A TRINATIONAL STUDY ABOUT TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN FROM BRAZIL AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC TO SURINAME A joint intervention (original) (raw)

he book you presently have in hands offers a firsthand account of the trafficking in women from Northern Brazil and the Dominican Republic to Suriname. This study describes a complex situation and, therefore, it deliberately attempts to avoid providing a simplistic description of a reality in which the multiple identities of the trafficked women (in relation to their gender, race and class) are interconnected within a migratory, post-colonial and globalized context. Trafficked women are those seeking to improve their own quality of life or that of their families by migrating. In fact, they have deposited all of their hopes for a better future in their migration. However, their efforts are frustrated when they fall prey to trafficking. The following pages analyze the trafficking cycle, from the recruitment to the transportation, delivery and subsequent exploitation of women. Nonetheless, the significance of this book resides in its methodology (apart from the valuable information and analysis it contains). It is very rare to find studies that go out of their way to ensure that the interviewees feel they can share their experiences without being judged for their decisions. It is the women themselves who take our hands and lead us on a journey beyond Suriname and includes accounts of their childhood, their families, neighborhoods and people. It also includes descriptions of their hopes, expectations and strategies for resistance, self-affirmation and fortitude. By means of these experiences, we are able to grasp the impact that gender, race, class, the feminine face of poverty, the absence of public policies, lack of information, racism and the more brutal sides of globalization can affect those people that, for all these reasons, are the prime targets of the trafficking in people. As we mention in the next pages 'to speak of identity is to speak of social reality.' Another valuable aspect of the methodology of this study is the joint work that non-governmental organizations in Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Suriname have carried out. They are all a part of the Latin American and Caribbean network against the trafficking in people (Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women – GAATW, Latin American and Caribbean network of the Global Alliance against Traffic in Women – REDLAC). In this sense, the joint effort to develop knowledge, strategies and intervention has been the key element to enable a transnational and regional response. The GAATW FOREWORD 9 T REDLAC is a network comprised of civil society organizations from Latin America and the Caribbean that works against the trafficking in people, in particular, that of women and girls, from a human rights perspective and strive to promote changes to the economic, social, legal and political structures in order to implement prevention strategies and protect the victims of trafficking and seek the prosecution of the traffickers. The collective effort to gather data on the trafficking in people at the regional level is important not only to fill the current information gap, but also so that the political pressure exerted on the government and on agencies responsible for responding to trafficking is based on firm evidence. The claims that the human rights of the female victims of human trafficking have been violated are both an affirmation of these rights and a reminder of their existence. This book is a step forward in achieving this goal.