Child Trafficking in the EU: Policing and protecting Europe’s most vulnerable
Abstract
Drawing on empirical research conducted with police in the UK and Romania, Child Trafficking in the EU explores the way in which the 'who' and 'how' we police and protect as trafficker and trafficked is related to Western notions of innocence, guilt, childhood, and of the status of 'deserving' victim. This book progresses a new theoretical space by linking its analysis to sociologies of mobility, marginalisation and the pluralised rendering of criminalised and victimised 'others'. This book explores core contextual themes surrounding the commission, response to and origins of child trafficking, and presents empirical research into the investigation of child trafficking within the EU, situating the authors' findings against broader social, cultural, political, policy and judicial contexts. The authors conclude with a synthetisation of the key themes and arguments to situate pan-EU child trafficking within political, criminal justice, organisational, cultural, and social contexts, and consider the degree to which such criminality can be can adequately addressed by current and emerging approaches given such enduring and persistent structural issues. This book will be of interest to scholars and students within the fields of criminology, sociology, political science and law, as well as a key resource for practitioners and activists.
... The purpose of this multi-faceted approach is to heighten understanding of the power of linguistic and fictional representation in creating complex representations of TCT, and to examine the role and function of crime fiction in shaping and influencing readers' understanding of TCT. The chapter draws on Fussey and Rawlinson's (2017) discussion of narrative patterns utilised to depict victimhood and agency in popular discourses around child trafficking. My analysis focuses specifically on thematic and discursive constructions of TCT victims, considering how conventional narrative patterns of heroism, abduction, and rescue are reflected, reproduced, or resisted in crime fiction novels, and to what effect. ...
... Jana's recurring nightmares and violent responses reflect Vickroy's assertion that "[f]iction that depicts trauma incorporates varied responses and survival behaviours within the characterization of survivors" (2014, p. 130). Through the character of Jana/Ker, Marked engenders the reader's engagement with the trauma suffered by trafficked child soldiers and reconsideration of their assumptions about children and innocence (see also Fussey & Rawlinson, 2017). ...
This open access edited collection examines representations of human trafficking in media ranging from British and Serbian newspapers, British and Scandinavian crime novels, and a documentary series, and questions the extent to which these portrayals reflect the realities of trafficking. It tackles the problematic tendency to under-report particular types of victim and forms of trafficking, and seeks to explore both dominant and marginalised points of view. The authors take a cross-disciplinary approach, utilising analytical tools from across the humanities and social sciences, including linguistics, literary and media studies, and cultural criminology. It will appeal to students, academics and policy-makers with an interest in human trafficking and its depiction in the modern day.
... The purpose of this multi-faceted approach is to heighten understanding of the power of linguistic and fictional representation in creating complex representations of TCT, and to examine the role and function of crime fiction in shaping and influencing readers' understanding of TCT. The chapter draws on Fussey and Rawlinson's (2017) discussion of narrative patterns utilised to depict victimhood and agency in popular discourses around child trafficking. My analysis focuses specifically on thematic and discursive constructions of TCT victims, considering how conventional narrative patterns of heroism, abduction, and rescue are reflected, reproduced, or resisted in crime fiction novels, and to what effect. ...
... Jana's recurring nightmares and violent responses reflect Vickroy's assertion that "[f]iction that depicts trauma incorporates varied responses and survival behaviours within the characterization of survivors" (2014, p. 130). Through the character of Jana/Ker, Marked engenders the reader's engagement with the trauma suffered by trafficked child soldiers and reconsideration of their assumptions about children and innocence (see also Fussey & Rawlinson, 2017). ...
This chapter investigates representations of transnational child trafficking in contemporary crime fiction, focusing specifically on the depiction of child trafficking and its victims. Beyer examines the role of crime fiction in raising reader awareness of human trafficking and of the child victims’ predicament and plight, considering didactic dimensions of the genre and how it tends to erase victims in the aftermath of crime. Through detailed examinations of representations of child trafficking and its social and cultural contexts in selected post-2000 British and Scandinavian crime fiction texts, the chapter argues that crime fiction can be seen to engage explicitly in public and private debates around human trafficking, and, through its popular outreach, has the potential to affect popular perceptions of human trafficking and its victims.
