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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 9:34 pm
Time: 9:34 pm
Results for migrant women
2 results foundAuthor: Geddie, Eve Title: Strategies to End Double Violence Against Undocumented Women - Protecting Rights and Ensuring Justice Summary: Undocumented women are those residing in Europe without a valid residence or work permit. In an absence of rights and justice, violence can be a reason for their migration, the cause of their irregularity, and consequence of this unprotected status. Gender vulnerabilities increase the likelihood of migrant women to become undocumented, a status under which they are greatly exposed to systematic violence, abuse and discrimination. The majority of undocumented women arrive to Europe with a regular, but often highly dependent migration status and become undocumented for reasons outside of their own control. While many women leave their home countries in a bid to achieve justice and equality, the discriminatory and disempowering policies which govern the migration process can often disempower them. The lack of an independent legal status is a very common challenge for migrant women and means that those subject to violence, exploitation or misinformation can easily find themselves in an undocumented situation with no possibility to re-regularise their status. Migrant women may also become undocumented following an unsuccessful claim for asylum; those seeking protection are highly disadvantaged in the asylum system as claims on grounds of gender-based violence have a disproportionately high refusal rate in many of states.1 Finally, irregular entry is another route in which migrant women can become undocumented and one in which they are at particular risk of human rights abuses.2 As workers, migrants, and carers, undocumented migrant women are frequently the main wage earner and often negotiate on behalf of their families and communities with the social, educational and health systems. The tendency to detect irregular migrants through these systems therefore places undocumented women at additional risk of being detained and deported. Paradoxically, it is the active agency of migrant women, in addition to their urgent needs regarding housing, working conditions and protection from violence which enables disproportionate discrimination. While European governments recognise health and education as fundamental standards to improve the situation of vulnerable women abroad, they implement policies which effectively strip these same women of their innate rights and entitlements should they become undocumented within EU borders. The barriers facing undocumented women to access basic social rights, social support systems or redress for abuses increases their experience of violence. Details: Brussels, Belgium: PICUM, 2012. 128p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 24, 2012 at: http://picum.org/picum.org/uploads/publication/Double%20Violence%20Against%20Undocumented%20Women%20-%20Protecting%20Rights%20and%20Ensuring%20Justice.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Europe URL: http://picum.org/picum.org/uploads/publication/Double%20Violence%20Against%20Undocumented%20Women%20-%20Protecting%20Rights%20and%20Ensuring%20Justice.pdf Shelf Number: 126996 Keywords: Illegal ImmigrantsImmigrantsMigrant WomenUndocumented Women (Europe)Violence Against Women |
Author: Cooper, Kate Title: Exploitation and Trafficking of Women: Critiquing narratives during the London Olympics 2012 Summary: his report was commissioned by the Central American Women's Network (CAWN) to inform its work around the role of civil society and the media in shaping public understanding of different forms of exploitation experienced by women, in particular migrant women, in the context of major sporting events. It is based on an extensive study of press coverage of the issues of trafficking and exploitation of women during the London Olympics 2012 and examines critically the range of narratives underlying the approach to these issues in the print media. In addition, the report includes in-depth analysis of the campaigns mounted by five civil society organizations (CSOs) and compares the different approaches and strategies applied in each case, assessing the reasons for the varying degrees of success of each, respectively. An important aim of the study was to identify lessons and draw up recommendations based on the experience of the London Olympics that can be applied to other forthcoming major sporting events. The report highlights the fact that dominant narratives about trafficking not only conflate issues of trafficking with those of immigration and sexual exploitation but also frequently fail to employ the necessary analytical rigour. Prior to the Olympics, narratives circulated within Westminster and in the media predicting a rise in the number of women that would be trafficked to London for the London Olympics. The forecasts involved extremely large numbers and focused in the main on an expected rise in the number of women to be trafficked for sexual exploitation. During this period, many migrant women 'seen' in London, particularly those who could be characterized as 'exotic', were assumed to be trafficked into the capital for the Olympics and to be controlled by criminal gangs. Media reports circulating around this time (and in general) illustrate the very negative and stereotyped ways in which migrant women are portrayed, particularly in the tabloid press. However, the ensuing 'moral panic' about trafficking and sexual exploitation was not backed up by any evidence. Indeed, a body of evidence already existed prior to the Olympics demonstrating that major sporting events do not contribute to a rise in the incidence of trafficking for sexual exploitation. It is unclear why no one in government seemed aware of such research. The prediction that London would be 'flooded' with 'sex slaves' proved to be a myth. Indeed, the numbers of actual Victims of Trafficking (VoTs), as defined in the Palermo Protocol, was low during the Olympics - as it had been prior to the event. Over time, attention has been drawn to this discrepancy by a wide variety of stakeholders: CSOs, sex worker rights activists, academics and some journalists from the broadsheets. Yet despite the existence of this by now wellestablished counter-narrative that questions and contradicts the prevalent assumptions, the dominant framework within which most trafficking continues to be constructed is that of sexual exploitation. At the same time, very little attention was given in both government discourse and the media either to the global inequalities that drive women to seek a better life abroad or to the benefits the economies of richer countries enjoy because of the role that migrants play in providing cheap labour. In particular, the role of the UK's trade and development policies in perpetuating and deepening these inequalities was not examined in any of the mainstream narratives. Nor was any understanding shown of the fact that restrictive immigration policies contribute to migrant women's vulnerabilities and potential exploitation. Finally, no account was taken of the fact that the percentage of migrant women in the UK is scarcely higher today than it was a few decades ago. Even though the number of VoTs is low, migrant women in the UK face a wide range of problems. The London based Latin American Women's Rights Service is a CSO that works at the grassroots with women from Latin American countries who find themselves in a variety of exploitative situations. Because