Anti-Trafficking Review
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‘Killing the Tree by Cutting the Foliage Instead of Uprooting It?’ Rethinking awareness campaigns as a response to trafficking in South-West Nigeria
Get PDFChild domestic work is one of the issues often connected with human trafficking in popular discourses. The idea of ignorant and unsuspecting parents and children being tricked into situations of trafficking for domestic labour is rife and has driven education and awareness campaigns as keys to addressing trafficking. This paper offers a critique of awareness creation as an anti-trafficking strategy. Based on an ethnographic study of child domestic work in South-West Nigeria and an analysis of secondary sources, this article reviews the ignorance assumption in trafficking discourses. It contends that the existing strategy of awareness creation, often framed to discourage migration and work, misrepresents young domestic workers and/or their parents and fails to address the issues that children and/or their parents are faced with. The paper concludes by arguing for the need to address the structural root causes of trafficking rather than simply raise awareness of individual migrants
The Quest to End Modern Slavery: Metaphors in corporate modern slavery statements
Get PDFThis paper focuses on the modern slavery statements of three major UK high street retailers who are known for their relatively pro-active approach to the debate on corporate responsibility for ethical trading. Drawing on our earlier research in relation to metaphors in British newspaper reporting of modern slavery and human trafficking since 2000, we explore the metaphors that recur across the statements these companies have published in 2016, 2017 and 2018. These statements were published in accordance with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, which requires all commercial organisations operating in the UK, with a turnover greater than GBP 36 million, to publish an annual statement outlining the work done to assess and address (the risk of) modern slavery in their supply chains. We find that the metaphors used in these statements generally fail to acknowledge the agency of those workers affected by modern slavery and labour exploitation in a broader sense, the potential complicity of the retailers in sustaining an exploitative industry, and the underlying socio-economic factors that leave workers vulnerable to exploitation. We conclude that more needs to be done to account for the causes of modern slavery so that retailers can prevent rather than react to it
Latin American and Caribbean Sex Workers: Gains and challenges in the movement
Get PDFThis article challenges the notion that the organised sex worker movement originated in the Global North. Beginning in Havana, Cuba at the end of the nineteenth century, sex workers in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region have been organising for recognition and labour rights. This article focuses on some of the movement’s advances, such as the election of a sex worker to public office in the Dominican Republic, the system where Nicaraguan sex workers act as court-appointed judicial facilitators, the networks of sex worker organisations throughout the region, and cutting-edge media strategies used to claim social and labour rights. Sex workers are using novel strategies designed to disrupt the hegemonic social order; contest the inequalities, discrimination, and injustices experienced by women in the sex trade; provoke critical reflection; and raise the visibility of sex work advocacy. New challenges to the movement include the abolitionist movement, the conflation of all forms of sex work with human trafficking, and practices that seek to ‘rescue’ consenting adults from the sex trade
The Philippine Sex Workers Collective: Struggling to be heard, not saved
Get PDFThe Philippine Sex Workers Collective is an organisation of current and former sex workers who reject the criminalisation of sex work and the dominant portrayal of sex workers as victims. Based on my interviews with leaders of the Collective and fifty other sex workers in Metro Manila, I argue in this paper that a range of contextual constraints limits the ability of Filipino sex workers to effectively organise and lobby for their rights. For example, the Collective cannot legally register because of the criminalisation of sex work, and this impacts their ability to access funding and recruit members. The structural configuration of the Philippines’ Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking incentivises civil society organisations to adhere to a unified position on sex work as violence against women. The stigma against sex work in a predominantly Catholic country is another constraint. Recently, President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has been weaponised by some members of the police to harass sex workers. Finally, I reflect on strategies the Collective could adopt to navigate the limited space they have for representation, such as crucial partnerships, outreach work, and legal remedies
‘Sex Trafficking’ as Epistemic Violence
Get PDFWhile the American Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (FOSTA) has been heavily criticised by researchers and activists for the harm it inflicts on sex workers, many of these critics nevertheless agree with the Act’s goal of fighting sex trafficking online. This paper, however, argues that in American legal discourse, ‘sex trafficking’ refers not to human trafficking for sexual exploitation, but rather to all forms of sex work. As such, the law’s punitive treatment of sex workers needs to be understood as the law’s purpose, rather than an unfortunate side effect. This paper also demonstrates how the discourse of ‘sex trafficking’ is itself a form of epistemic violence that silences sex workers and leaves them vulnerable to abuse, with FOSTA serving to broaden the scope of this violence. The paper concludes by highlighting ways journalists and academic researchers can avoid becoming complicit in this violence
