CAW
Committee for Asian Women
Uniting Women Workers in Action
Who is CAW?
Committee for Asian Women (CAW) is a regional network of 43 women workers member groups in 14 Asian countries to empower women workers to protect, advocate, and advance their rights. Since her birth more than 30 years ago, she has been doing pioneering work to build solidarity among women workers in various countries in Asia.
Her Vision
CAW envisions a world where all people are free to develop their potential without any form of domination and exploitation based on class, gender, colour and religious belief. This is a world where the common wealth is used for the common good, workers enjoy the fruits of their labour, women prevail against patriarchy, and women workers determine their own destinies.
Her Mission
The mission of CAW is to support the self-empowerment of Asian women workers and the formation of their movements. CAW shall provide a platform for Asian women workers to claim their space, time and voice, to struggle against global capitalism and patriarchy, and to advance their rights. Essential to all this is the ongoing challenge of redefining work to encompass reproductive and domestic labour, and work in the informal economy, in addition to paid work.
Her Objectives
• To raise the consciousness of women workers in Asia as to their rights as women as workers to realise their common situations and problems, and to work for organised responses to these.
• To support organising efforts of the women workers to affect favourable changes in their lives.
• To be a regional platform for women workers in Asia – to facilitate and represent the voice of women workers in Asia.
• To promote improvement in the lives of women workers in Asia.
• To support women workers in their efforts to create alternative systems – both at home and in the workplace.
• To create organising spaces for women workers.
Her work
CAW works for the improvement in the lives of women workers especially where they are most vulnerable and least organised. The programs CAW adopted toward this end consist of the following:
> Formal economy/ Informalisation of work
Focus on research on trade agreements and its implication to local industry and women workers, and campaigning for legal provisions and protection on minimum wages.
> Informal Economy
Focuses on empowerment of women workers towards legislative and policy protection for domestic workers, waste collectors and agricultural workers, through capacity building for alternative forms of mobilising and organising.
> Women Workers’ Rights in Conflict and Suppression
Builds solidarity among women workers in conflict areas, under political suppression and amidst fundamentalisms towards restoration of democracy and ensuring conducive conditions for decent work.
> Information, Communication and Media
Disseminates information on women workers issues through Asian Women Workers Newsletter, CAW research reports, website and mass media exposure.
> Asian Labour Solidarity Movement Building
Builds linkages with other people’s movements to support a women workers’ movement that is conscious of the regional and global contexts of their own struggle, and enhances their capacity to engage them.
> Women Workers Leadership Training and Education Programme
Builds capacity and skills of women worker leaders on national, regional and global issues towards sustaining and strengthening women workers movement in Asia.
CAW works in
South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines,
East Asia: Japan, South Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong
Contact CAW
Committee for Asian Women
386/58 Soi 42, Ratchadaphisek Road,
Ladyao, Chatujak, Bangkok 10900 Thailand
Tel: +66 (0) 2930 5634, +66 (0) 2930 5635
Fax: +66 (0) 2930 5633
Email: cawinfo@cawinfo.org
