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Issue 7, September 2016 ISSN: 2286-7511 EISSN: 2287-0113 Special Issue–Trafficking Representations Editorial: Trafficking (in) Representations: Understanding the recurring appeal of victimhood and slavery in neoliberal times Thematic Articles: Trafficking Representations My Experience is Mine to Tell: Challenging the abolitionist victimhood framework How to Stage a Raid: Police, media and the master narrative of trafficking Neoliberal Sexual Humanitarianism and Story-Telling: The case of Somaly Mam Expelling Slavery from the Nation: Representations of labour exploitation in Australia’s supply chain ‘It’s All in Their Brain’: Constructing the figure of the trafficking victim on the US-Mexico border Looking Beyond ‘White Slavery’: Trafficking, the Jewish Association, and the dangerous politics of migration control in England, 1890-1910 Captured ‘Realities’ of Human Trafficking: Analysis of photographs illustrating stories on trafficking into the sex industry in Serbian media Rebooting Trafficking The Art of the Possible: Making films on sex work migration and human trafficking ATR #7 First Page 1-1_Art2-Alfie.pmd1 21/10/2560, 18:56 anti reviewtrafficking GUEST EDITORS CO-EDITORS RUTVICA ANDRIJASEVIC REBECCA NAPIER-MOORE NICOLA MAI BORISLAV GERASIMOV EDITORIAL BOARD RUTVICA ANDRIJASEVIC, University of Bristol, United Kingdom JACQUELINE BHABHA, Harvard School of Public Health, United States URMILA BHOOLA, UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, South Africa XIANG BIAO, Oxford University, United Kingdom LUCIANA CAMPELLO, Panamerican Health Organization, Brazil MIKE DOTTRIDGE, Independent Human Rights Consultant, United Kingdom JOY NGOZI EZEILO, University of Nigeria; Former UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Nigeria ANNE GALLAGHER, Independent scholar and legal advisor, Australia JOHN GEE, Transient Workers Count Too, Singapore CHANDRE GOULD, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa SUZANNE HOFF, La Strada International, The Netherlands KRISTIINA KANGASPUNTA, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Austria KAMALA KEMPADOO, York University, Canada ANNALEE LEPP, University of Victoria, Canada MARIKA WEN MCADAM, Independent Consultant, Australia SVERRE MOLLAND, The Australian National University, Australia MARINA NOVAES, Secretariat of Human Rights and Citizenship of Sao Paulos City Hall, Brazil VICTORIA IJEOMA NWOGU, United Nations Development Programme, Somalia JULIA O’CONNELL DAVIDSON, University of Bristol, United Kingdom PIA OBEROI, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Switzerland SAM OKYERE, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom ELAINE PEARSON, Human Rights Watch, Australia NICOLA PIPER, University of Sydney, Australia NIVEDITA PRASAD, Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences, Germany CAROLINE ROBINSON, Focus on Labour Exploitation, United Kingdom JYOTI SANGHERA, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Switzerland MARIE SEGRAVE, Monash University, Australia ELENA SHIH, Brown University, United States KENDRA STRAUSS, Simon Fraser University, United States REBECCA SURTEES, NEXUS Institute, United States SALLIE YEA, Independent scholar and consultant, Australia CATHY ZIMMERMAN, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom ATR #7 First Page 1-1_Art2-Alfie.pmd2 21/10/2560, 18:56 ANTI-TRAFFICKING REVIEW Special Issue TRAFFICKING REPRESENTATIONS Issue 7 September 2016 The Anti-Trafficking Review (ISSN 2286-7511) is published by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), a network of over 80 NGOs worldwide focused on advancing the human rights of migrants and trafficked persons. The Anti-Trafficking Review promotes a human rights-based approach to anti-trafficking. It explores trafficking in its broader context including gender analyses and intersections with labour and migrant rights. It offers an outlet and space for dialogue between academics, practitioners, trafficked persons and advocates seeking to communicate new ideas and findings to those working for and with trafficked persons. The Review is primarily an e-journal, published biannually. The journal presents rigorously considered, peer-reviewed material in clear English. Each issue relates to an emerging or overlooked theme in the field of anti-trafficking. Articles contained in the Review represent the views of the respective authors and not necessarily those of the editors, the Editorial Board, the GAATW network or its members. The editorial team reserves the right to edit all articles before publication. ATR #7 First Page 1-1_Art2-Alfie.pmd3 21/10/2560, 18:56 The Anti-Trafficking Review is an open access publication distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). The