... The purpose of this multi-faceted approach is to heighten understanding of the power of linguistic and fictional representation in creating complex representations of TCT, and to examine the role and function of crime fiction in shaping and influencing readers' understanding of TCT. The chapter draws on Fussey and Rawlinson's (2017) discussion of narrative patterns utilised to depict victimhood and agency in popular discourses around child trafficking. My analysis focuses specifically on thematic and discursive constructions of TCT victims, considering how conventional narrative patterns of heroism, abduction, and rescue are reflected, reproduced, or resisted in crime fiction novels, and to what effect. ...
... Jana's recurring nightmares and violent responses reflect Vickroy's assertion that "[f]iction that depicts trauma incorporates varied responses and survival behaviours within the characterization of survivors" (2014, p. 130). Through the character of Jana/Ker, Marked engenders the reader's engagement with the trauma suffered by trafficked child soldiers and reconsideration of their assumptions about children and innocence (see also Fussey & Rawlinson, 2017). ...
The aim of this chapter is to analyse and interrogate the identities of ‘traffickers’ as represented within a series of television documentaries on modern slavery. The chapter data set is a series of seven 25-minute documentaries entitled Modern Slavery: A Twenty-first Century Evil (2011) produced by Al Jazeera. Sections on trafficker identities and the usage of the term ‘trafficker’ within the different typologies represented in the documentary series are shown, that is, bridal, charcoal, prison, sex, food, child, bonded slavery/trafficking. These are represented within a complex geocultural televisual gaze (Al Jazeera English) upon the global north/west as ultimately the source of the slavery problem.
... The purpose of this multi-faceted approach is to heighten understanding of the power of linguistic and fictional representation in creating complex representations of TCT, and to examine the role and function of crime fiction in shaping and influencing readers' understanding of TCT. The chapter draws on Fussey and Rawlinson's (2017) discussion of narrative patterns utilised to depict victimhood and agency in popular discourses around child trafficking. My analysis focuses specifically on thematic and discursive constructions of TCT victims, considering how conventional narrative patterns of heroism, abduction, and rescue are reflected, reproduced, or resisted in crime fiction novels, and to what effect. ...
... Jana's recurring nightmares and violent responses reflect Vickroy's assertion that "[f]iction that depicts trauma incorporates varied responses and survival behaviours within the characterization of survivors" (2014, p. 130). Through the character of Jana/Ker, Marked engenders the reader's engagement with the trauma suffered by trafficked child soldiers and reconsideration of their assumptions about children and innocence (see also Fussey & Rawlinson, 2017). ...
The collection introduction defines human trafficking and proceeds to offer an in-depth literature review that assesses the significance of attention to the collection topic, suggests new directions for research, and provides a synopsis and integrative analysis of the collective contributions of manuscripts within the collection. It starts by detailing the story of human trafficking (the types, causes, and frames of trafficking), then discusses the effects of misrepresentation on the directly affected (draws on victim hierarchy, criminalisation and secondary victimisation), and then deals with the socio-political causes and effects of misrepresentation (gender and wealth inequality, global and local politics, and secondary exploitation). It ends by providing a rationale as to the nature of the case studies the book and its contributors consider.
... The purpose of this multi-faceted approach is to heighten understanding of the power of linguistic and fictional representation in creating complex representations of TCT, and to examine the role and function of crime fiction in shaping and influencing readers' understanding of TCT. The chapter draws on Fussey and Rawlinson's (2017) discussion of narrative patterns utilised to depict victimhood and agency in popular discourses around child trafficking. My analysis focuses specifically on thematic and discursive constructions of TCT victims, considering how conventional narrative patterns of heroism, abduction, and rescue are reflected, reproduced, or resisted in crime fiction novels, and to what effect. ...
... Jana's recurring nightmares and violent responses reflect Vickroy's assertion that "[f]iction that depicts trauma incorporates varied responses and survival behaviours within the characterization of survivors" (2014, p. 130). Through the character of Jana/Ker, Marked engenders the reader's engagement with the trauma suffered by trafficked child soldiers and reconsideration of their assumptions about children and innocence (see also Fussey & Rawlinson, 2017). ...