Time to Turn Up the Volume
Get PDFI remember my first self-organised donor panel well. It was at the Global Social Change Philanthropy Conference in Washington, DC in 2013. I had just started work as the first coordinator of the Red Umbrella Fund—the newly established fund for and by sex workers. I organised a session that would clarify the distinction between sex work and human trafficking and emphasise the need to fund sex worker organising. We had a strong panel: an awesome sex worker activist, a knowledgeable academic, a passionate service provider, and a committed funder. I was, however, in for a rude awakening: even though the line-up was great, the audience was scarce. I thought to myself, if we can’t even get funders to show up and learn about sex workers’ rights, how will we ever meet the needs of sex worker organisations fighting for their basic human rights
Deconstructing Underlying Assumptions about Trafficked Minors and Children
Get PDFIn Trafficked Children and Youth in the United States: Reimagining Survivors, Elżbieta M. Goździak (2016) not only explores the experiences of children and youth who have been exploited by their traffickers, but she also addresses the system in the United States that seeks to intervene and assist them. In order to understand this apparent process of victimisation, Goździak articulates the need to deconstruct popular conceptions of human trafficking itself, particularly as she seeks to give voice to the survivors and lend credibility to the trauma that they have endured. In order to accomplish this larger purpose, Goździak begins by identifying service providers which assist in the aftercare process for those impacted by human trafficking. She then spends time visiting these aftercare facilities, listening to the children and youth survivors of human trafficking, and documenting their stories and life circumstances
Unacceptable Forms of Work in the Thai Sex and Entertainment Industry
Get PDFThis article examines the working conditions in sex and entertainment work in Thailand using the Unacceptable Forms of Work (UFW) Framework. Criminalisation of sex work and insufficient oversight of labour conditions increase the vulnerability of sex workers to police harassment; prevent sex workers from accessing legal and social protections; and contribute to the decent work deficit in the sector. Protecting the human rights of sex workers and ensuring decent work in the Thai sex and entertainment industry necessarily involves the decriminalisation of sex work; amending labour and social protection laws, policies, and systems to be inclusive of sex workers; and ensuring implementation. Throughout the process of policy change, the involvement of sex workers, their employers, and civil society organisations is crucial
Sex Work, Migration, and Human Trafficking in South Africa: From polarised arguments to potential partnerships
Get PDFIn South Africa, the conflation of sex work with human trafficking means that migrant/mobile sex workers are often framed as victims of trafficking while arguments for the decriminalisation of sex work are discounted due to claims about the risks of increased trafficking. This is despite the lack of clear evidence that trafficking, including in the sex industry, is a widespread problem. Sex worker organisations have called for an evidence-based approach whereby migration, sex work, and trafficking are distinguished and the debate moves beyond the polarised divisions over sex work. This paper takes up this argument by drawing on research with sex workers and a sex worker organisation in South Africa, as well as reflections shared at two Sex Workers’ Anti-trafficking Research Symposiums. In so doing, the authors propose the further development of a Sex Work, Exploitation, and Migration/Mobility Model that takes into consideration the complexities of the quotidian experiences of migration and selling sex. This, we suggest, could enable a more effective and productive partnership between sex worker organisations and other stakeholder groups, including anti-trafficking and labour rights organisations, trade unions, and others to protect the rights and well-being of all those involved in sex work
Butterfly: Resisting the harms of anti-trafficking policies and fostering peer-based organising in Canada
Get PDFDrawing on knowledge gleaned from over four years of community organising and from the ongoing compilation of the experiences of Asian and migrant sex workers in Canada, this article presents a case study of the work of Butterfly, a migrant sex worker-led and sex worker-focused organisation. It explores how Butterfly, through various mediums, has sought to challenge the discourses, laws, and policies that negatively impact Asian and migrant sex workers. It also highlights how the organisation, through its peer-based model and activities and its radical centring of the voices and experiences of Asian and migrant sex workers, is able to more effectively address their everyday realities and struggles. In this way, Butterfly offers a grassroots alternative to the often detrimental prohibitionist and anti-trafficking interventions undertaken by governments, law enforcement, and social service organisations