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IMADR cordially invites you to its workshops at the World Social Forum 2007, Nairobi, entitled:
Mainstreaming the Combat against Exploitative Migration Including Human Trafficking: Challenges in Africa and Asia

Date & Venue:
Strategy Meeting, January 21 2007 (Sun) Part One 2:30-5:00pm & Part Two 5:30-8:00pm (2 slots), Access Gate 24 IN C - Upper
Panel Discussion, January 23 2007 (Tues) 11:30-2:00pm, Access Gate 10 IN - Upper

Chair: Kinhide Mushakoji, Vice-President, IMADR/Former Vice-Rector, United Nations Univ. (Japan)

Main Participants:
Bisi Olateru-Olagbegi, Executive Director, Women's Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON) (Nigeria)
Samir Amin & Bernard Founou, Third World Forum (Senegal, to be confirmed)
Renu Rajbhandari, Chairperson, Women's Rehabilitation Center (WOREC) (Nepal, TBC)
Burnad Fatima Natesan, President, Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum (India)
Nimalka Fernando, President, IMADR/Lawyer (Sri Lanka)
Various activists/specialists/researchers from Africa and Asia [TBA]

*Working Languages: English and French

Outline and Objectives:
Nowadays, neoliberal globalization tends to be increasingly feminized and informalized due to the polarization of the global economy, where the rich get richer and the poor poorer. This is one of the root causes of exploitative migration, which is not addressed properly by UN initiatives on international migration and development and is, in fact, worsened by the fight against criminal organizations ignoring the human insecurity imposed on undocumented migrants treated as “illegal” by the receiving States.

The people of the global South must unite their forces in denouncing the insufficiency of these approaches of the international community, which avoid facing the true problems involved in the increasing human insecurity generated for all the victims of exploitative migration, especially the women and children victims of human trafficking.

This is why we believe that the social movements in Africa and Asia that are combating exploitative migration, especially human trafficking, must develop together a campaign with the support of their counterparts in the other regions throughout the world, in order to mainstream their activities which should not be left only to feminists and human rights activists, but should become the concern of all social movements, of all the citizens, and all of the State and corporate actors of the world.

To this end, IMADR at the WSF 2007 will hold a Strategy Meeting for activists, followed by a Panel Discussion, to mainstream the combat against exploitative migration, especially human trafficking in the Asian and African regions.

The Strategy Meeting is held as a starting point of a process of dialogue in sharing information, preparing a Counter Report, and in developing joint advocacy and joint awareness-building activities, i.e. launching an International Campaign against Exploitative Migration and Human Trafficking.

The meeting has three objectives. Firstly, it will discuss how movements in Africa and Asia, working at the grassroots, national and regional levels, can share their experiences and best practices, and cooperate in outreach into the receiving countries to fight for the human rights and human security of their exploited sisters and brothers.

Secondly, the meeting will address the need to call upon other social movements fighting in Africa and Asia against neoliberal globalization, and call upon them to include in their plans of action the problems of the insecurity of exploited migrants, especially those who are trafficked. For example, social movements and NGOs working in conflict regions in support of refugees must be called upon to develop activities to prevent the act of trafficking originating in refugee camps. Those working on HIV/AIDs should be called upon to include in their priorities the health problems of trafficked women and children. Those working on minority issues should address the cases where recruiters target people belonging to vulnerable groups. And those working on poverty alleviation should address the cases where “illegal” migration and trafficking is chosen as a means to survive in situations where the rich-poor gaps widen.

Thirdly, the meeting will discuss the need to join forces in producing an Afro-Asian Counter Report to the UN Secretary-General’s 2006 Report on “International Migration and Development,” addressing the rights, dignity and security of undocumented migrants, especially those smuggled or trafficked. The Counter Report should also address the responsibility of different actors of the receiving countries, including the State, the corporate sector, the media and citizens, to invest in programs for the promotion of the rights and dignity of the exploited migrants and returnees/survivors, as well as for the co-development and common security between the civil society and migrant communities, and between the community of origin and destination of the exploited migrants.

At the Panel Discussion, the outcomes of the discussions at the Strategy Meeting will be presented to a wider audience. Following a call to join our International Campaign against Exploitative Migration and Human Trafficking, panelists will be sharing their concrete experiences of working to reduce the insecurity of migrants or trafficked women and children, together with other issues such as HIV/AIDs and refugee protection. The floor will then be open to think together about effective ways to mainstream the combat and bring about just and sustainable migration.

For further information please contact:
Yuriko Hara, Under Secretary-General/Program Manager, IMADR
E-mail: imadrwsf[at]hotmail.co.jp / yhara[at]imadr.org (please send to both accounts)
SIRONA HOTEL, Nairobi, Kenya (Between 19 and 25 January 2007)
Phone: +254-20- 6752686 Fax: +254-20-3742730

IMADR International Secretariat 　Contact person: Setsuko Arai, Program Assistant
E-mail: imadris[at]imadr.org / sarai[at]imadr.org
Phone: +81-(0)3-3586-7447 Fax: +81-(0)3-3586-7462