked migrant labour require a systemic change. This change can happen at the grassroots level, through self-organised groups of women (migrant) workers. Overall there is a need for critical conversations about serious limitations of safe migration policies and governance mechanisms in the context of a labour market scenario is which capital and power are increasingly being taken away from workers and placed into the hands of a few, under the thumb of repressive regimes.
The increasing reliance on migrants in certain labour sectors risks further dividing societies and fostering xenophobia, racism and anti-migrant sentiments and causing Western governments to place more restrictions on migration. The safety and fairness of migration risk being even more constrained under such pressures. It is necessary not only to highlight the positive impact of migrants on the economies of destination countries, and to counter false claims about migrants as perpetrating crime and draining the social system, but also more generally, to promote the human rights framework and the fact that all human beings are equal and deserve to be treated fairly.
This report is based on research among women migrant workers carried out by thirty organisations and individual researchers across twenty-two countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The aim of the research was to document the nature of violence, harassment and exploitation that women migrant workers face, how they deal with it, and their demands for change.
Overwhelmingly, the data across continents and work sectors pointed to similar trends. Women Migrant Workers (WMWs) experience a continuum of gender-based violence and harassment, ranging from verbal insults to severe physical abuse, rape and sexual assault, psychological abuse and bullying, before, during and after their migration. WMWs do not experience physical and sexual violence and harassment as stand-alone problems. They are part of a system in which labour is violently extracted from their bodies.
Gender-based violence cannot be considered in isolation from the patriarchal, capitalist and racist system in which that violence is perpetrated. The work that many women do is systematically unrecognised and undervalued, in an economic system that seeks to continually drive down costs to extract profit at the expense of human welfare.
Download the complete 28-page report Demanding Justice: Women Migrant Workers Fighting Gender-Based Violencehere.
Download the six-page summary of findings on violence and harassment that migrant domestic workers experience here.
Download the ten-page summary of findings on violence and harassment that migrant garment workers experience here.
En español: Descargue el reporte completo de 28 páginas “Exigiendo justicia: las trabajadoras migrantes que luchan contra la violencia de género” AQUI.
En français: Téléchargez l’intégralité du rapport de 28 pages « La demande de justice : les travailleuses migrantes qui luttent contre la violence sexiste » ICI.
In 2018, the Corporación Espacios de Mujer and ECPAT Guatemala re-evaluated anti-trafficking legislation in Colombia and Guatemala in order to identify the gap between what the legislation states and its implementation.
2018 is a crucial year for the fight against human trafficking in Colombia since a new national strategy is expected to be developed which will guide State efforts in the coming years. This III Assessment supports the adoption of initiatives including sectoral and inter-disciplinary protocols, rules, and regulations that seek to address the issue of human trafficking in state policy. In Guatemala, legislative progress is evident through the existence of several anti-trafficking policies and the approval of two instructions to enhance trafficked persons' care and support effective research. Nevertheless, there are still challenges in achieving an effective approach to prevent human trafficking and ensure the comprehensive protection of trafficked persons.
Both countries continue to place most focus on prevention, awareness-raising and training. Protection and assistance of trafficked persons continue to be understaffed and underfunded. Both states do not address the social, economic, political, and cultural factors that make people vulnerable to trafficking.
En 2018 la Corporación Espacios de Mujer y ECPAT Guatemala han vuelto a evaluar la legislación contra la trata en Colombia y Guatemala para identificar la brecha existente entre lo que dice y los servicios reales que proporciona.
El 2018 es un año crucial para la lucha contra la Trata en Colombia ya que se debe elaborar la nueva Estrategia Nacional que cobijará los esfuerzos del Estado para los próximos años. Este III Balance apoya la aprobación de iniciativas, protocolos sectoriales e intersectoriales, normas y reglamentos que buscan convertir la trata de personas en Política de Estado. En Guatemala ha habido avances en materia legal a través de la existencia de diferentes normativas de lucha contra la trata y la aprobación de dos instrucciones para la atención a las personas objeto de trata y la efectiva investigación. Sin embargo, aún se enfrentan retos para lograr un abordaje eficaz del delito de trata de personas y una protección integral a las personas objeto de trata.
El eje que sigue reportando más actividad es el de prevención, con campañas de sensibilización y talleres formativos. La protección y asistencia de las personas objeto de trata continúa siendo el mayor pasivo de la acción del Estado y el presupuesto destinado a esta lucha es insuficiente.
El Estado no ha abordado los factores sociales, económicos, políticos y culturales que crean las diferentes situaciones de vulnerabilidad a la trata.
Learning with Community Workers: Understanding Change from the Perspective of Community Workers
Community workers have been on the frontline of delivering direct services and information to individuals and communities. Their role takes on an added value as they create the foundation of community-level interventions especially in promoting women’s empowerment and in providing information about safe migration.
In 2017, the Global Alliance against Traffic in Women (GAATW) focused on the work and personal journeys of community workers in fostering women’s empowerment and social change within the community. GAATW initiated an intensive learning exercise with community workers of the Work in Freedom Project with the overall goal of recognising community workers as critical agents of change, in building an environment which is conducive to upholding women’s rights both in community and in their migration journeys.
In this 18-minute video community workers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh share their personal journeys of promoting empowerment and social change through safe migration programmes in their communities.
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