In celebration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, members of the Asian Network on Women and International Migration (ANWIM) held a meeting on October 9-12, 1996 in Batam island, Indonesia to discuss the plight of women migrant workers in the region. Members of ANWIM from nine Asia-Pacific countries called on all governments to recognize foreign workers in labor legislation, to ensure the enforcement of protective mechanisms in both sending and receiving countries, and in the case of undocumented workers, to recognize their status as contract workers.
The participants demanded accountability from States for the violence perpetrated against the women migrant workers, and for the full use of their laws in ensuring justice for the victims and their right to obtain legal redress.
The participants likewise called upon the other women's organizations, trade unions and human rights organizations to condemn all forms of violence against women migrant workers as a gross violation of basic human rights. They are also urged to provide support and services to these workers.
It was stressed that the rights of migrant women workers are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations 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 human rights conventions.
Violence inflicted upon the women migrant workers come in many forms - physical, verbal, psychological and sexual. They occur inside homes, factories and entertainment centers where they work. They all constitute human rights violations and victimization based in ethnicity and gender. Deaths had occurred in a number of cases.
ANWIM is a network which arose from a research project of the Gender and Development (GAD) Programme of the Asian and Pacific Development Centre.