Manaus Women’s Permanent Forum (FMM), Amazonas State

The Manaus Women’s Permanent Forum is a political space for discussion, organization, and networking, based on feminist principles. The organization’s mission is to empower the struggle for women’s rights and promote pro-gender equity public policies, contributing to capacity-building, the eradication of violence, strengthening of social movements, and women’s empowerment.

The actions seek to combat the widespread violation of girls’ and women rights in the Amazon. According to the Forum, 31% of the 241 national and international human trafficking routes identified in Brazil cross the Amazon. The crime is associated with sexual exploitation, with girls and women as the main victims.

Factors that contribute to this situation include the huge territory and limited domestic inspection along the triple border between Brazil, Peru, and Colombia; the lack of studies and research on the issue; lack of information on sexual exploitation and human trafficking in the State of Amazonas; and lack of public policies to deal with the problem.

The Forum includes 36 women’s rights organizations. The activities include building a network for communications and linkage between women’s groups and movements in Manaus, Amazonas State; capacity-building and training for leaders on gender issues and pro-gender equity public policies; and promotion of women’s self-organization.

The organizations have been intensifying their networking to fight sexual exploitation and trafficking of girls, teenagers, and women. Two statewide seminars on the issue were held, in October 2008 and January 2009, and two workshops were held during the World Social Forum 2009.

The Project

The project “Manaós Connection: Networking to Fight Sexual Exploitation of Girls, Teenagers, and Women in the City of Manaus” seeks to build a network of government agencies and nongovernmental organizations to prevent such violations and provide assistance to victims.

In addition to training and capacity-building for leaders of the Women’s Permanent Forum and strengthening of spaces for social control, the group intends to organize and publicize data on sexual exploitation and human trafficking and foster debate among women’s groups and movements and municipal and State governments and propose public policies in keeping with the guidelines of existing national policies, like the Pact to Fight Violence against Women and the National Plan to Fight Human Trafficking.