Working Lives Research Institute
This public concern with trafficking consistently reflects and reinforces firstly a deep concern with prostitution/sex work, and secondly a concern about immigration, abuse and exploitation. To challenge the expression and some of the actions taken as a response to this concern is akin to saying that one endorses slavery or is against motherhood and apple pie. But as Wendy Brown says "One sure sign of a depoliticising trope or discourse is the easy and politically crosscutting embrace of a political project bearing its name". I will argue, taking the example of domestic work that there is a real danger that a moral panic over trafficking diverts attention from the structural, systemic causes of abuse and inequality and confuses arguments. In particular it detracts attention from the role of the state in constructing groups of people who can be treated as unequal with impunity, and risks trapping migrants in a perpetual victimhood that denies them meaningful citizenship.
Speakers:
Bridget
Anderson is author of 'Labour Exchange: Patterns of Migration in Asia'
and 'Doing the dirty work? The global politics of domestic labour' and
has worked with undocumented women migrants for numerous years