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Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women

Human Rights
at home, abroad and on the way...

GAATW Logo

Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women

Human Rights
at home, abroad and on the way...

News

GAATW at the 59th Commission on the Status of Women: Advocating for the labour rights of migrant women

2015 is a critical year for advocacy on women's human rights. We are marking the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), and later in the year we expect to see the adoption of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, replacing the Millennium Development Goals.

The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) will attend the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) starting this week at the United Nations in New York. The CSW is the principal global intergovernmental body dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. This year, UN Member States, UN entities and civil society organisations from around the world will gather at the CSW as part of the review of the BPfA.

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Governments must protect the rights of South-Asian domestic workers migrating to the Middle East, says GAATW on International Migrants Day.

On International Migrants Day, Jebli Shrestha, GAATW's Programme Officer - Research, speaks out against the restrictive migration polices of countries of origin in South Asia and calls on governments to protect domestic workers' rights. 

Migration for work has numerous benefits. Migrants fill labour force gaps in destination countries; countries of origin earn foreign currency; while workers gain personal development together with economic agency. However, migration policies of both destination and countries of origin, especially for domestic workers, are not centred on the rights of migrant workers. Instead they provide inadequate rights protection and deny further development opportunities for workers.

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Holding back progress: The barriers to ending trafficking in persons

On Human Rights Day, a global alliance of migrant rights and anti-trafficking organisations names the top three human rights setbacks over the last twenty years

Lack of national laws and implementation of existing laws; the conflation of sex work and trafficking; and growing right-wing and anti-migrant movements have posed the biggest challenges to the realisation of human rights for migrant and trafficked women over the last two decades, says the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) on Human Rights Day

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Asia-Pacific governments must address gaps in global policy framework on gender equality and women’s human rights, say 400 women activists from across the region

More than 400 women activists from the Asia-Pacific region call on governments to meet their obligations to uphold women's human rights this week, ahead of an intergovernmental meeting on gender equality convened by UN ESCAP in Bangkok, Thailand.

The collective statement comes from the Asia Pacific Civil Society Forum on Beijing+20, which from 14-16 November brought together feminist women activists to discuss and put together recommendations for the 20-year review of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA). The BPfA is a global policy framework for the advancement of women's human rights and gender equality, and is currently undergoing review by States in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the framework next year.

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