Gregoriou and Ras draw on corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis to examine a 61.5 million-word corpus of articles published by UK newspapers between 2000 and 2016, and on qualitative critical discourse analysis of a sixty-seven-article sample corpus in depth. Both approaches analyse the naming and describing of victims and traffickers, metaphors, transitivity, and speech and writing presentation, while the in-depth qualitative approach furthermore analyses the text (images) (multi)modally. Their findings conclude that trafficking for sexual exploitation is over-reported compared to other forms of trafficking, and that victims are generally presented as young, female, and vulnerable. As a result, non-stereotypical victims, of crimes like forced begging and domestic servitude, are not readily recognised as victims, and thereby are deprived of opportunities for assistance.
... The assumption was that no manipulation is needed since children cannot give informed consent, a position later made explicit: "when a child is concerned, no possible consent should ever be considered valid" (European Parliament, 2011). While widely used, some have criticised this framing of child trafficking for embodying an idealised construct of childhood that is Anglo-Euro-centric, for being divorced from cultural norms and socio-economic realities of other communities (especially in the Global South), and/or for being premised on a misleadingly binary opposition between childhood and adulthood (Fussey & Rawlinson, 2016;O'Connell Davidson, 2005;Skilbrei & Tveit, 2008). The fact that consent is deemed irrelevant in child trafficking means barriers with overlapping but ostensibly distinct phenomena (e.g. ...
... However, it is affordable because they make a lot of money so this is a situation in which parents exploit their very own children… One of the major investigations on such child trafficking cases from Țăndărei, Romania, to the UK resulted in one of the most notable Joint Investigation Teams "Operation Golf" between the Romanian and the UK law enforcement authorities. It has been extensively analysed by Fussey and Rawlinson (2017) in "Child Trafficking in the EU". The conclusions of the case study conducted revealed the magnitude to which organised crime networks primarily involving parents can develop: "Following evidence of their involvement with child trafficking for criminal exploitation, 26 gang members were charged in Romania with money laundering and membership of an organized criminal network. ...
This book describes children and youth on the one hand and parents on the other within the newly configured worlds of transnational families. Focus is put on children born abroad, brought up abroad, studying abroad, in vulnerable situations, and/or subject of trafficking. The book also provides insight into the delicate relationships that arise with parents, such as migrant parents who are parenting from a distance, elderly parents supporting migrant adult children, fathers left behind by migration, and Eastern-European parents in Nordic countries. It also touches upon life strategies developed in response to migration situations, such as the transfer of care, transnational (virtual) communication, common visits (to and from), and the co-presence of family members in each other’s (distant) lives. As such this book provides a wealth of information for researchers, policy makers and all those working in the field of migration and with migrants.
Crime, Deviance and Society: An Introduction to Sociological Criminology offers a comprehensive introduction to criminological theory. The book introduces readers to key sociological theories, such as anomie and strain, and examines how traditional approaches have influenced the ways in which crime and deviance are constructed. It provides a nuanced account of contemporary theories and debates, and includes chapters covering feminist criminology, critical masculinities, cultural criminology, green criminology, and postcolonial theory, among others. Case studies in each chapter demonstrate how sociological theories can manifest within and influence the criminal justice system and social policy. Each chapter also features margin definitions and timelines of contributions to key theories, reflection questions and end-of-chapter questions that prompt students reflection. Written by an expert team of academics from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Crime, Deviance and Society is a highly engaging and accessible introduction to the field for students of criminology and criminal justice.
After the fall of the Communist regime, the Romanian population has decreased approximately 15%, due to the high level of labour migration. The migration of Romanians was even more intensified later on, after Romania has joined the European Union. This decrease of population was due to an increased demand of the West-European population for domestic, construction and agricultural workers, corroborated with the entitlement of the new European citizens to free movement of workers within the territory of the European Union. As a direct consequence, a minimum of 82,464 children were left behind. Given that, more and more national and international reports have started to consider children left behind as a potential vulnerable group to human trafficking Therefore, the authors of this article have started to conduct a qualitative research intending to determine, if and to which extent, children left behind are vulnerable to human trafficking. The findings of the research are presented herein.
Our research into how UK industries profit from forced labour found that:
The way the UK economy functions creates a pool of people vulnerable to forced labour. People who are excluded from formal work and those in jobs at or near minimum wage are most susceptible.
