Gender, Trafficking, and Slavery

Gender, Trafficking, and Slavery Edited by Rachel Masika Oxfam Focus on Gender The books in Oxfam's Focus on Gender series were originally published as single issues of the journal Gender and Development, which is published by Oxfam three times a year. It is the only British journal to focus specifically on gender and development issues internationally, to explore the links between gender and development initiatives, and to make the links between theoretical and practical work in this field. For information about subscription rates, please apply to Carfax Publishing, Taylor and Francis Ltd, Customer Services Department, Rankine Road, Basingstoke, Hants RG24 8PR UK; fax: + 44 (0) 1256 330 245. In North America, please apply to Taylor and Francis Inc, Customer Services Department, 325 Chestnut Street, 8th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA; fax (+1) 800 8218312. In Australia, please apply to Carfax Publishing Company, PO Box 352, Cammeray, NSW 2062, Australia; fax: +61 (0) 2 9958 2376. E-mail: [email protected] or visit http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the Publisher. The views expressed in this book are those of the individual contributors, and not necessarily those of the Editors or the Publisher. Front cover: Children working as bonded labourers in a carpet-weaving shed, Pakistan Photo: Ben Buxton, Oxfam © Oxfam GB 2002 Published by Oxfam GB, 274 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7DZ, UK. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/publications Typeset in Palatino by Oxfam; printed by Information Press, Eynsham Oxfam is a registered charity No. 202918 Oxfam GB is a member of Oxfam International ISBN 085598 478 3 This book converted to digital file in 2010 Contents Editorial 2 Suzanne Williams and Rachel Masika Crossing borders and building bridges: the Baltic Region Networking Project 10 Carolina Johansson Wennerholm Who gets to choose? Coercion, consent, and the UN Trafficking Protocol 20 Jo Doezema Human rights or wrongs? The struggle for a rights-based response to trafficking in human beings 28 Ann D. Jordan Trafficking in children in West and Central Africa 38 Mike Dottridge Child marriage and prostitution: two forms of sexual exploitation? 43 Susanne Louis B. Mikhail Slavery and gender: women's double exploitation 50 Beth Herzfeld Half-hearted protection: what does victim protection really mean for victims of trafficking in Europe? 56 Elaine Pearson NGO responses to trafficking in women 60 Marina Tzvetkova A tale of two cities: shifting the paradigm of anti-trafficking programmes 69 Smarajit Jana, Nandinee Bandyopadhyay, Mrinal Kanti Dutta, and Amitrajit Saha Reducing poverty and upholding human rights: a pragmatic approach 80 Meena Poudel and Ines Smyth Resources 87 Compiled by Nittaya Thiraphouth Publications 87 Organisations 92 Electronic resources 94 Videos 94 Conferences 95 This book converted to digital file in 2010 Editorial Suzanne Williams and Rachel Masika rafficking and slavery are areas of Amongst national and international human experience that are highly organisations seeking to intervene on Tcomplex and which evoke powerful behalf of - or in partnership with - and contradictory feelings amongst those trafficked people there exist deep divisions, attempting to understand them. Slavery on issues of principle, perception, and itself is something we like to consign to the strategy. These divisions relate especially to dark period of colonial history, but it is still, two issues - the fine line between uncomfortably, with us. Today it takes on a trafficking and migration, and the broader and more clandestine range of distinction between 'free' and 'forced' relationships that are less characteristic of prostitution.1 These distinctions have the slave trading of previous centuries. important consequences for the protection Ordinary people are alarmed to discover of the human rights of trafficked persons in that they may be implicated in slavery by receiving countries, and for the free move- becoming part of a commercial chain which ment of people through assisted voluntary exploits the bonded labour of children in migration. This debate is explored in the carpet industry; or by buying chocolate several articles. It is also the case that the produced from cocoa worked by enslaved voices of the women, children, and men labourers in West Africa. who are enslaved, traded, and trafficked, One aspect of modern slavery which and their accounts of their experiences, vary elicits particular revulsion is the trafficking enormously in accordance with differences of women, girls, and boys into the sex in their national context, their societies, and industry, and this is one of the issues upon their expectations of life. As this collection which many of the contributors here focus. will show, there is no single truth here, but This raises the issue of gender discrimination a wide range of different perceptions, and oppression, and the ways in which contexts, and strongly-held convictions. gendered power converges with poverty to However, there are common elements in the drive or lure women and girls into factors which expose people to trafficking situations where they are subjected to and slavery-like practices, which define the extreme forms of violence. It also raises coercion and exploitation that characterises questions about women's agency and these practices, and which form the basis of empowerment, and tests the hypocrisies of strategies to address them. These elements moral judgements and double standards in include inequality and oppression based on relation to women's and men's sexuality gender, age, race and caste, poverty and the and identity. struggle to overcome it, deception, corruption, and greed. Editorial Over the past 50 years a number of forms of exploitation such as forced international instruments have been created marriage and forced labour, reflected in to deal directly or indirectly with the the Beijing Declaration and Platform for various elements of slavery and trafficking, Action. starting with the Universal Declaration of Finally, in the year 2000, all countries Human Rights (UDHR). The UDHR states signed the UN Convention against in its opening articles that: 'Everyone has the Transnational Organised Crime and its two right to life, liberty and security of person. No protocols. One of the protocols deals one shall be held in slavery and servitude; specifically with trafficking in persons - the slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish all their forms.' (Human Rights Web 1997, Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women Articles 3 and 4) The Convention against and Children. The Protocol provides the Torture, the Convention on the Rights of the first international definition of trafficking. Child, the Convention On The Elimination This definition broadens that of the 1949 Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Convention, which set prostitution at the Women (CEDAW), and the Declaration on heart of trafficking, and bound states the Elimination of Violence against Women parties to 'take all necessary measures to all attempt to state and regulate the rights repeal or abolish any law, regulation or and duties of human beings, as individuals administrative provisions by virtue of and in society. The 1926 Slavery Convention which persons who are engaged in, or are was supplemented in 1956 by the suspected of engaging in, prostitution are Supplementary Convention on the Abolition subject either to special registration or to of Slavery and the Slave Trade and the possession of a special document or to Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, any exceptional requirements for and expanded the definition of slavery to supervision or notification'. Advocates of those acts having the same effects as this 'abolitionist' system emphasise slavery, such as debt bondage, serfdom, effective legislation against illicit traffic and and exploitation of the labour of women exploitation of the traffic of others, drafted and children. to preclude traffickers and profiteers from The 1949 Convention for the circumventing them and escaping punish- Suppression of the Trafficking in Persons ment. There is no distinction between and Exploitation of the Prostitution of forced and voluntary prostitution. Others (the Trafficking Convention), The definition of trafficking in the UN building upon international instruments protocol (UNODCCP 2000) reads: concerning 'white slave traffic', brought '"Trafficking in persons" shall mean the prostitution and trafficking into the same recruitment, transportation, transfer, legal framework, requiring states parties to harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of punish those exploiting the prostitution of the threat or use of force or other forms of others, even with their consent. The coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, contradictions inherent in this Convention of the abuse of power or of a position of continue to fuel debates about trafficking vulnerability (interpretative note 63) or of and prostitution today. The Trafficking the giving or receiving of payments or Convention also calls upon states parties to benefits to achieve the consent of a person provide care and maintenance for victims of having control over another person, for the trafficking and to bear the cost of purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall repatriation to the nearest border. Since include,

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