Thailand and Southeast Asia Regional Office

Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW)

Putting our Minds Together

by Naurin Ahmad-Zaki

Prang, a young woman from Central Thailand came to Bangkok in search of a better life than the one her philandering husband had to offer back home. Far away from her family, earning her livelihood as a prostitute did not seem such a bad option at the time, since the perks that came with the job were lucrative and high.

When her father desperately needed a large amount of money to save the family's land, Prang accepted a well-paying job offer in Germany through which she would be able to save her family from ruin. The job was also to free her from selling her body for money; she was told that she had to persuade men to order drinks in a bar in return for a commission.  

But Prang soon discovered that she had been lured into a trap - she was forced to work and live under deplorable conditions in a brothel and almost half her salary was deducted for the money she had been given in Thailand as 'advance payment' and other fictitious debts she had to pay back.  

After the police raided the brothel where she worked, her employers were prosecuted for trading in humans and forced prostitution. For a full year Prang appeared in court as a witness against her traffickers, facing many embarrassing and humiliating questions, and in the meantime started working as a cleaning woman. In the end her former employers were sentenced to two years imprisonment for human trading and trafficking.  

Larena from the Philippines went to Kuwait where she had been offered a well-paying job as a domestic worker. However, once she reached her destination, she was confined to the house - her employers did not even allow her to leave the house for church or to empty the garbage bin - she was frequently hit and did not receive any salary for 15 months. When her employer, a wealthy local businessman, tried to strangle her with a head scarf, she attempted suicide by jumping from a window from the third floor. After having spent six months in hospital, Larena was in danger of being arrested, since attempted suicide is a felony in Kuwait.  

Trafficking of women, of which the above are prime examples, is described as ``all acts involved in the recruitment and/or transport of a woman within and across national borders for sale, work or services by means of direct or indirect violence or threat of violence, abuse of authority or dominant position, debt bondage or other forms of coercion.´´  

However a distinct line has to be drawn between trafficking and migration. While many women might choose to migrate from one place to the other for economic reasons, women are never `trafficked with consent´. Migration, on the other hand, may be a means for women to help themselves, their parents, husbands and children to improve their economic and social status. Though most migrants originate from poor countries, often they are not so impoverished that they are not able to afford the agents' fees through savings, selling of property or taking a loan.  

Many times it is women who wish to migrate who fall prey to traffickers, but it would be a mistake to assume that these women are passive and helpless, on the contrary, they are women who show enough courage and initiative to improve their families' as well as their own lives.  

In order to form an international alliance for better co-ordination of national and global actions against traffic in women, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) with its co-ordination office in Bangkok, was formed in 1994 at the International Workshop on Migration and Traffic in Women, organised in Chiangmai, Thailand.  

One of GAATW's main tasks is to document the situation of trafficked women in different countries. For the International Report on Traffic in Women, prepared by the Foundation against Trafficking of Women (STV) in the Netherlands, which provides accurate information about current patterns on international trafficking and formulates recommendations to deal with this problem, GAATW developed working definitions which combine the recruiting methods and the different situations women are often faced by in the country of their destination. The core elements of these two definitions are coercion and violence which force women into forced labour and slavery-like conditions.

GAATW is of the opinion that the 1949 Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of Prostitution of others is not an effective and adequate instrument to counter the magnitude of the trafficking problem in modern times. This is because prostitution and trafficking in women should strictly be regarded as two separate issues. As Siriporn Skrobanek of GAATW points out, it is a common misconception that all prostitutes are trafficked women. In fact, Skrobanek laments, in these times of economic crises, prostitution is becoming a means for survival for deprived women in various parts of the world. She feels that activities which are meant well, often jeopardise the vulnerable situation of these women and re-enforce social prejudices against them. On the other hand it is equally wrong to assume that all women are trafficked for the purpose of prostitution.  

Women like Larena are lured to other countries to work as domestic labour or are used as forced labourers in the fields of agriculture, construction or in the manufacturing business, as were a group of Thai women who were trafficked to the United States to work in a garment factory in California. They were confined to the premises of the factory, held in debt bondage and did not receive any wages. Some of them were used as forced labourers for as long as seven years, before a raid in 1995 resulted in their release.  