Forced labour is used when it makes business sense, and is strongly associated with informality in the labour market (which takes different forms in different sectors).
Sector-specific conditions that allow for the possibility of forced labour include illegality of the product (cannabis); volatility and self-regulation of labour providers (construction industry); and seasonality (food sector).
Current approaches are limited in their effectiveness to prevent, detect or prosecute offences. Inadequate enforcement of labour standards appears to create a sense of impunity among employers. We recommend putting in place a UK-wide Advisory Panel to better tackle the problem.
Purpose – The market in trafficked children bought and sold for sexual exploitation is one of the most inhumane transnational crimes that appear to have been facilitated by globalisation and its many effects, such as growing disparity in wealth between North and South. Child sex trafficking (CST) in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is an extremely complex problem, deeply rooted in historical injustice, gender inequality and poverty. In addition to the complexities of the child trafficking issue, the organisations that seek to combat CST are themselves not always a united force and display their own internal and inter-agency complexities. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the key complexities of responding to CST in Thailand and Cambodia. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology for this research consisted of 22 semi-structured interviews with anti-child trafficking experts in Thailand and Cambodia, in addition to field observations in various child sex tourism hubs in Southeast Asia. Findings – The complexities of the CST problem in Thailand and Cambodia are discussed as well as analysis of the internal and inter-agency barriers faced by the organisations that seek to combat CST. The research finds that, due to limitations in donor funding, anti-trafficking organizations face difficulties in effectively responding to all aspects of the CST problem. The recommendation is made for improved advocacy networking against this transnational crime. Recent success stories are highlighted. Research limitations/implications – The research for this paper involved semi-structured interviews with staff from non-government organisations and United Nations agencies, but not with government representatives. The lack of available data from Thai and Cambodian government representatives limits the ability of the researcher to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-trafficking organisations’ response to the child trafficking issue. Also lacking is the voice of child trafficking victims, the key beneficiaries of anti-trafficking organisations’ aid and advocacy efforts. Originality/value – There is an abundance of literature on the subject of CST but a dearth in scholarly literature on the subject of advocacy and policy responses to CST in Southeast Asia. This paper provides a valuable contribution the knowledge base on child trafficking by analysing both the complexities of the CST issue and the complexities, for anti-trafficking organisations, of effectively combating CST in the GMS.
This article explores the ways in which the highly emotive subject of child trafficking has been, and currently is, presented in the UK. It does so by examining the way the issue has been tackled at two moments in time: the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. We argue that, although the trafficking of children is clearly both undesirable and unacceptable, the reaction to this issue in the UK has been out of proportion to the problem itself. The reaction, we propose, is best understood as a moral panic that must be interrogated if we are to offer a helpful response to what is a serious social problem. A sense of historical perspective is, we believe, helpful in this regard.
Building on the success of the second edition, Criminology: A Sociological Introduction offers a comprehensive overview of the study of criminology, from early theoretical perspectives to pressing contemporary issues such as the globalization of crime, crimes against the environment and state crime. Authored by an internationally renowned and experienced group of authors in the Sociology department at Essex University, this is a truly international criminology text that delves into areas that other texts may only reference. This new edition will have increased coverage of psychosocial theory, as well as more consideration of the social, political and economic contexts of crime in the post-financial-crisis world. Focusing on emerging areas in global criminology, such as green crime, state crime and cyber crime, this book is essential reading for criminology students looking to expand their understanding of crime and the world in which they live. © 2014 Eamonn Carrabine, Pam Cox, Pete Fussey, Dick Hobbs, Nigel South, Darren Thiel and Jackie Turton. All rights reserved.
In this Handbook, editor Philip Reichel has brought together renowned scholars from around the world to offer various perspectives providing global coverage of the increasingly transnational nature of crime and the attempts to provide cooperative cross-national responses. This volume not only has a comprehensive introduction to the topic of transnational crime but also provides specific examples such as international terrorism, drug trafficking, and money laundering to illustrate this ever expanding phenomenon. The Handbook also examines cross-national and international efforts by police, courts, international agencies, and correctional authorities to deal with transnational crime. Part IV concludes the book by addressing emerging issues in transnational crime and justice with particular attention given to transnational organized crime in all regions of the world.
