A Feminist Analysis of CEDAW General Recommendation No. 38 on Trafficking in Women & Girls

A Feminist Analysis of CEDAW General Recommendation No. 38 on Trafficking in Women & Girls

December 2020

• Theme: CEDAW, Global South Women's Forum, Migrant Workers, Sex Workers, Trafficking.
• Type: Video.
• Region/Country: Global.
• Language: English.

The CEDAW General Recommendation no. 38 on trafficking in women and girls in the context of global migration, adopted in November 2020, recognises that the ‘globally dominant economic policies are the cause behind large-scale economic inequality between States and individuals that manifests as labour exploitation’. It also highlights that macroeconomic factors produce the conditions of economic injustice that disproportionately impact women. In subsequent sections, however, it does not hold the threads of this promising structural analysis firmly and instead deviates to the familiar and dangerous tropes of the anti-trafficking world: discourage demand; prosecute those on the demand side; and link trafficking to ‘sexual exploitation’.

This panel discussion at Global South Women’s Forum 2020 presents a feminist analysis of the General Recommendation through providing a structural analysis of the globally dominant neoliberal economic model that lead to trafficking and labour exploitation, highlighting how recognising sex work as work is the most effective solution to combating trafficking in the sex industry, and presenting innovative examples of opening pathways to justice for persons affected by trafficking and labour exploitation.

Duration: 1:29:32
Subtitles: None