Rather than wanting to put a stop to the migration of women, it is one of GAATW's primary aims to ensure that the human rights of the women concerned are taken into consideration by both the authorities as well as by the involved agencies. Skrobanek believes that one of the main spheres of GAATW's work is the training of people involved in the help of trafficked women. ``A Ukrainian woman was tricked into prostitution in Thailand and then later on started to live in a `marriage-like´ arrangement with one of her customers. But after repeated incidents of physical abuse, she is now trying to return to her home country. However, since the daughter she has with this man is a Thai national, she is facing many difficulties. The Foundation for Women, an NGO closely linked with GAATW, is trying to help her in obtaining a passport for the girl from the Ukrainian embassy in Indonesia.´´  

Because of the nature of its work which requires the organisation to be internationally linked, GAATW is currently working in close co-operation with 150 individuals and organisation members world-wide. For the purpose of training activists and related organisations, it organises workshops on a regular basis within the framework of human rights activities in which human rights experts give guidance as to how to give assistance to trafficked women. Coupled with this training, several manuals which GAATW has published, serve as guidelines for the involved workers and activists.  

With the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, GAATW organised a workshop on human rights training for organisations in Asia and Eastern Europe in 1996, one in 1997 in Africa and for 1998 another one is scheduled to be held in South America. The workshop organised in 1997 was held in Kampala, Uganda and included the following points in its agenda: to acquaint already active women with existing international trafficking instruments, their usage and their limitations, to document human rights violations in the field of trafficking of women making use of  international human rights conventions, to exchange experiences on lobbying on national and international levels and to provide a platform for an exchange of experiences on strategic uses of UN instruments.  

Prior to the Kampala workshop, the 16 participants from 13 countries handed in reports on the situation of trafficking in their respective countries. One of the advantages of these reports is that they can later on be used as the basis for future analysis on strategy formulation. An analysis of the situation of trafficking in Africa will be used to bring about a more effective UNO convention against trafficking in women. Another purpose of these workshops is that anti-trafficking groups, sex workers' rights activists and organisations of domestic workers and migrant workers come together identifying common interests, seeking to reconcile the pro-rights and anti-violence perspectives and building alliances beyond the traditional dividing lines that have historically and practically kept them separated.

GAATW has set up two working groups; the first gives advise on new international instruments concerning the minimum standard rules for the treatment of victims of trafficking.

The other working group is helping in developing various research methodologies, since GAATW conducts extensive research in many places. For example, in recent times, GAATW was involved in research on victims of cross-border trafficking. It set up a task force to assist the victims who were foreign women and children and was working under the National Commission on Women’s Affairs.   

Another area where GAATW feels trafficked women need far-reaching support is in restoring their self-esteem and confidence. Often women, after returning to their communities, not only face difficulties in being accepted by their families and relatives, but also experience a sense of personal failure. In this field, GAATW works in close cooperation with the Foundation for Women (FFW). One of their current projects in the north of Thailand aims at helping women who were trafficked to Japan to work as prostitutes, but were sent back to their native villages after the Japanese police discovered that they were illegal immigrants. Initially the research workers found it difficult to make the returnees talk about the traumatic experiences they had gone through, but after repeated meetings with other victims and with supportive family members, the women were ready to break the silence. Skrobanek believes that these meetings are a decisive factor in making the traumatised victims realise that what happened to them was not due to a `fault´ on their part and that they now have a better future ahead of them.  

Alongside these regular counselling sessions, GAATW also assists women in setting up small businesses of their own like hand-weaving or chicken-raising, by granting them small loans. Once the women become successful in their business endeavours, the stigmatisation often practised by their community against them lessens.  

Although GAATW is trying to reach trafficked women in as many spheres as possible, there has to be a shift in the anti-trafficking movement from representing other women to self-representation, as Gail Peterson of the North American Regional Consultative Forum believes. As she aptly put it in a speech, ``... we would, perhaps do well to recognise ourselves as schnorrers [beggars], like sex workers and wives, who are experts at, respectively, `solicitation, seduction and negotiation´ and `manipulating men for money, goods and privacy´, ... and put our minds together in conjuring a plot for getting what we deserve and what won't be given to us on the basis of our labour or humanity.´´