Over the last fifteen years, the problem of human trafficking has become a focus of government and advocacy agendas worldwide. Increasingly referred to as “modern-day slavery,” the phenomenon has prompted rapid proliferation of international, regional, and national anti-trafficking laws, and inspired states to devote enormous financial and bureaucratic resources to its eradication. It has also spawned an industry of nonprofits that have elevated the “abolition” of trafficking into a pressing moral campaign, which anyone can join with the click of a mouse. Scholars have also jumped into the fray, calling on states to marshal human rights law, tax law, trade law, tort law, public health law, labor law, and even military might to combat this apparently growing international crime and human rights violation.
Although child labor had long been a focus of international attention, child trafficking began to emerge as the major child protection issue across the Majority World at the start of the last decade (Castle and Diarra 2003; Hashim 2003; Hashim and Thorsen 2011; Huijsmans and Baker 2012; O’Connell Davidson 2011; Thorsen 2007). This was no more apparent than in Benin, where two high-profile events saw child trafficking catapulted to the status of number one social policy challenge. The first of these was the interception of a Nigerian trawler bringing Beninese adolescents to work in Gabon. The second was the high-profile ‘rescue’ of Beninese teenage labor migrants who were working in the artisanal quarries of Abeokuta, Nigeria. Both episodes saw young workers identified as ‘slaves’, and both led to Benin’s being tarred as the new ‘epicenter’ of the international traffic in children (Alber 2011; Feneyrol and Terre des Hommes 2005; Howard 2011, 2012a; Morganti 2007, 2011).
Using the example of irregular North African child migrants in the port city of Marseille, France, this chapter explores some boundaries of the meaning of child trafficking. Many of these young people may not start their journey as trafficking victims, believing stories passed back to them that migration may offer the route to a better life than is available in the Maghreb. Whether or not they actually cross other borders, they enter what is termed liminal ‘borderlands’. The chapter examines how these young Maghrebi migrants cross physical and social borders while trying to build a life in the cityscape and social hierarchy of Marseille. It also looks at the interplay of their efforts to create a place in Marseille, and local policies to come to terms with their presence. Cigarette vendors evidently have their own, meaningful place in the cityscape of Marseille, more particularly in the markets.
This chapter deals with child trafficking from Nepal to other countries, particularly India. It cites the difficulties of obtaining accurate figures, although it is known that the scale of the problem is considerable. Programmes have been developed to address child trafficking but there has been recent criticism of national and local political apathy on the issue, and the continued chronic lack of law enforcement to address this problem. Girls who are trafficked for sex work are typically unmarried, non-literate, coming from rural backgrounds, and very young, factors that make them very vulnerable. Trafficking usually occurs with the collusion of parents or carers. Promises are made about the possibilities of work, and the push of poverty drives many young girls to put themselves in the hands of experienced, manipulative traffickers. The chapter identifies four key routes into sex trafficking: employment-induced migration, fraudulent marriage, deception (through false visits), and force (through abduction).
This chapter describes the process of child trafficking into, within, and through Central America. Relative poverty is the key driver, with the United States to the north a beacon for those seeking economic betterment. The violence of recent civil wars, and of criminal gangs and growing social inequality, create a context for huge levels of out-migration. Within these processes of migration there are substantial numbers, often hidden, of children either seeking an improvement in their own lives or, at least, to rejoin adult family members who migrated earlier also in search of work and a better life. The particular geography of Central America makes it a bridge for trafficking and it has come to be seen as a good destination for the commercial sexual exploitation of minors, with accelerating numbers of ever-younger children and adolescents being drawn into the trafficking nexus. Countries in the region are attempting to harmonise legislation, while non-governmental organisations at the grassroots level are also engaging in concerted actions.
This chapter examines international adoption and child trafficking in Ecuador. International adoption involves a number of policy, service, and legal actors operating within a policy and legal framework. Where officials are corrupt (even if, in their defence, they are driven to be so by their own poverty) or do not fully understand the niceties of that framework, agencies and individuals can manipulate the system to their own advantage. What can be presented by clever operators as an adoption process is, in reality, child trafficking, involving children who have been stolen or removed from parents by a combination of threats and promises. The issue is, in reality, not about a series of ‘irregular acts’ by criminals acting alone. A serious adoption scandal in the Ecuadorian capital, Quito, in 1989, had a major impact on policy formulation and public administration in a crucial moment in the history of child-rights implementation.