Anti-Trafficking Review promotes the sharing of information, and we therefore encourage the reproduction and onward dissemination of articles published with us. ATR #7 First Page 1-1_Art2-Alfie.pmd4 21/10/2560, 18:56 ANTI-TRAFFICKING REVIEW Issue 7, September 2016 1 Editorial: Trafficking (in) Representations: Understanding the recurring appeal of victimhood and slavery in neoliberal times Rutvica Andrijasevic and Nicola Mai Thematic Articles: Trafficking Representations 12 My Experience is Mine to Tell: Challenging the abolitionist victimhood framework Claudia Cojocaru 39 How to Stage a Raid: Police, media and the master narrative of trafficking Annie Hill 56 Neoliberal Sexual Humanitarianism and Story-Telling: The case of Somaly Mam Heidi Hoefinger 79 Expelling Slavery from the Nation: Representations of labour exploitation in Australia’s supply chain Anna Sz r nyi 97 ‘It’s All in Their Brain’: Constructing the figure of the trafficking victim on the US-Mexico border Gabriella Sanchez ATR #7 First Page 1-1_Art2-Alfie.pmd5 21/10/2560, 18:56 115 Looking Beyond ‘White Slavery’: Trafficking, the Jewish Association, and the dangerous politics of migration control in England, 1890-1910 Rachael Attwood 139 Captured ‘Realities’ of Human Trafficking: Analysis of photographs illustrating stories on trafficking into the sex industry in Serbian media Elena Krsmanovic 161 Rebooting Trafficking Nicholas de Villiers 182 The Art of the Possible: Making films on sex work migration and human trafficking Sine Plambech ATR #7 First Page 1-1_Art2-Alfie.pmd6 21/10/2560, 18:56 R Andrijasevic and N Mai Editorial: Trafficking (in) Representations: Understanding the recurring appeal of victimhood and slavery in neoliberal times Rutvica Andrijasevic and Nicola Mai Please cite this article as: R Andrijasevic and N Mai, ‘Editorial: Trafficking (in) representations: Understanding the recurring appeal of victimhood and slavery in neoliberal times’, Anti-Trafficking Review, issue 7, 2016, pp. 1—10, www.antitraffickingreview.org Representations of trafficking and forced labour are pervasive within media, policymaking, and humanitarian debates, discourses and interventions. The terms exploitation and trafficking are increasingly used to characterise the work that migrants do in the sex industry and other irregular employment sectors. Of late, the notion of ‘modern slavery’ is on show in campaigns aiming to raise awareness about trafficking and funds for anti-trafficking initiatives among corporations and local enterprises as well as the general public. Celebrity interventions, militant documentaries, artistic works and fiction films have all become powerful vectors of the global distribution of the trafficking and ‘modern slavery’ rhetoric. These offer simplistic solutions to complex issues without challenging the structural and causal factors of inequality. Through fictional and narrow representations of ideal victims they tend to entrench racialised narratives and conflate all sex work with trafficking, which legitimates criminalising policies and interventions exacerbating the social vulnerability of sex workers. It is because of the under-researched role of representation in the development of anti-trafficking policies and initiatives that the Anti-Trafficking Review decided to devote a thematic issue on trafficking representations. As humanitarian scripts and images saturate the representation of contemporary societies, the complex social and economic trajectories of migrants working in low-wage sectors, such as agriculture, domestic work and the sex industry, tend to be framed according to specific narratives of This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). Under the CC-BY license, the public is free to share, adapt, and make commercial use of the work. Users must always give proper attribution to the authors and the Anti-Trafficking Review. 1 ATR #2016 -Sep-Art2-Alfie+Update.pmd1 21/10/2560, 18:48 ANTI-TRAFFICKING REVIEW 7 (2016): 1–10 suffering and abuse. In the process, the diversity of people’s migration and work experiences is simplified and reduced to a scenario of endemic trafficking and exploitation. This process of reduction and simplification of migrant lives and labouring subjectivities in public debates and media representations should be seen as part and parcel of the deep social transformations brought about by the globalisation of neoliberal ideologies and policies from the global North. Our times are characterised by the reframing of social life according to the logic of profit, the contraction of collective forms of solidarity, the withdrawal of the state and, particularly in the global North, the dismantling of the welfare state. They are also characterised