Women's Human Rights Resources Database

The author summarizes EU anti-trafficking policies between 1996 and 2006, particularly focusing on the Framework Decision on combating trafficking in human beings and the Directive on the short-term residence permit for victims of trafficking.  The Framework Decision only moderately harmonized anti-trafficking efforts, leaving member counties to independently decide on the priority of enforcement, and define specifics of sexual morality, permissible migration, labour standards, and prostitution policies. The author describes the Directive as viewing victims suspiciously and using victims simply as a source of information regarding other criminal activity. The Action Plan adopted in 2005 represents some steps forward by recognizing the need for a human rights perspective, addressing the gender-based causes of trafficking, and mentioning the prospect of reducing the demand for trafficking. 

This article critiques the metric of “empowerment” as a singular way to classify whether development projects for women have been successful. The article focuses on how microfinance has both empowered and disempowered Guatemalan women in relation to other members of their communities. It finds that microfinance can increase the agency of women in Guatemala as consumers, but can also subject women to economic power structures that are patriarchal, depending on how microfinance projects are deployed. The authors focused on Guatemala, but make reference to how their analysis reflects wider patterns in the Global South. The article’s research was conducted from 2007-2014, with 20 months of field research conducted between 2009-2010.

This article does not expressly discuss human rights or international law, but does provide suggestions on how to analyze both national and international economic policies from a gender perspective and why this is important. The authors argue for a transformatory approach to macroeconomic policy, which rethinks macroeconomics in order to incorporate gender-equitable social policy. The authors discuss three biases found in macroeconomic policies, evidenced through the policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which reinforce the social and economic marginalization of women. In conclusion, the authors stress the importance of social relations in developing effective policies and argue for a more participatory approach to economic policy development. The Canadian Alternative Federal Budget is offered an example of such an approach.

This journal article analyses the role of women in sustainable economic development within the Columbian agricultural industry. The article is comprised of three parts.  Part I outlines the relationship between sustainable agricultural development and gender equality. Part II describes how the impact of the Columbian government’s progressive laws are limited by social and cultural gender dynamics. Part III presents the author’s recommendations. Specifically, it recommends the implementation of a Victims Law institutional framework designed to increase female land rights. 

This paper outlines why the market for migrant domestic workers exists and where legal protection of these workers is lacking. While women entered the workforce in greater numbers throughout the 1900s, the distribution of domestic tasks remains weighted toward women. Working women may delegate these domestic tasks to other women, hiring domestic workers to either replace or complement gender-based roles. Domestic work is identified as one of the major forces driving international female labour migration, offering wages higher than that available in the home country and not requiring high skills. The author identifies factors that prevent legal protection for domestic workers as being (1) perceptions about housework, (2) nature of the employer-employee relationship, and (3) existence of domestic work between the public and private spheres. The author calls on increased protection at the national level to support existing international law working against the marginalization and exploitation of migrant domestic workers. This process of protection should begin with combatting silence and conformity in the domestic work sector.

The author argues for the importance of conducting comprehensive social and poverty assessments of trade policy, including consideration of social, economic and legal/regulatory factors. The author traces trends in international trade negotiations, including actions taken by developing countries to draw attention to the need for greater social and poverty analysis of trade agreements and development assistance. She offers criticisms of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund's approach to trade and reviews responses by the development community, including an overview of tools developed to conduct a poverty and social analysis of trade policies. As an example, the author provides a more in-depth overview of the Gender Assessment Project, commissioned by the Women's Edge Coalition to develop a framework for carrying out gender assessment of trade and investment agreements.

This paper analyzes the garment industry as illustrative of a governance gap that is created in today's globalized economy when corporations directly impact human dignity but states do not have the ability to extend their legislation to protect international human rights from corporate harm. The author argues that the relevant soft law instruments have largely overlooked women's employment experiences in the effort to fill this governance gap. However, there are axes of convergence between the soft law initiatives that are helpful in forecasting the evolution of a normative framework that would adequately protect women's rights. Two axes are addressed in detail in this article: the ILO core labour standards and a growing awareness of the need to draw upon the human rights paradigm in its entirety, rather than by reference to select groups of rights.

This article aims to make trade agreements more comprehensible to non-economists so that proposals for more gender equitable international trade can be better understood. The author provides a brief overview of the agreement on Trade Related International Property (TRIPS) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The author then discusses how trade and other economic policies are gendered, as well as how globalization has led to changes in the international organization of labour. Several feminist responses to globalization are presented with the intention of stimulating discussion on ways to mainstream gender issues into international trade.

The author argues that Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) violate women's right to development and are unsustainable in the long term. The author presents feminist critiques of SAPs to illustrate their disproportionate impact on women and considers responses to these criticisms by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The author discusses the add-on approach of the World Bank, which appends social programs to existing economic policies. She argues instead that social concerns should be considered throughout policy development and challenges the Bank's hands-off attitude towards human rights. The author concludes with recommendations on how to make the World Bank, the IMF and governments more gender-aware, stressing that women must transform both the state and the market to be responsive to their needs.

This article examines some of the central dynamics of globalization from a gender perspective. The author stresses the importance of identifying strategic sites in which to study globalization and focuses her analysis in this article on global cities and international law. With respect to global cities, the author discusses the valorization of certain work cultures over others, noting the devalorization of those types of employment in which women tend to predominate. In her discussion on international law, she emphasizes the transformation of state sovereignty and the growing presence of non-state actors as subjects in international law. The author examines the repercussions of these trends for women and stresses the importance of developing a feminist critique that can facilitate greater participation and recognition of women within international law.

Globally, fifty percent of migrants are female. Migrant domestic workers are usually female and migrate on short-term contracts. This article focuses on the intersection of international human rights law and migrant domestic workers. It uses Saudi Arabia as a case study to illustrate the issues. Using Albert O. Hirschman's exit, voice, the article argues that the exclusion of migrant domestic workers from labour laws violates international human rights law. Finally, the author offers suggestions to provide migrant domestic workers with legal protection. Katherine Scully, Blocking Exit, Stopping Voice: How Exclusion From Labor Law Protection Puts Domestic Workers at Risk in Saudi Arabia and Around the World (2010) 41:3 Colum HRL Rev 825.

The author of this article argues that globalization is driving a gendered "change of world", resulting in complex and ambiguous consequences for women. She discusses how globalization affects women in four major ways: (1) it propels women into the public sphere; (2) it weakens the distinction between the public and private spheres; (3) it increases women's visibility; and (4) it engenders the feminist consciousness. According to the author, the impact is diverse. She describes how globalization has enabled some women to join the formal workforce and enjoy greater access to education. For others, globalization has allowed greater penetration of the informal market, which provides a form of economic power, but lacks security. The author points out that a final group faces a violent backlash against women's growing visibility and female assertions of basic human rights.

Highlighting the prevalence of gender bias and discrimination in international economic structures, this article reviews the nature of women's work, the characterization of economic rights, and the way in which countries formulate and implement global economic policies. The discussion touches on the "feminization of poverty", the right to an adequate standard of living, the Bretton Woods system, and 'Women in Development' discourse. The analysis concludes with the suggestion that a flexible and inclusive feminist analysis might help redefine what economic power is and how it should be exercised.