In Nepal, there are between 300,000 and two million bonded labourers under the so-called haliya and kamaiya systems. A bonded-labour system has existed for hundreds of years in Nepal, where children are used by parents to pay off debts incurred to landlords by offering their own children's labour to the landlords. While away from their home, children – particularly girls – are open to a variety of forms of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and struggle to maintain their work responsibilities alongside their desire to stay in education and improve their lot. Again, laws exist in Nepal to ban this system of kamaiya, yet the forms of child abuse are so extensive that they fall within the International Labour Organisation's definition of the worst forms of child labour. What had been an adult form of debt bondage has shifted, as a result of pressures of poverty, into a system based now as much on children as adults, with the political system turning a blind eye to the practice.
This chapter analyses the grounded experience of children trafficked into the United Kingdom, including those – such as an identifiable group of girls and young women – who are then trafficked on into other European countries. It uses a child rights perspective based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to examine dilemmas associated with child trafficking. It is widely believed that hundreds, and more likely thousands, of children are trafficked into the UK annually, and that this is not solely for sexual exploitation but for a much wider range of purposes. The chapter looks at the experience of children trafficked from West Africa into the UK, as well as their exploitation through domestic servitude, private fostering arrangements in the UK, child trafficking for forced marriage, and the link between culture and child trafficking.
In contrast to most literature on cosmopolitanism, which focuses on its elite forms, this article analyzes how ordinary people bridge racial boundaries in everyday life. It is based on interviews with 150 non-college-educated white and black workers in the United States and white and North African workers in France. The comparison of the four groups shows how differences in cultural repertoires across national context and structural location shape distinct anti-racist rhetorics. Market-based arguments are salient among American workers, while arguments based on solidarity and egalitarianism are used by French, but not by American, workers. Minority workers in both countries employ a more extensive toolkit of anti-racist rhetoric as compared to whites. The interviewed men privilege evidence grounded in everyday experience, and their claims of human equality are articulated in terms of universal human nature and, in the case of blacks and North Africans, universal morality. Workers' conceptual frameworks have little in common with multiculturalism that occupies a central place in the literature on cosmopolitanism. We argue that for the discussion and practice of cosmopolitanism to move forward we should shift our attention to the study of multiple ordinary cosmopolitanisms.
In a world where global flows of people and commodities are on the increase, crimes related to illegal trafficking are creating new concerns for society. This in turn has brought about new and contentious forms of regulation, surveillance, and control. There is a pressing need to consider both the problem itself, and the impact of international anti-trafficking responses. This authoritative work examines key issues and debates on sex and labor trafficking, drawing on theoretical, empirical, and comparative material to inform the discussion of major trends and future directions. The text brings together key criminological and sociological literature on migration studies, gender, globalization, human rights, security, victimology, policing, and control to provide the most complete overview available on the subject. Suitable for students and scholars in criminology, criminal justice and sociology, this book sheds unique light on this highly topical and complex subject.
This book examines how western liberal states are progressively restricting access to refugees and asylum seekers, even though these states have signed international agreements obliging them to offer protection to those fleeing persecution and to advocate the spread of human rights and humanitarian principles. Watson examines how refugees and asylum seekers have come to be treated so poorly by these states through the use of policies such as visa requirements, mandatory detention and prevention/return policies. Providing extensive documentary analysis of debates on 'restrictive' refugee policies in Canada and Australia, the author addresses the relationship between security and migration, an issue of increased importance in the aftermath of 9/11 and the war on terror. He then examines hotly-contested policies such as detention and the forceful return of asylum seekers to demonstrate how attempts to securitise these issues have been resisted in the media and by political opposition. Given the importance of providing refuge for persecuted populations, not only to ensure the survival of targeted individuals, but also to maintain international peace and security, the erosion of protective measures is of great importance today. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of international security, international relations, migration and human rights.
