At this event, we heard directly from women migrant workers, labour rights organisers and human rights activists who addressed some of the more harmful effects of technological advances in the context of labour exploitation and trafficking.
Our speakers provided insight into the experience of women workers in South Asia, the Gulf and North America working in a variety of informal sectors, including domestic work and sex work.
Whilst the increased use of digital technologies has presented opportunities for women migrant workers to more easily organise across borders and campaign for better working conditions, these technologies continue to be designed and controlled by those who stand to benefit from maintaining the structural problems and inequalities embedded in the informal labour economy.
Our speakers discussed amongst other issues:
- the exclusion of women migrant workers from the Gulf countries’ increasingly cashless economy,
- the use of regressive censorship laws in North America to curtail the rights of sex workers’ online, and
- the rise of digital platforms in South Asia which perpetuate the structural inequalities within India’s informal labour economy.
This event was organised by the Global Alliance against Traffic in Women, the Women in Migration Network, the International Domestic Workers Federation, Migrant-Rights.org, Self-Employed Women’s Association, the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Centre, and Colectivo Intercultural Transgrediendo.
Speakers
- Mariah Grant, Urban Justice Center Sex Workers Project
- Sonia George, Self-Employed Women’s Association & International Domestic Workers Federation
- Vani Saraswathi, Migrant-Rights.org
- Shir France, National Domestic Worker’s Alliance & International Domestic Workers Federation
- Liaam Winslet, Colectivo Intercultural Transgrediendo
Facilitator: Roula Seghaier, International Domestic Workers Federation