The Afternoon Lecture Series

"Victims or Agents? Female Cross-Border Migrants and Anti-Trafficking Discourse”

Lucinda Peach, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at American University

Tuesday, March 7, 2006
4:00-6:00, Mason Hall D3 A & B
Co-Sponsored by the Cultural Studies Program and the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy.

In recent years, scholars and NGOs taking a human rights approach to human trafficking have lodged a variety of criticisms at the failure of existing governmental and international frameworks established to counter the trafficking in persons. There has been a good deal of discussion and debate about the most appropriate way to conceptualize both human trafficking and the persons who are trafficked. In general terms, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advocating the abolition of the prostitution and sex work that are the basis of sex trafficking have viewed the subject of trafficking as an innocent victim. In contrast, governments emphasizing an immigration control approach have been more inclined to concentrate on the traffickers and consider trafficked persons only tangentially and then primarily as illegal aliens. Still again, international human rights organizations have tended to focus on trafficked persons as individuals who have had their rights violated, and who require protection (and usually repatriation to their country of origin), rather than considering the global social, economic, and political contexts that promote human trafficking.

Recently, feminist critics of these approaches have articulated an alternative strategy to place the female cross-border migrant at the center of the analysis of sex trafficking and other forms of women’s migration. At first glance, this seems to be a progressive move towards empowering women and protecting their human rights, especially those who have been trafficked for the sex trade and/or have otherwise migrated for work in the sex industry. However, in this paper, I contend that putting the cross-border migrant subject into the center of trafficking analysis also creates new problems for anti-sex trafficking efforts, especially as they relate to the formulation and implementation of law and public policy. I will first discuss some of the factors that favor putting the female migrant subject at the center of anti-trafficking analysis, such as its recognition of and respect for trafficked persons. I will then discuss some of the problems that such a reconfiguration would entail, especially with respect to legislation relating to the trafficking of children and unwilling, involuntary victims of trafficking as well as the demand side of sex trafficking. I will conclude with some recommendations for how trafficking analysis might be modified to take better account of the specific needs and interests of all trafficked persons.

Peach is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at American University, where she is Co-Director of the Ethics and Peace M.A. program. She has published a number of articles on gender and violence, the ethics of war, and women's human rights.

The Center for Global Ethics and its Director Carol Gould invites George Mason faculty, staff, students and friends to join us for The Afternoon Lecture Series featuring distinguished intellectuals working in the area of Global Ethics. Discussion and lite refreshments will follow each of our speakers' presentations. Please feel free to bring your lunch.