Feminist Approaches to Counter Trafficki Human trafficking is a serious crime and gross violation of human rights. States have an obligation to prevent human trafficking and protect its victims. They have made a commitment to do so under different international legal frameworks (e.g. the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Convention), and the Sustainable Development Goals), regional human rights treaties, and national laws.  The fact that human trafficking continues to persist worldwide -and that there also is a roll-back of rights-based gender-sensitive migration and labour policies-, are the result of not paying attention to the root causes driving trafficking; such as gender and economic inequality, the precarisation of labour, restrictive migration policies, climate change and natural disasters, and conflict.

While there is some response to this at a regional and global level -catalyzed partly by the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda-, at the national level there is an unprecedented backlash against human rights and gender equality, increasing racism and xenophobia towards migrants, erosion of labour rights, and climate change denial. As such, States have focused their anti-trafficking measures on discriminatory migration policies towards women, and securitisation and policing of marginalised populations, with scant recognition of the adverse human rights impact of such responses. Ironically, such measures iamed to prevent trafficking and supposed toassist trafficked (or at-risk) women have resulted in their forced confinement in institutions, amounting to arbitrary detentions. And programmes to assist women in achieving economic independence and prevent re-trafficking have practically condemned them to a life time of low-wage labour. All too often, anti-trafficking measures have been implemented in a top-down, one-size-fits-all manner, and calls for meaningful consultations with those affectedhave fallen on deaf ears. Addressing these complex and multi-faceted challenges requires urgent action on many fronts.

Luckily, the recent decision of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) to develop a general recommendation on trafficking in the context of global migration provides a significant opportunity to provide a strong, systemic, feminist analysis to the issue of trafficking in women and girls, and to initiate a much needed wider discussion between the women's rights, labour rights and migrant rights movements on the feminist re-framing of how trafficking as a human rights violation is understood and responded to.

Hence, the CEDAW Committee#s general recommendation will provide clear, cogent and specific guidance to State parties regarding their obligations under CEDAW. Following its 71st Session in October 2018, the CEDAW Committee has published a concept note setting the groundwork for the Committee#s elaboration of the general recommendation.  The aim of the general recommendation is: #(#) to interpret the definition, scope and expectations regarding States parties# obligations in relation to article 6 of the Convention to suppress all forms of trafficking in women and girls, ensuring that the human rights of women and girls are respected, protected and fulfilled in accordance with international law.#It is further expected to specifically respond to the current realities of unprecedented global migration flows and its link to increased levels of trafficking in women and girls as well as the emerging forms of exploitation to which women and girl victims of trafficking are subjected.

However, the timeline that the CEDAW Committee has outlined for the adoption of the general recommendation,provides a small and critical window of opportunity to inform and influence the first draft of the general recommendation, and to ensure that it responds directly to the lived realities of the marginalized groups who are impacted by trafficking. Furthermore, is an opportunity to kickstart a global cross-movement conversation on trafficking, and the way it is framed as a human rights violation.

This is the reason why, with support of the Voice Programme, IWRAW Asia Pacific will seek to galvanize women's rights, labour rights and migrant rights activities to advocate collaboratively and cohesively around the CEDAW general recommendation, particularly opening up pathways to the CEDAW advocacy space for marginalized groups. IWRAW Asia Pacific will also seek to conscientize policy makers primarily at the international level to be responsive to the needs of the marginalized groups. The CEDAW general recommendation will be an authoritative instrument obliging all State parties to CEDAW to take measures to address trafficking in line with it, it will influence standard setting at the national level. Accordingly, the project will create tools to ensure that national groups cancontinue to work across movements using a feminist, intersectional analysis to trafficking after the general recommendation is adopted.