This book uses a postcolonial lens to question development's dominant cultural representations and institutional practices, investigating the possibilities for a transformatory postcolonial politics. Ilan Kapoor examines recent development policy initiatives in such areas as 'governance,' 'human rights' and 'participation' to better understand and contest the production of knowledge in development - its cultural assumptions, power implications, and hegemonic politics. The volume shows how development practitioners and westernized elites/intellectuals are often complicit in this neo-colonial knowledge production. Noble gestures such as giving foreign aid or promoting participation and democracy frequently mask their institutional biases and economic and geopolitical interests, while silencing the subaltern (marginalized groups), on whose behalf they purportedly work. In response, the book argues for a radical ethical and political self-reflexivity that is vigilant to our reproduction of neo-colonialisms and amenable to public contestation of development priorities. It also underlines subaltern political strategies that can (and do) lead to greater democratic dialogue.
Trafficking in persons, particularly the trafficking of women into sexual servitude (sex trafficking) has generated much attention over the past decade. This book provides a critical examination of the international and national frameworks developed to respond to this issue - focused both on the design of policy responses and their implementation. Uniquely it brings together, and brings to life, the voices of policymakers, non-government agencies and trafficked women. The analysis is grounded in rich empirical work and research in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America.
This book offers the first in-depth investigation into the relationship between today‗s criminal identities and consumer culture. Using unique data taken from criminals locked in areas of permanent recession, the book aims to uncover feelings and attitudes towards a variety of criminal activities, investigating the incorporation of hearts and minds into consumer culture‗s surrogate social world and highlighting the relationship between the lived identities of active criminals and the socio-economic climate of instability and anxiety that permeates post-industrial Britain.
Scientific racism continued to be the guiding paradigm of the oldest scholarly association for the study of Gypsies well into the 1970s. It is important to acknowledge and analyse this when considering the continuing influence of racism on policy towards Roma.
'Trafficking in women' has, in recent years, been the subject of intense feminist debate. This article analyses the position of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) and the writings of its founder, Kathleen Barry. It suggests that CATW's construction of 'third world prostitutes' is part of a wider western feminist impulse to construct a damaged 'other' as justification for its own interventionist impulses. The central argument of this article is that the 'injured body' of the 'third world trafficking victim' in international feminist debates around trafficking in women serves as a powerful metaphor for advancing certain feminist interests, which cannot be assumed to be those of third world sex workers themselves. This argument is advanced through a comparison of Victorian feminist campaigns against prostitution in India with contemporary feminist campaigns against trafficking.
This article is concerned with the role of debt in contemporary practices of mobility. It explores how the phenomenon of debt-financed
migration disturbs the trafficking/smuggling, illegal/legal, and forced/voluntary dyads that are widely used to make sense
of migration and troubles the liberal construction of ‘freedom’ and ‘slavery’ as oppositional categories. The research literature
reveals that while debt can lock migrants into highly asymmetrical, personalistic, and often violent relations of power and
dependency sometimes for several years, it is also a means by which many seek to extend and secure their future freedoms.
Financing migration through debt can be an active choice without also being a ‘voluntary’ or ‘autonomous’ choice, and migrants’
decisions to take on debts that will imply heavy restrictions on their freedom are taken in the context of migration and other
policies that severely constrain their alternatives. Vulnerability to abuse and exploitation is also politically constructed,
and even migrant-debtors whose movement is state sanctioned often lack protections both as workers and as debtors. Indeed,
large numbers of migrants are excluded from the rights and freedoms that in theory constitute the opposite of slavery. As
argued in the conclusion, this illustrates the contemporary relevance of Losurdo’s historical account of the fundamentally
illiberal realities of self-conceived liberal societies. There remain ‘exclusion clauses’ in the social contract that supposedly
affords universal equality and freedom, clauses that are of enormous consequence for many groups of migrants, and that also
deleteriously affect those citizens who are poor and/or otherwise marginalized.
