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An introduction to CATW |
The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is creating real and lasting changes in countries around the world by launching and supporting anti-trafficking projects in areas that few programs address: the links between prostitution and trafficking; challenging the demand for prostitution that promotes sex trafficking; and protecting the women and children who are its victims by working to curb legal acceptance and tolerance of the sex industry.
Please join CATW in putting a donation to work in our various campaigns and projects (See CATW’s campaign page). Your gift will support projects that prevent the sexual exploitation of women and children in 15 different countries.
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| Mission |
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The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is a non-governmental organization that promotes women's human rights. It works internationally to combat sexual exploitation in all its forms, especially prostitution and trafficking in women and children, in particular girls.
CATW is composed of regional networks and of affiliated individuals and groups. It serves as an umbrella that coordinates and takes direction from its regional organizations and networks in its work against sexual exploitation and in support of women's human rights.
CATW brings international attention to all forms of sexual exploitation, including prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and mail order bride selling. Working with national and international policy makers, women's rights and human rights advocates, and the United Nations, it promotes the fundamental human right of women and children, in particular, girls, to be free from sexual exploitation.
CATW prevents trafficking by educating boys and girls in schools and communities in different parts of the world and by training teachers, professionals, police, governmental authorities and the public about the harm of sexual exploitation and ways to resist and combat it.
CATW testifies before national congresses, parliaments, law reform commissions, regional and UN committees and commissions, and holds Category II Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Members serve as consultants to governmental commissions drafting new legislation on prostitution and sex trafficking, and against the sex industry.
CATW researches and documents the situation of women who have been trafficked and are in prostitution; educates the public about the extent of harm sustained by women and girls in prostitution; and galvanizes change through legislation and working with governments and international agencies to create/change/amend policy and legislation that support the right of every woman and girls to be free of sexual exploitation; and helps create and support alternatives for women and girls who have been sexually exploited.
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| Philosophy |
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Sexual exploitation is a practice by which person(s) achieve sexual gratification or financial gain or advancement through the abuse of a person's sexuality by abrogating that person's human right to dignity, equality, autonomy, and physical and mental well-being.
Sexual exploitation includes sexual harassment, rape, incest, battering, pornography and prostitution.
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All prostitution exploits women, regardless of women's consent.
Prostitution includes casual, brothel, escort agency or military prostitution, sex tourism, mail order bride selling and trafficking in women.
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'Trafficking in persons' shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;
(b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;
(Article 3,UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime)
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| Harm |
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Sexual exploitation preys on women and children made vulnerable by poverty and economic development policies and practices; refugee and displaced persons; women in the migrating process, and women who have been victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Prostitution affects all women, justifies the sale of any woman, and reduces all women to sex.
Sexual exploitation eroticizes women's inequality.
Sexual exploitation is a vehicle for racism and "first world" domination, disproportionately victimising minority and "third world" women.
Worldwide, the average age of girls' entrance into prostitution is 14.
Local and global sex industries are systematically violating women's rights on an ever - increasing scale.
Sexual exploitation violates the human rights of anyone subjected to it, whether female or male, adult or child, Northern or Southern.
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| Solution |
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Decriminalize the women in prostitution. Criminalize the men who buy women and children and anyone who promotes sexual exploitation, particularly pimps, procurers and traffickers. Reject State policies and practices that channel women into conditions of sexual exploitation. Provide education and employment opportunities that enhance women's worth and status, thereby diminishing the necessity for the women to turn to prostitution.
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| Vision |
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It is a fundamental right to be free of sexual exploitation in all its forms.
Women and girls have the right to sexual integrity and autonomy.
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| History |
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As we begin the 21st century, the CATW has made enormous progress in the campaign against sexual exploitation and in extending its influence worldwide. CATW has been an effective NGO presence internationally and has changed the terms of the debate over prostitution and trafficking in many regions of the globe and at the United Nations level.
Because we have Coalitions in all the major world regions and have been successful in setting up a worldwide network against trafficking and prostitution, we have the ability to work jointly and separately in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. In 1993 we had one secretariat. Today we have six. We also have national coalitions in over fifteen countries including the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Chile, the United States, Canada, Norway, France and Greece.
Whereas five years ago, it looked like there was little resistance to governments seeking to legalize prostitution as a form of work, and who were considering regulating the sex industry and taxing it as a "sex sector," today this situation has changed. The CATW has influenced anti-sex industry and anti-trafficking legislation in the Philippines, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Japan, Sweden and the United States.
The definition of trafficking, in the new UN Transnational Crime Convention's Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children was launched and advocated by the Coalition. CATW organized the International Human Rights Network (IHRN), a coalition of more than 140 NGOs, to successfully advocate for a definition of trafficking that protects all victims, not just those who can prove that they were forced. Many of the measures to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and punish perpetrators were also initiated by CATW.
CATW has produced major books, reports and groundbreaking videos on prostitution and trafficking as major human rights violations of women. Our challenge, in opposition to the enormous power and resources of the sex industry that portrays prostitution as sexual liberation, work or even glamorous, has been to make the harm of prostitution visible.
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