In 2019 in Nairobi, IWRAW Asia Pacific came together with partners and allies in the labour rights, migrant rights, sex workers’ rights and women’s rights movements to co-create a Manifesto on Feminist Approaches to Counter Trafficking – the FACT Manifesto.
The Manifesto is based upon and builds on the extensive feminist analysis and writing by activists and scholars who have long critiqued the globally dominant narratives on the issue of trafficking in women, recognising that they stem from sexist, racist, heteronormative, patriarchal and neoliberal conceptions of women, labour and migration. This manifesto seeks to challenge these intersecting systems of oppression by setting out a visionary framework for inter-movement solidarity building and law and policy advocacy for the global labour rights, migrant rights, sex workers’ rights and women’s rights movements.
Our thanks go to Lulu Kitololo for its design and illustration, and her graphic reporting at the event, collated here in PDF format as A Visual Journey through Feminist Perspectives on Trafficking.
Also emerging from our Nairobi convening is a short film about the event, as well as a series of video interviews with anti-trafficking activists:
- Archana Kotecha of Liberty Shared explains why a cross-border, cross-sector and cross-disciplinary countertrafficking movement is crucial, and why victim care must take priority.
- Borislav Gerasimov of the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women discusses the importance of different international legal frameworks and the need to ensure complementarity in addressing human trafficking.
- Phelister Abdallah of the Kenya Sex Workers Alliance describes how sex workers in Kenya are organising in the fight against human trafficking.
- Sanyu Awori from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre explains how trafficking and related exploitation occur not only as a result of transnational criminal networks, but also as part of the operation of legitimate business.
- Pooja of Srijan Foundation and the Jharkhand Anti-Trafficking Network compares ‘stop migration’ and ‘safe migration’ approaches, and calls for an end to protectionist policies if women are to be genuinely empowered.
- And Samuel Okyere of the University of Bristol discusses the obstacles to safe and accessible means of migration which keep traffickers in business.