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.
Article 3(a) of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Trafficking in Persons Protocol) de...Read More
The shift of economic production from higher labour standard regimes in the global North to lower standard regimes in the South is undermining enforcement of global labour standards. Responding to criticisms from the ‘anti-sweatshop’ movement, c...Read More
A major cause of forced labour in global supply chains is the charging of recruitment fees to migrant workers. Some companies have sought to reimburse workers charged these fees, many face serious challenges in doing so. Reimbursing worker-paid fe...Read More
The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (the Accord) was signed on 15 May 2013. It is an independent, legally binding agreement between global brands and retailers and trade unions designed to build a safe and healthy Bangladeshi Ready M...Read More
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