Sex, Slavery and the Trafficked Woman

Sex, Slavery and the Trafficked Woman is a go-to text for readers who seek a comprehensive overview of the meaning of ’human trafficking’ and current debates and perspectives on the issue. It presents a more nuanced understanding of human trafficking and its victims by examining - and challenging - the conventional assumptions that sit at the heart of mainstream approaches to the topic. A pioneering study, the arguments made in this book are largely drawn from the author’s fieldwork in Ukraine, Vietnam and Ghana. The author demonstrates to readers how a law enforcement and criminal justice-oriented approach to trafficking has developed at the expense of a migration and human rights perspective. She highlights the importance of viewing trafficking within a broad spectrum of migratory movement. The author contests the coerced, female victim archetype as stereotypical and challenges the reader to understand trafficking in an alternative manner, introducing the counterintuitive concept of the ’voluntary victim’. Overall, this text provides readers of migration and development, gender studies, women’s rights and international law a comprehensive and multidisciplinary analysis of the concept of trafficking

Sex, Slavery and the Trafficked Woman

Sex, Slavery and the Trafficked Woman is a go-to text for readers who seek a comprehensive overview of the meaning of ’human trafficking’ and current debates and perspectives on the issue. It presents a more nuanced understanding of human trafficking and its victims by examining - and challenging - the conventional assumptions that sit at the heart of mainstream approaches to the topic. A pioneering study, the arguments made in this book are largely drawn from the author’s fieldwork in Ukraine, Vietnam and Ghana. The author demonstrates to readers how a law enforcement and criminal justice-oriented approach to trafficking has developed at the expense of a migration and human rights perspective. She highlights the importance of viewing trafficking within a broad spectrum of migratory movement. The author contests the coerced, female victim archetype as stereotypical and challenges the reader to understand trafficking in an alternative manner, introducing the counterintuitive concept of the ’voluntary victim’. Overall, this text provides readers of migration and development, gender studies, women’s rights and international law a comprehensive and multidisciplinary analysis of the concept of trafficking

Verdade e reconciliação para as gerações roubadas: revisitando a história da Austrália

Publicado em português, espanhol e inglês.Título em espanhol: Enfrentando la historia de Australia: verdad y reconciliación para las generaciones robadas. -- Título em inglês: Facing Australia's history: truth and reconciliation for the stolen generations.O governo do Estado da Tasmânia e o Senado Federal da Austrália tomaram medidas recentes no sentido de criar um Tribunal de Reparações para os povos Aborígines e Insulares do Estreito de Torres (ATSI). Os ATSI foram separados de suas famílias e comunidades por políticas estatais de remoção forçada do século 20. Este trabalho propõe uma Comissão de Verdade e Reconciliação que incorpore lições internacionais

Scrutinizing Vietnam's Progress Towards Gender Equality

Ramona Vijeyarasa explores the issue of gender equality in Vietnam and argues that the picture is far more complex than one of rapid advancement towards attainment of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 3. She shows that when data is disaggregated and progress is measured against other international standards – including those set out in the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and global commitments made at the United Nations (UN) Conference on population and development in Cairo and women in Beijing – greater investment, both financial and human resources, and increased political will, are needed well beyond 2015. Vijeyarasa examines Vietnam’s achievements and shortfalls as measured against the MDGs with an eye to the potential for institutional reform of gender machinery at the national and international levels in order to create stronger accountability for the rights of Vietnamese women and progress towards women’s empowerment.

Challenging the assumptions about victims of trafficking: a critical examination of the mainstream framework based on findings from Ukraine, Vietnam and Ghana

My objective in this thesis is to present a more nuanced understanding of human trafficking and its victims by examining the conventional assumptions that sit at the heart of the mainstream trafficking framework. I undertake a two-part analysis. First, I assess the extent to which voluntariness is present in the entry of individuals into situations of trafficking. I argue that the coerced victim is atypical and forms an inaccurate representation of the phenomenon. Second, I use the results from my empirical research and other available data to assess whether, and to what extent, socio-economic demographic factors, such as education levels, poverty, labour market barriers or gender inequality, heighten the vulnerability of individuals in source countries to being trafficked.A pioneering study, these findings are largely drawn from my fieldwork in Ukraine, Vietnam and Ghana. The data collected includes 109 questionnaires from returned victims of trafficking and interviews with 50 key informants from NGOs, government, academia, international organisations and UN agencies. At a more theoretical level, through an analysis of the law, academic discourse and the agendas of key stakeholders, I argue that a law-enforcement and criminal justice-oriented approach to trafficking has developed at the expense of a migration and human rights perspective. I contend that the latter approach better acknowledges the decision-making of individual migrants engaged in a process of economic and social betterment and the levels of voluntariness and autonomy at hand in those decisions.My challenge to the mainstream trafficking framework puts into question the archetype of the coerced, uneducated, naive, poor female victim that dominates trafficking imagery nationally and internationally and shapes the very meaning attributed to the concept of trafficking. As a counterpoint to this approach, my thesis sketches the foundational elements of an alternative approach to trafficking, one that recognises what I call the “voluntary victim” and their unmet expectations. I stress the need for a more nuanced understanding of victim susceptibility to exploitation rather than the often unsubstantiated assertions frequently present in trafficking discourse. By situating trafficking on a spectrum of migratory movement, I conclude that the typical experience of trafficking is best represented as “failed migration”