the official definition of VoT is very narrow, LAWRS encounters few women who are helped by trafficking legislation and believes that the law is too restrictive and should be replaced by a broader approach in which the human rights of all migrant women are addressed. Stop The Traffik, a government-funded inter-governmental campaign, was set up to address the predicted rise in trafficking during the period of the Olympics. Although the premise was false, the initiative is to be commended for encompassing other forms of trafficking apart from trafficking for sexual exploitation, thus breaking somewhat with he narrow focus on prostitution. However, while the campaign itself achieved high visibility, the number of reports of suspected trafficking was extremely low, a result that throws into question the government's strategy on this issue and, indeed, the utility of the trafficking legislation as a means of addressing exploitation. X:talk, the third CSO examined in this report, is a sex workers organisation, which was concerned that the government would use the wildly exaggerated predictions of a rise in the number of women trafficked into the UK for the purposes of sexual exploitation as an excuse to aggressively police, raid and shut down some workplaces within the sex industry. Such practices have been shown time and again to endanger the lives of all sex workers by displacing them from their peers, from regular clients and from the outreach services that keep in contact with them. The 'abolitionist' take on sex work and associated narratives, prevalent in the current and previous governments, obscure the wider reality that trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation is one out of a wide range of exploitative situations in which migrant women can find themselves. In addition, the focus on sexual exploitation, rather than on sex work as work, results in less meaningful intervention. Current narratives about the issue are mostly constructed within a framework of implicit moral disapproval, which fails to address the important health and safety concerns of all sex workers, whether migrant or not. Moreover, it appears that government officials, both within the current and previous governments, subscribe to a particular brand of feminist ideology that that does not recognise or respect the agency of women who choose to become sex workers. Thus, despite the success of its media campaign from the perspective of press coverage, the x:talk campaign was not successful in achieving one of its main policy aims, namely a moratorium on the policing of sex workers during the period under analysis and, indeed, x:talk was excluded from wider debates around these issues. Migration is a development strategy for millions of women all over the world who seek out work in different parts of the service sector and other informal spheres in order to subsist. Restrictive immigration policies and a focus on trafficking and sexual exploitation do nothing to alleviate their vulnerability. What is needed is an approach that addresses and is able to legislate against the whole range of different forms of exploitation that take place in workplaces both in the UK and further along global supply chains. However, there were some examples of a more integrated approach with a focus on wider exploitation and the human rights of women: the multi-agency Human Trafficking and London 2012 Games Network, as well as the Play Fair Campaign, of which War on Want was a key part. War on Want's campaign, contributed both to the work of the Network and to Playfair and drew attention to the shocking labour conditions of many workers, mostly women, in the factories producing goods for export to the UK during the Olympics. A wide range of events ensured that their campaign figured in the media, though much ingenuity and imagination were required to gain the press's interest. This makes a marked contrast with the widespread coverage in the tabloid press of 'sex trafficking', in which any piece of news was seen as a hook for carrying yet another story on the issue. Responding to these difficulties in relation to attracting press interest, War on Want successfully developed a range of different media strategies, involving the innovative use of social media as a means of communicating directly with its supporters. The fourth campaign studied is the one developed and coordinated by Anti-Slavery International in collaboration with the Institute for Human Rights and Business. Entitled The Staff Wanted Initiative, this campaign sought to address exploitative working conditions in the poorly regulated sectors of construction, domestic work, cleaning, catering and hospitality during the London Olympics. This initiative helped business identify who is controlling cheap labour, how it is coming in and the level of workers' pay. This focus on workers' rights, rather than anti-immigration, trafficking or the abolition of any particular sector of work, serves as an example of good practice for employers in other areas of poorly regulated or informal work. This report argues that governments would do better to focus on the human rights of all migrants in the UK, not just those who fall into the restrictive definition of 'trafficked' people and many of whom experience exploitation in many different forms. In order for this change to occur, CSOs will need to work effectively together not only by campaigning against particular legislation but by also exerting pressure to counter particular ideologies that impede a reasoned and rational debate. This is particularly the case with sex work which, if it were conceptualized as "work", would lead to the formulation of holistic approaches based on global justice and the human rights of all migrant workers. During the London Olympics 2012 the campaigns analysed in this report experienced various degrees of success. Factors linked to success rates include: the visibility of these CSO during the Olympics, their ability to work with other CSOs and agencies, the palatability of their message and their effectiveness in getting their message out using various media outlets. In some cases, the use of social media allowed them to communicate directly to their public, reducing the importance of the conventional media. Nonetheless, high level campaigns in which CSOs were able to work together effectively and which managed to gain high media visibility stood the highest chance of effecting change. This is how, for example, the Playfair Campaign 2012 was able to insist on corporations disclosing their supply chains. But the strategy needs to be further developed if change is to occur at the level of ideology and legislation and the first step is for all CSOs to find a common, integrated narrative that focuses on global justice and the human rights of all women and to use this as a campaign framework. Based on the above analysis, the report concludes with recommendations directed at CSOs, governments and corporations. These recommendations are aimed at protecting the human rights of all women and ensuring responsible actions and media coverage during future sporting events around the world. Details: London: Central America Women's Network. 2014. 48p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 28, 2017 at: http://www.cawn.org/assets/Exploitation%20and%20Trafficking%20of%20Women_.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.cawn.org/assets/Exploitation%20and%20Trafficking%20of%20Women_.pdf Shelf Number: 131504 Keywords: Human TraffickingMigrant WomenOlympicsSex TraffickingSexual ExploitationSporting Events |