Based on long-term ethnographic research, including documentary research, qualitative interviews and observations made at a Portuguese shelter for “sex trafficked women,” this paper explores the counter-trafficking apparatus questioning who benefits from it. The discussion explores the contrasts between an institutional commitment to constructing this apparatus and the actuality of procedural efforts purporting to support “trafficking victims.” The author argues that the higher goal of building a countertrafficking apparatus — in itself a political objective — limits the rights of “victims,” making processes that claim to be part of their protection de facto neo-liberal anti-political exercises in reenforcing bureaucratic state power.
Switzerland likes to be the exception. Unfortunately, this is also the case when it comes to the direct application of the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention. Whereas the Convention states clearly that the access to support services must ...Read More
This briefing forms part of a broader five session series of webinars standing to tackle contemporary issues impacting modern slavery in supply chains, calling for candid discussion and pragmatic solutions. Workers themselves know better than any...Read More
The vast majority of modern slavery and human trafficking cases involve interaction with finance in some form. In many cases, traffickers exploit their victims financially, taking control of their bank accounts, confiscating wages, and using debt as...Read More
For decades, workers, unions, students, and labour NGOs have joined together to try to hold global corporations accountable for the labour violations that have routinely taken place in their supply chains. Multi-faceted and often lengthy corporate c...Read More
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