Launch of Issue 10 of the Anti-Trafficking Review ‘Life after Trafficking’
Guest Editors: Denise Brennan and Sine Plambech
Editor: Borislav Gerasimov
Media, policymakers and NGOs typically focus on the horrors of life in trafficking and ‘rescuing’ trafficked persons, but much less attention is paid to life after trafficking. This special issue of the Anti-Trafficking Review documents the challenges that people face after exiting situations labelled as trafficking, as well as those whose exploitation garnered no legal protections or service provision.
It introduces cases of life after trafficking in countries with robust anti-trafficking legal and care regimes, as well as in countries that offer little or no assistance. The first two articles explore life after trafficking in relation to political and commercial economies of humanitarian anti-trafficking efforts. First, Henriksen explores how life after trafficking, as a specific representation, emerges in the form of a business opportunity within the ‘anti-trafficking industrial complex’, as market-based NGOs brand a commodity-centred strategy as the most viable route to combat human trafficking. Next, Paasche, Skilbrei and Plambech illustrate the ways in which life after trafficking is determined by the anti-immigrant politics sweeping across most of Europe through the case of Norway’s return of Nigerian migrants with the designation as ‘trafficked’. The next group of papers, by Donger and Bhabha, Surtees, Rousseau, McCarthy, and Juabsamai and Taylor, present empirical realities, struggles and uncertainties in life after trafficking in, respectively, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Azerbaijan, and the United States. A common theme in these papers is the lack of appropriate and comprehensive support for survivors after trafficking, as they struggle with family reunification, legal recognition and compensation, and long-term assistance. Finally, through examination of the practices of a reintegration shelter in Bangladesh, the paper by Bose illustrates how life after trafficking is governed and disciplined by gendered and class-based discourses that shape an ideal survivor subjectivity.
The short articles section presents two pieces from anti-trafficking advocates in Denmark and the UK, and an interview with a counsellor from Switzerland, which point to the inadequacies of the care regimes in these countries, especially given the current anti-migrant rhetoric in Europe. Finally, the issue concludes with the voices of survivors themselves and their experiences resuming their lives after trafficking. Dogged by debt, torn by family obligations and expectations, and in pursuit of residence permits and decent jobs, these survivors nonetheless move forward with their lives.
Ultimately, this special issue shows that by taking back control of one’s life, and tending to ordinary tasks and chores of resettlement, formerly trafficked persons move beyond the extraordinary cruelty of exploitation.
View the new issue at http://www.antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/issue/view/18
Published by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, the Anti-Trafficking Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal that promotes a human rights based approach to anti-trafficking, and offers a space for dialogue for those seeking to communicate new ideas and findings. The journal is an open source publication with readership in over 100 countries.