Anti-Trafficking Review

3-13

Authors: Sverre Molland

It is with great honour that I introduce the second issue of the Anti-Trafficking Review (ATR). The first issue received an overwhelming response and has placed the journal at the forefront of rigorous analysis and debate relating to human trafficking and human rights. It raised the topic of accountability in anti-trafficking. This issue hopes to further strengthen the ATR’s position as a global, reputable journal on human trafficking. Strengthening the quality of research, analysis, and reflexivity in the trafficking sector is much needed, and I echo Anne Gallagher’s observation as guest editor of the first issue that standards in anti-trafficking research tend to be less rigorous than in other fields of study. My aim as a guest editor is to contribute to addressing this shortfall by bringing together a set of diverse and insightful articles focussing on the nexus of borders and human rights. It is also my hope that this issue will work towards narrowing the divide between practitioners and academics in anti-trafficking. This is reflected in the varied range of contributors. The last few years have witnessed a significant increase in publishing relating to human trafficking worldwide. However, there is limited measured debate and appraisal of this literature within the anti-trafficking sector. For this reason we have decided to include a book review as a way of highlighting recent major publications. The question of borders, migration control, trafficking and human rights raise contested and controversial questions. The editorial team has attempted to include different perspectives, reflected in the debate section in particular. Needless to say, all papers have been subject to double blind peer review.

15-32

Authors: Rebecca Miller and Sebastian Baumeister

Over the last several decades, globalisation and a growing concern over security issues, including transnational crime and terrorism, has shaped migration policies and the priorities of states. As migration rose to the top of many government agendas, a rapid tightening and regularisation of borders ensued in an attempt to keep undesirable, high-risk migrants out of potential destination countries. Concomitantly, transnational crimes, such as trafficking in persons and the smuggling of migrants, have been increasingly defined as border security problems. This article examines the extent to which border control is fundamental to anti-trafficking and anti-smuggling interventions, situating the debate within the wider nexus of globalisation and the securitisation of migration. Based upon their work with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Regional Centre for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the authors take the standpoint that given it is the sovereign right of each state to control its border and regulate migration, the human rights of migrants must be considered within this realpolitik. Clearly, though, this claim is highly political and contentious. In the article, we explore some of the tensions and contradictions that have emerged in this debate, and then develop an argument to suggest that it is possible for states to combine managed migration and strict border controls with the protection of human rights in the current context of globalisation.

15

Authors: James Campbell

Borders are productive sites where knowledge is gathered and migrant populations are formed. The knowledge gathered from victims of trafficking reinforces a victim narrative that represents a perceived threat to society by highlighting violence, criminality, coercion, and naivety. Using Albania as a case in point, the article looks at trafficked people and the narratives of victimhood that surround them. In the case of trafficked people, the border projected out towards other states produces a discursively defined victim of trafficking. When projected back within the national territory, the border essentially produces a criminalised sex worker. To argue this point, the article discusses the role victims of trafficking play in the EU and looks at how international norms espoused by the OSCE and IOM have prepped the Albanian border for EU ascension and created the means for governable populations within Albania.

18

Authors: Marika McAdam

International borders are widely touted as bastions in the fight against trafficking in persons. This article acknowledges the important role border officials play in preventing human trafficking, but calls for expectations to be tempered by deference to the conceptual complexity of cross-border trafficking and the migration processes involved. The fact that many trafficked victims begin their journeys as irregular or smuggled migrants highlights the challenge posed to border officials in identifying trafficked persons among the people they encounter. Indicators of trafficking generally relate to the exploitation phase, leaving border officials with little guidance as to how persons vulnerable to trafficking can be accurately identified before any exploitation has occurred. Ultimately, this paper advocates a pragmatic rights-based approach in designating anti-trafficking functions to border officials. A rights-based approach to border control acknowledges the core work of border officials as being to uphold border integrity, while ensuring that their performance of this role does not jeopardise the rights of those they intercept nor result in missed opportunities for specialists to identify trafficked persons and other vulnerable people among them.

19

Authors: Laurie Lijnders, Sara Robinson

Each month hundreds of men, women, and children flee Eritrea as a result of grave violations of human rights committed by the Eritrean government. Travelling across borders, an estimated 36,000 Eritreans have been smuggled to Israel over the past seven years. For 31 per cent of those interviewed for this research, their migration involved abduction and forced movement for extortion among other abuses. Migrants have been abducted in Eastern Sudan near the border with Eritrea and then sold to criminal gangs along the Sudan-Egypt border. The gangs forcibly hold the migrants captive in the Northern Sinai desert. Many who made the journey reported being held hostage and subjected to brutal treatment in Eastern Sudan and the Northern Sinai desert, including gang rape of men and women, whipping, and various other methods of physical and psychological torture. Although not a traditional trafficking scenario, this paper explores the phenomenon in relation to borders. Intricate trafficking networks have exploited refugee outflows from Eritrea, turning the area around the Sudanese side of the Eritrea-Sudan border into a breeding ground for abductions, aggravated smuggling, and trafficking. While crossing borders to claim asylum may facilitate some protection from abuses perpetrated by the Eritrean government, it has created a new set of challenges for Eritrean migrants who now must find protection and safety from kidnappers. While refugees must cross borders to find safety, those same borders create the circumstances for trafficking networks to operate. Unless the dynamics of those involved changes, human rights abuses such as extortion, torture and human trafficking in Eastern Sudan and Sinai are expected to continue.