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Women's Forum Statement
Statement of the
ASIA WOMEN'S FORUM ON MIGRATION
Seoul, Korea
26-28 September 2005
We, the 50 delegates coming from 13 countries/territories in Asia, namely Bangladesh, Burma, China, Hong Kong SAR, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand, representing members of the Migrant Forum in Asia and migrants rights advocates, women’s groups, the academe, human rights activists, and faith-based groups come together to Seoul, Republic of Korea, on the 26 th to the 28th of September 2005, at the Asia Women’s Forum on Migration, organized by the Joint Committee for Migrants in Korea (JCMK) and Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), where we discussed vital issues affecting women migrants in the Region. This meeting was initiated by women migrants’ rights advocates and representatives to focus our discussion on women migrants’ issues.
We come in solidarity with the women migrant workers in the Republic of Korea as they celebrate the Women Migrants’ festival on the 25 th of September 2005.
This meeting is a continuation of years of struggle by migrant women and advocates to address the issues, needs and strategies of migrant women in Asia. MFA has been actively pursuing initiatives since its inception, and in 1994, MFA’s 1st Regional Conference on Migration (RCM), “Living and Working together with Migrant Workers in Asia” was among the first regional initiatives to recognize and analyze the growing phenomenon of feminization of migration. MFA also focused on the issue in 1995 in Thailand, “Asian Women Prepare for Beijing” where we discussed trafficking in women, violence against women migrants, and globalizing the economy, labour and women in migration. Continuing its work for women migrants, the feminization of migration was one of the key themes of MFA’s 9 th RCM in Korea in 2004.
We come together today in a special context, observing ten years of the 4 th World Conference on Women in Beijing and its Beijing Platform for Action. The conference also marks ten years of the WTO where services trade liberalization are high in the agenda of negotiations.
We have raised our voices together to call out our slogans:
- Women migrants rights are human rights
- Equal pay for equal work
- Migrant workers are not tradable commodities
We mark among our victories the historic coming into force of the United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families on July 1, 2003, and continue our ratification campaign for universal ratification by all countries. Our advocacy work has brought migrant women’s issues to the forefront at the regional and international level. Migrant women members have attended/been consultants throughout the World Conference Against Racism and Xenophobia (WCAR) process, and contributed in the final WCAR declaration that highlighted the issues faced by migrant workers. We also attended the International Labor Conference in Geneva in 2004, where migrant domestic workers’ issues were again highlighted.
Despite these gains, we are faced by greater challenges.
Globalization and the WTO’s neo-liberal agenda have led to worsening of poverty, unsustainable development, and marginalization of vulnerable sectors. This in turn causes increasing incidence of migration, as working abroad becomes the only option to survive or improve their lives.
Militarism and stricter border controls, arising from national security-oriented government policies and the U.S.-led “War on Terror” have led to increased vulnerability of migrant women, forcing them to migrate through undocumented channels. The criminalization of undocumented migrant workers and crackdowns are often accompanied by human rights abuses and violence against women.
Patriarchal and sexist ideologies framing the current international division of labor intensify women’s subordination, undervalue women’s work, and contribute to the feminization of poverty and labor migration. In addition, Systemic discrimination against women, xenophobia, policies, agency exploitation, gender bias and lack of recognition of women’s work and economic contributions added further challenges for migrant women to overcome.
Moreover, WTO GATS-Mode 4 is not beneficial to the mass of women migrant workers and only serves the investments liberalization agenda of transnational corporations. It should not be used as a bargaining chip for bigger trade-offs in agriculture and industry.
All of these are obstacles to actualizing women migrants’ rights to mobility, gainful employment and equality.
We acknowledge the significance of challenges faced by advocates in Republic of Korea in further protecting migrant women’s rights and declare solidarity and commitment to continue to carry out our goals together.
We also urge the Korean government to provide proper compensation for the migrant woman who committed suicide as a result of lack of support from the Labor office.
In this conference we renew our commitment to overcome these challenges in order to improve the lives of migrant women, discuss vital trends and issues of women migrant workers in the region, provide a venue for participants to discuss country-specific responses, including trafficking, health, inter-cultural marriages and GATS-Mode 4, formulate strategies at the international/regional level; and form a network of women human rights defenders. We have discussed the recommendations for migrant advocates, government agencies and other concerned parties, which will be circulated to the public after finalization, and we will devote ourselves to carry them out.
We the 50 participants of the Asia Women’s Forum call for the following recommendations:
- Create regional standards and criteria as a basis for monitoring and regulating the transparency and accountability of recruitment agencies, and pressure the government to adopt and implement these standards;
- Advocate for recognition of migrant workers, especially women migrant workers, as development partners;
- Forging Bilateral Labour Agreements in part by lobbying governments in both sending & receiving countries;
- Regionally coordinated campaigns & lobbying through coordinated Parliamentary Lobbying, and diplomatic briefing;
- Submit Reports on women migrant workers to applicable UN body;
- Call for the recognition of domestic work as work, and the protection of domestic workers under the labor law;
- Establish safe channels for remittances, and protect migrant workers from unscrupulous practices regarding remittances;
- Conduct participatory, collaborative research between sending and receiving countries to enhance and develop knowledge of the laws and practices which impact migrant workers, with a special focus on migrant women, and disseminate this information to migrant workers, the media, and concerned parties;
- For Pre-departure, on-site and post-arrival training programs to be developed and reviewed in coordination with migrant women and migrants’ rights NGOs in order to formulate standards in line with human rights and empowerment principles;
- Use of Information Technology for education & lobbying (“e-campaigns”);
- Gender-sensitization of all institutions including the government;
- Deconstruct image and give appropriate information about international marriage and working abroad;
- Produce audio-visual materials for distribution in sending countries to inform potential migrants of the realities of working abroad;
- Develop a regional policy multi-lateral agreement that will protect women migrants;
- Facilitate the empowerment of women migrant workers through participatory process, develop trainings, and awareness raising;
- Facilitate and encourage the development of self representative groups of migrant women workers;
- NGOs, CBOs and trade unions to ally and strengthen the solidarity between migrant women and other sectors, particularly women movements;
- Conduct information education campaign on vital trends and issues (e.g. globalization, neo-liberalism) affecting women migrant workers; and
- Initiate public awareness among women migrant workers and advocates on emerging issues such as GATS Mode 4.
Participants:
- Migrant Forum in Asia
- Joint Committee for Migrants in Korea
- Seoul Women’s Migrant Center
- Namyangju women’s migrant Center
- Ain O Shalish Kendra
- Research and Migratory Movement Unit (RMMRU)
- Welfare Association of Repatriated Bangladeshi Employees (WARBE)
- Women and Media Collective
- Act-Form Sri Lanka
- Kanlungan Center Foundation Inc.
- Unlad Kabayan Migrant Services Foundation Inc.
- Center for Migrant Advocacy
- Women’s Aid Organization (WAO)
- Migrant Care
- Center for Indonesian Migrant Workers (CIMW)
- Jarnas Pekabumi
- Asian Migrant Center
- Hope Workers Center , Taiwan
- World Vision, Burma
- MAP Foundation
- Mekong Migration Network
- Women’s Rehabilitation Center (WOREC)
- ANWA
- International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) Asia
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