NCJ Number
227757
Date Published
2008
Length
66 pages
Annotation
This report presents the agenda of the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF), a national organization with a multi-issue advocacy focus that encompasses economic empowerment and ending violence against women.
Abstract
NAPAWF and its members support programs and policies intended to increase and protect women's personal, economic, and political power, as well as their right to self-determination. In February 2005, 15 Asian and Pacific Islander (API) women antitrafficking/antiviolence advocates met in Seattle, WA, to discuss opportunities and obstacles to increasing the public voices of API women advocates and victims. Although API women constitute a majority of trafficked victims worldwide, their voices are relatively absent from the public policymaking process in the United States. In order to guide the work of NAPAWF and its allies, participants at the meeting developed guiding principles grounded in human rights. The principles are as follows: individuals should be free from oppression and violence; there should be a guarantee of economic opportunities for all people; individuals should have the right to migrate safely for economic and social reasons; and individuals should have the right to self-determination and self-sufficiency. In order to achieve the human rights embodied in these principles, NAPAWF developed an agenda of antitrafficking initiatives. The agenda includes limiting unsafe migration but not migration generally; opposing migration reforms that increase the vulnerable status of migrants and diminish self-determination; supporting enforcement against traffickers without the increased criminalization of migrants or increasing restrictions on immigration; addressing the root causes of trafficking and its impact on trafficked survivors; and promoting the impartial treatment of trafficked survivors regardless of their race, religion, class, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. 2 appendixes and 189 notes