Marriage by Force? Contestation over Consent and Coercion in Africa

With forced marriage, as with so many human rights issues, the sensationalized hides the mundane, and oversimplified popular discourses miss the range of experiences. In sub-Saharan Africa, the relationship between coercion and consent in marriage is a complex one that has changed over time and place, rendering impossible any single interpretation or explanation. The legal experts, anthropologists, historians, and development workers contributing to Marriage by Force? focus on the role that marriage plays in the mobilization of labor, the accumulation of wealth, and domination versus dependency. They also address the crucial slippage between marriages and other forms of gendered violence, bondage, slavery, and servile status. Only by examining variations in practices from a multitude of perspectives can we properly contextualize the problem and its consequences. And while early and forced marriages have been on the human rights agenda for decades, there is today an unprecedented level of international attention to the issue, thus making the coherent, multifaceted approach of Marriage by Force? even more necessary.https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/1003/thumbnail.jp

African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony, and Refugee Rights

African Asylum at a Crossroads: Activism, Expert Testimony, and Refugee Rights examines the emerging trend of requests for expert opinions in asylum hearings or refugee status determinations. This is the first book to explore the role of court-based expertise in relation to African asylum cases and the first to establish a rigorous analytical framework for interpreting the effects of this new reliance on expert testimony. Over the past two decades, courts in Western countries and beyond have begun demanding expert reports tailored to the experience of the individual claimant. As courts increasingly draw upon such testimony in their deliberations, expertise in matters of asylum and refugee status is emerging as an academic area with its own standards, protocols, and guidelines. This deeply thoughtful book explores these developments and their effects on both asylum seekers and the experts whose influence may determine their fate. Contributors: Iris Berger, Carol Bohmer, John Campbell, Katherine Luongo, E. Ann McDougall, Karen Musalo, Tricia Redeker Hepner, Amy Shuman, Joanna T. Tague, Meredith Terretta, and Charlotte Walker-Said.https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/1023/thumbnail.jp

Anti-Trafficking Legislation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Analyzing the Role of Coercion and Parental Responsibility

This article discusses the effect of US and international support for local laws to combat child trafficking in sub-Saharan African states. The annual ranking of African anti-trafficking measures, produced by the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (OMCTP) in conjunction with the UN Office on Crime and Drugs, not only provides an important source of data but also creates a powerful incentive for African states to effect legislative change. We argue that, although the US supports criminalization of traffickers and the OMCTP espouses laws to deter parental inducement to support trafficking activities, the implementation of the laws across Africa rarely mirror these goals. Several African states’ laws on trafficking appear to meet the OMCTP standards, but their local law enforcement approaches parental roles in coercion in complex and contradictory ways. Using the available data, we explore the dimensions of African anti-trafficking programs. We then consider the language of model legislation provided to the African states by the US and United Nations. Based on our analysis of the US anti-trafficking approach, we interrogate the African states’ implementation of anti-trafficking laws. We demonstrate that the adoption of poorly-drafted model legislation has served to frustrate legal scrutiny of the role of parents and family in child- trafficking activities in sub-Saharan Africa

Ebola's Would-be Refugees: Performing Fear and Navigating Asylum During a Public Health Emergency

Chronic and acute illnesses sit uncomfortably with asylum claiming and refugee mobilities. The story of a Sierra Leonean, an athlete who feared Ebola and sought refuge in the UK, provides an opening to examine protec- tion discourses that invoke fear, trauma, and crisis metaphors, to understand how asylum claims are performed, and how related petitions are adjudicated during public health emergencies of international concern. Ebola is revealed as a novel claim strategy, and thus a useful subject matter to investigate the shifting modalities of migrant agency, the unstable fabric of medical huma- nitarianism, and knowledge production in moments of exceptionality.The research conducted for this article was partly supported by the Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung, Halle (Saale), Germany.18 month embargo; published online 20 April 2018This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]