| Description |
1 online resource (x, [266] pages) |
| Series |
Women and social movements, international.
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| Summary |
Since a new UN convention on the issue of human trafficking was adopted in 2000, many hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on efforts to stop people being trafficked. While the intentions behind this spending appear good, the effects of the ways the money has been spent have, in many cases, been much less positive. Both human rights defenders and others have been concerned that some initiatives to stop trafficking have proved counter-productive for the very people they were supposed to benefit. Indeed, this concern was so strong that, as early as 2002, in a set of guidelines issued about human trafficking and human rights, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that a key principle for all anti-trafficking measures was that they "shall not adversely affect the human rights and dignity of persons, in particular the rights of those who have been trafficked, and of migrants, internally-displaced persons, refugees and asylum-seekers". This anthology reviews the experience of eight specific countries and attempts to assess what the impact of antitrafficking measures have been for a variety of people living and working there, or migrating into or out of these countries. The eight are: Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Brazil, India, Nigeria, Thailand, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). The chapters look specifically at what the impact has been on people's human rights. Have significant numbers of people been able to exercise their human rights better as a result of the initiatives that have been taken (and the money spent)? Or have anti-trafficking initiatives had a markedly negative impact on many individuals' human rights--not just traffickers, but others, precisely the people who are generally supposed to be helped by anti-trafficking measures, rather than to suffer as a result of them? It is five years since then UN High Commissioner, Mary Robinson, emphasized to governments that anti-trafficking measures should not "adversely affect" human rights. She started with the principle that "the human rights of trafficked persons shall be at the centre of all efforts to prevent and combat trafficking and to protect, assist and provide redress to victims". Nevertheless, the priority for governments around the world in their efforts to stop human trafficking has been to arrest, prosecute and punish traffickers, rather than to protect the human rights of people who have been trafficked. This approach is consistent with that adopted by governments over the past two centuries in the context of efforts to stamp out slavery, forced labour and slavery-like practices (of which trafficking is regarded as one): they have given higher priority, both in international agreements and national law, to declaring slavery and similar abuse illegal, than to spelling out how such forms of abuse are to be eradicated or how, when doing so, to safeguard the human rights of the individuals who have been subjected to abuse. Such individuals are victims of crime and of abuse of power, but their victim status routinely leads governments to treat them as powerless pawns. Rather than label them as 'victims' in this anthology, we consequently refer to them as 'trafficked persons' |
| Notes |
Title from PDF title page (Open Society Institute, viewed September 23, 2009) |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Human trafficking.
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Forced labor (International law)
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Prostitution -- Law and legislation.
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Human rights.
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Abused women -- Services for
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Abused women -- Legal status, laws, etc
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Women -- Crimes against.
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Prostitutes -- Services for
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Child prostitutes -- Services for
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Abused children -- Services for.
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Human Rights
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Crime Victims
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Abused children -- Services for.
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Abused women -- Legal status, laws, etc.
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Abused women -- Services for.
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Child prostitutes -- Services for.
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Forced labor (International law)
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Human rights.
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Human trafficking.
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Prostitutes -- Services for.
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Prostitution -- Law and legislation.
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Women -- Crimes against.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
Global Alliance against Traffic in Women.
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