A critique of the global trafficking discourse and U.S. policy

Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Dec, 2007 by Moshoula Capous Desyllas

This article examines the dominant discourse on trafficking in persons and the implementation of international and U.S. policy to address trafficking globally. Features of the United Nations Protocol and the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act demonstrate how trafficking frameworks currently in place contain underlying fears of migration and female sexuality. The implications of policy on the construction of third world women as "victims to be saved" through governments, National Government Organizations, feminists and the media will show how these misrespresentations only reinforce racism and dualistic simplifications of a complex issue. An emphasis is placed on the importance of women's agency and the possibility of multiple realities. An alternative way of thinking about human trafficking and related policy through a labor rights, migration and human rights framework is proposed.

Keywords: feminist debates, sex trafficking, sex work, social policy, transnational migration

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A critical analysis of the discourse on trafficking in persons requires an understanding of the discursive history behind it, the feminists' debates surrounding it, and the international and U.S. policy designed to address it. Trafficking in persons is considered to be the forced, illegal movement of people across national and international borders and enslavement of those individuals in their destination country. While forced labor migration is a violation of human rights, not every case of illegal movement across borders is forced.

I will argue for a view of trafficking "as the trade and exploitation of labor under conditions of coercion and force" (Kempadoo, Sanghera, Pattanaik, 2005b, p. viii). This perspective addresses trafficking as transnational migration for labor with a focus on the unsafe working conditions of migrants and their rights as humans. I will argue that the current trafficking framework, and the resulting policy, harm both migrants and sex workers. The latter part of this analysis will critique the U.S. policy designed to 'combat' trafficking, the Trafficking of Victim Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, and its re-authorization (TVPRA) of 2003, in order to explore the complex effects of this policy on migrants, sex workers, and other marginalized groups. This critique will demonstrate how those countries holding power and privilege have domineering policies and imperialistic frameworks and ideologies that are imposed upon the rest of the world.

This analysis utilizes a third world feminist theoretical framework along with post-modern feminist theory to critique the trafficking in persons discourse. I use the term discourse, inspired by Michel Foucault (1972), to describe the set of accepted and relevant concepts related to trafficking which have become socially legitimized as knowledge and truth within society. I challenge this understanding of truth around trafficking since it oppresses and omits the voices of migrants from the global south and sex workers. A global feminist lens that focuses on the issues of race, ethnicity and culture as they intersect with class, gender and global economics and politics will be used. Third world feminist theory examines how global economic inequalities, including colonialism and imperialism, affect the experiences of women, taking into account the intersectionalities of sex, race, ethnicity and class (Parpart, Connelly, Barriteau, 2000, p. 65). Postmodern feminism is concerned with discourse and language, in particular with "previously silenced voices, for the specificity and power of language and its relation to knowledge, context and locality" (Parpart, et. al, 2000, p. 68). It is the hegemonic position of the global North that has dominated the construction of the definition of trafficking and its subsequent policy. I will demonstrate how underlying western fears of migration and the sexuality of women have contributed to the construction of sex trafficking as a social problem that is equated with prostitution. International and U.S. policies with underlying motivations may generate more harm to migrants and others working in the sex industry and targeted under the trafficking framework.

Feminist Debates

Historically, "trafficking in persons has been equated with prostitution" (Ditmore, 2005, p. 108). The definitions of trafficking and prostitution have been informed by opposing feminists' perspectives and theoretical frameworks. The abolitionist approach asserts that prostitution is a violation of human rights, analogous to (sexual) slavery (Bindman & Doezema, 1997) and "an extreme expression of sexual violence" (Outshoorn, 2005, p. 145). The belief is that no person can truly consent to prostitution, no woman would choose to prostitute herself by free will, and a woman who engages in prostitution is a victim who requires help to escape sexual slavery (Outshoorn, 2005). This point of view applied to trafficking always involves a victim of force, coercion and/or deception. Outshoorn (2005, p. 146) asserts that from this lens the "trafficking of migrant women is always seen as against their will; they are by definition victims of trafficking. According to abolitionists, trafficking is seen to be caused by prostitution, making the best way to fight trafficking the abolition of prostitution." While the abolitionist view of prostitution, informed by radical feminist theory, is driving the current trafficking discourse and influencing U.S. policy, it is only one side of the debate.