[asia-apec 228] Declaration: women migrants

[AMC]

5 November 1996

DECLARATION

We, the members of the Asian Network on Women and International Migration
(ANWIM), coming from nine countries in the Asian and Pacific region, on the
occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against
Women on the 25th November, express our concern for the plight of women
migrant workers and call for particular attention to their increasing
vulnerability to violence, leading in some cases to death. This physical,
verbal, psychological and sexual violence caused by the nature of their work
- in homes, factories and entertainment centres - is a gross denial of their
human rights, and a victimisation based on their gender and ethnicity.

We re-affirm our position that women migrant workers, regardless of
immigration and labour status, have rights as workers and as human beings as
embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on
the Protection of the Rights of Migrants and their Families, the Convention
on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women and other
conventions.

We call upon all governments to recognise foreign domestic workers in labour
legislation, to ensure the enforcement of protective mechanisms in both
sending and receiving countries, and in the case of undocumented workers, to
recognise their status as contract workers. We demand accountability from
States for the violence perpetrated and for the full use of their laws in
ensuring justice for victims and their rights to obtain legal redress.

We call upon other women's organisations, trade unions and human rights
groups to condemn all forms of violence against women migrant workers as a
gross violation of basic human rights, We urge them to continue to provide
support and services to women migrant workers.

We commit ourselves to continue to work and advocate just and humane
treatment of women migrant workers.




Declaration of the Consultative Meeting of the Asian Network on Women and
International Migration (ANWIM) held from 9 - 12 October 1996, Batam Island,
Indonesia. ANWIM is a network which arose from a research project of the
Gender and Development (GAD) Programme of the Asian and Pacific Development
Centre (APDC), Malaysia, on Trade in Domestic Workers: Causes, Mechanisms
and Consequences, (1987-1992).

ANWIM is a network which arose from a research project of the Gender and
Development (GAD) Programme of the Asian and Pacific Development Centre
(APDC), Malaysia, on Trade in Domestic Workers: Causes, Mechanisms and
Consequences, (1987-1992).