Roma are one of the most discriminated and marginalized groups in the European Union (EU). The EU has emerged as a potential ally for the transnational Roma community as it possesses normative power when espousing values such as inclusion, yet is able to elaborate policy at a supranational level which has supremacy over domestic policy. Thus far EU Roma policy has failed to address the complex issues facing Roma owing to inadequate policy interventions. This can be explained by the policy choices open to the EU which appear to be built on diametrically opposed foundations, posing a dilemma for EU policy-makers. This article focuses on the redistribution/recognition dilemma which EU institutions must negotiate in order to address economic and cultural injustices. For their part, transnational Roma activists have demanded the creation of an EU Roma Strategy which could address the needs and interests of Roma across the Union.
Child survivors of commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) are in need of comprehensive assessment as a critical first step to providing assistance post-exploitation. This article presents a conceptual analysis based on ecological system theories and concepts for the initial assessment of child survivors of CSE and trafficking upon exit from exploitation. It is based on the example of real-life practice through a residential aftercare setting providing care to female child survivors in Indonesia in addition to best practices from work in Cambodia. Assessment is conducted within two domains of the life of the survivor: her trafficking experience and her social environment.
In many parts of Asia, critics have noted the common but hitherto under-researched practices of detaining victims of human trafficking in semi-carceral institutions or 'shelters', in the name of victim protection and rescue. Although the formal justification for immigration detention and 'protective custody' may be different, there are clear parallels between the experience of trafficking victims in semi-carceral institutions and what Kalhan has termed 'a quasi-punitive system of immcarceration'. This article seeks to add to the critical work on the changing nature and harms of immigration control by exploring the logic and practices of protective custody in Asia. How can we make sense of the regulatory purposes performed by semi-carceral institutions for trafficking victims? What do we know about women and girls' experiences of protective custody in South and South-East Asia? In what ways does the dominant anti-sex trafficking discourse of 'protection' and 'rescue' intersect with gendered notions of belonging and citizenship? And, ultimately, what can a study of gendered carceral practices tell us about the problems and paradoxes of trafficking control? © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.
Tolerance is generally regarded as an unqualified achievement of the modern West. Emerging in early modern Europe to defuse violent religious conflict and reduce persecution, tolerance today is hailed as a key to decreasing conflict across a wide range of other dividing lines-- cultural, racial, ethnic, and sexual. But, as political theorist Wendy Brown argues in Regulating Aversion, tolerance also has dark and troubling undercurrents. Dislike, disapproval, and regulation lurk at the heart of tolerance. To tolerate is not to affirm but to conditionally allow what is unwanted or deviant. And, although presented as an alternative to violence, tolerance can play a part in justifying violence--dramatically so in the war in Iraq and the War on Terror. Wielded, especially since 9/11, as a way of distinguishing a civilized West from a barbaric Islam, tolerance is paradoxically underwriting Western imperialism. Brown's analysis of the history and contemporary life of tolerance reveals it in a startlingly unfamiliar guise. Heavy with norms and consolidating the dominance of the powerful, tolerance sustains the abjection of the tolerated and equates the intolerant with the barbaric. Examining the operation of tolerance in contexts as different as the War on Terror, campaigns for gay rights, and the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance, Brown traces the operation of tolerance in contemporary struggles over identity, citizenship, and civilization.
This article empirically analyses the provenance, application and abandonment of Project Champion, a scheme designed to encircle two Birmingham neighbourhoods with surveillance cameras. Locating analysis within the anticipatory turn in social control practices, particular emphasis is placed on how collapsing distinctions between internal and external security draw multiple new actors and agencies into the despatch of counterterrorism. The article argues that topological approaches informed by Foucauldian notions of “security” allow for a better understanding of these heterogeneous techniques and configurations of security practice. Foucauldian notions of security represent a move beyond territorial control to the management of circulations, where subjects are left in situ, but their mobilities are monitored, delineated and assessed.
Rumours of child trafficking have surfaced quickly after every major natural disaster since the Asian tsunami. Although usually proved false or exaggerated, stories of traffickers preying on vulnerable victims have become an integral feature of the disaster narrative and donors and relief workers are constantly urged to do more to help the supposed victims. This article looks at the way that this threat to children has been reported in four major disasters of the last decade—the Asian tsunami of 2004, the Pakistan earthquake of 2005, the Myanmar cyclone of 2008 and the Haiti earthquake of 2010—and suggests reasons why fears of child trafficking in disaster zones have developed so rapidly, become so firmly established and what this says about Western fears and concerns about childhood.