Travel Agency: A Critique of Anti-Trafficking Campaigns

Abstract

This paper offers a critical evaluation of anti-trafficking campaigns spearheaded by some in the feminist movement in an attempt to deal with the issues of unsafe migrations and labour exploitation. I discuss how calls to “end trafficking, especially in women and children” are influenced by – and go on to legitimate – governmental practices to criminalize the self-willed migration of people moving without official permission. I discuss how the ideological frame of anti-trafficking works to reinforce restrictive immigration practices, shore up a nationalized consciousness of space and home, and criminalize those rendered illegal within national territories. Anti-trafficking campaigns also fail to take into account migrants’ limited agency in the migration process. I provide alternative routes to anti-trafficking campaigns by arguing for an analytical framework in which the related worldwide crises of displacement and migration are foregrounded. I argue that by centering the standpoint of undocumented migrants a more transformative politics emerges, one that demands that people be able to “stay” and to “move” in a self-determined manner.

Clean fake: Authenticating documents and persons in migrant Moscow

“…Analyses in this vein have productively highlighted the need to distinguish between forms and sources of irregular presence in the nation‐state through illegal entry, overstay, or employment (Cvajner and Sciortino ; Ruhs and Anderson ). They have critiqued the normalizing languages through which migratory trajectories have been discussed, which identify the migrant as “victim” of trafficking or “villain” intent on undermining the law (Anderson ; Sharma ). They have revealed the significance of shifting migration policies as a means of sustaining state sovereignty (Kaşlı and Parla ), and they have highlighted the ways in which discourses of “illegality” serve to reproduce a sense of political community in countries of in‐migration (Calavita and Suarez‐Navaz ).…”

Child Trafficking: ‘Worst Form’ of Child Labour, or Worst Approach to Young Migrants?

“…Despite the above, it would be wrong to conclude that the discourse of human trafficking has been forced upon countries in the South, as this ignores the way in which global discourses are adopted by local actors and employed in more localized power struggles. This is illustrated by the argument that the global human trafficking discourse has given legitimacy to national policies which make immigration more restrictive (O’Connell Davidson, 2005: 69; Sharma, 2003: 58). We would add to this that the human trafficking discourse may also be employed by national level actors to selectively curb emigration 10 .…”

Thinking Sex Materially: Marxist, Socialist, and Related Feminist Approaches

“…As I have argued in my own work, the gravity of this situation is further signalled though the image of an inanimate women's body or the implicit reference to death, which insinuate that death is the only possible way out of the situation of abuse and sexual slavery (Andrijasevic, 2007;Arthurs, 2012). The implicitly proposed alternative is not to migrate, as home is depicted as the safest option for young women (Sharma, 2003). This type of representation of home ----as devoid of dangers such as abuse, violence or prostitution ----reproduces traditional images of femininity that position women outside of the labour market and inside the reproductive and private sphere.…”

“…As per transnational feminist interventions, lives and agency exercised by oppressed and marginalized groups have provided the basis for a critique of dominant narratives of prostitution and sex trafficking and a standpoint from which to articulate alternative conceptions and modes of knowledge (Grewal, 1994;Alexander and Mohanty, 1997;Mohanty, 2003). These studies have also shown women's travel agency and revealed the complex set of aims and desires that prompt women to migrate such as pursuit of financial independence, escape from domestic violence or abuse and search for love and autonomy (Gülçür and İlkkaracan, 2002;Andrijasevic, 2003;Sharma, 2003;Skilbrei and Tveit, 2007). A common concern among these scholars and activists is the way in which a criminal justice perspective places responsibility for trafficking and exploitation on organized criminal networks and in doing so hides the extent to which states' restrictive immigration, border and visa policies have criminalized the mobility of certain groups of people and created conditions that foster vulnerability and exploitation of migrants (Jordan, 2002;Chapkis, 2003;Kapur, 2005;Anderson, 2007Anderson, , 2009.…”