“Trafficking” and “Anti-trafficking”

Defining
trafficking
UN Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and
Children
(Supplementing the United Nations
Convention Against Transnational
Organized Crime)

(un-documents.net/uncatoc.htm)

Infographic from Mackenzie, K. &

Clancey, A. (2015). Immigrant Sex
Workers, Myths and Misconceptions:
Realities of the Anti-Trafficked.
Vancouver: SWAN.
More numbers than information
Lack of reliable, empirically sound data about the prevalence of
trafficking:
Challenges in counting trafficking:
• Hidden nature of crime
• Differing definitions, e.g. confusing sex work with trafficking
• Political or economic motivations

Statistics on human trafficking always require close methodological

examination.
Representations of human
trafficking
Critiques of anti-trafficking public
awareness campaigns
 Critics questioning the ethics, accuracy and consequences of representations
used in public awareness campaigns
 Greater focus on women’s vulnerability rather than women’s rights in
migration and work
 Reaffirms patriarchal and imperialist ideas about women
o E.g. helpless, vulnerable, in need of rescue, unable to speak for themselves
o E.g. female victims from the “third world” needing rescue from “developed countries”
 Strong links between sexualization and victimization
o Eroticized violent imagery to package human trafficking issues for public consumption
‘Beautiful dead bodies’
The display of suffering and beautiful victims positions the woman’s body as
the object of the (male) gaze and mobilizes erotic ways of looking that
disclose a voyeuristic eroticization and fetishist fascination with a
severed/captive female body.
The representation of violence is thus itself violent since it confirms
stereotypes about eastern European women as beautiful victims, equates the
feminine with the passive object, severs the body from its materiality and
from the historical context in which trafficking occurs.
Andrijasevic, R. (2007). Beautiful dead bodies: Gender, migration and
representation in anti-trafficking campaigns. Feminist Review, 86, 24-44.
Challenging anti-trafficking imagery
 Sex workers and allies have protested
exploitative, misleading imagery in anti-
trafficking campaigns.
 “Through an aggressive misinformation
campaign, the Salvation Army is trying to
create an unwarranted panic about
human trafficking in Canada…Even one
instance of human trafficking is an
unacceptable tragedy but it is harmful and
insulting to characterize all sex workers as
trafficking victims.” – PIVOT Legal Society,
24 Sept 2009, ‘Advocacy groups denounce
Salvation Army’s human trafficking
campaign
‘Collateral Damage’: The Impact of Anti-Trafficking
Measures on Human Rights Around the World (2007)
 Research by the Global Alliance Against
Traffic in Women (2007)
 Reviewed impact of anti-trafficking
measures in 8 countries:
• Australia
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Brazil
• India
• Nigeria
• Thailand
• United Kingdom
• United States
 Are human rights considered ‘collateral
damage’ in the fight against human
trafficking?
Consequences
 Increased criminalization and scrutiny
of
o Sex workers
o Migrant workers
o Migrants
 Restrictive immigration and labour
migration policies

Ditmore, M. (2009). The Use of Raids to Fight Trafficking in

Persons. New York: Urban Justice Center. Available at:
http://sexworkersproject.org/downloads/swp-2009-raids-
and-trafficking-report.pdf
Uses
Anti-trafficking as rationale or guise for:
 Anti-immigration efforts, e.g. strengthening borders rather than
assisting victims
 Anti-prostitution efforts
 Imperialist agendas, e.g. the power of the West or Global North
Molland (2011) “Ideald Types” of
Traffickers and Anti-traffickers
Traffickers:
“I am helping them”
◦ fictive kinship
◦ karmic merit
◦ victim/trafficker blurriness
◦ “cascading deception”
Anti-Traffickers
“We need clear guidelines”
◦ Preoccupation with clarifying who is a
victim and perpetrator
◦ Preoccupation with guidlelines as a
means for understanding and justifying
their role
◦ References to guidelines made by
international bodies, which may not
reflect local compexity
Resources
 Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (gaatw.org)
 Open Democracy, ‘Beyond Slavery’ series
(opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery)
 Border Criminologies (bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk)
 La Strada International, European Network Against Trafficking in Human
Beings (lastradainternational.org)
 Anti-Slavery International (antislavery.org)
 Network of Sex Work Projects (nswp.org/resources/tags/trafficking)
 Gendered division of
household labour
Increase in women’s access to education
and employment opportunities.

Women are burdened by the ‘second shift.’

(Hochschild, 1989/2012)

In every part of the world women spend

more time on unpaid work (cleaning,
cooking, childcare, etc.).

“Gender equality has succeeded more in

‘capitalizing women’ than in ‘humanizing
men.’” (Hochschild, 2003:29)

OECD/Taei, 2019
 The feminization of
migration
Changes in the global economy in the 80’s
Cuts in social spending in the Global South.
Rappler
“Migration has become a private solution to a
public problem.” (Castles & Miller, 2009)
The demand for service jobs and ‘women-
specific’ work increased.
Due to a decline in the welfare states and
changing demographics, governments
increasingly hold families responsible for
(child)care (Maymon, 2017) SCMP, 2018
Global distribution of 11.5 million migrant
Southern Asia, 3.8 domestic workers (ILO, 2015)

Northern, Southern,
Western Europe, 19.2 Arab States, 27.4

Northern Africa, 0.6

Eastern Europe, 0.7
Central and Western Asia,
2.2

Sub-Saharan Africa, 5

Eastern Asia, 9.5

Latin America and the

South-Eastern Asia and the
Caribbean, 6.5
Pacific, 19.4
Northern America, 5.5
Labour force participation rate for
females in Hong Kong, 1996-2016
 MDWs in Hong
Kong

- There are approx. 400.000

MDWs in Hong Kong.
- The majority are from the
Philippines (54%) and
Indonesia (42%).

Source: Legco, 2017/ImmD, 2020 Photo: SCMP, 2018

MDWs are required to live-in with their employers.
Employers are required to provide “suitable and furnished
accommodation.”
 Conditions of migrant
domestic workers in HK
MDWs live with their employers 24 hours a day,
and there are no limitations on working hours.
MDWs work an average of 66 – 96 hours per week
(44 hours is the median number of working hours
per week in HK)
44% of MDWs works over 16 hours per day.
MDWs are excluded from the statutory minimum
wage. The minimum wage is HKD4630 (or,
11.1hkd/h, compared to 37.5hkd/hr statutory
minimum wage)
Sources: HK gov, 2020; Mission for Migrant Workers, 2019
 When an employment contract is terminated, MDWs
have 2 weeks to find a new employer, otherwise they
have to leave Hong Kong.
They are not allowed to work during these 2 weeks.
They are not eligible for public health care during this
time.

Two-week
rule policy
 Main issues that MDW
advocate groups are
fighting for:

Legislation of a living wage for Hong Kong

Working hour regulations for all workers
Decent rest periods between working days
Regulations on accommodation and meals.

Images: SCMP
Source: Press briefing Asian Migrants’ Coordinating Body; One Billion Rising HK