From Human Trafficking to Human Rights: Reframing Contemporary Slavery

1. Rethinking Trafficking: Contemporary Slavery

C h a p t e r 1 Rethinking Trafficking: Contemporary Slavery Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick Introduction Over the last fifteen years, ever-increasing public, political, and scholarly attention has focused on human trafficking and modern slavery. This attention has been converted into action as pressure from international advocates has generated new international norms and policies. Advocacy within the United States has resulted in new domestic legislation. Subsequent pressure from the U.S. government has resulted in new legislation abroad, as well as extensive funding of projects intended to prevent trafficking, protect trafficked individuals, and prosecute perpetrators. Action on the part of the United States has also generated a range of criticism, from both human rights advocates and scholars working on this issue. Since these critiques have come from many quarters, they have failed to generate a platform from which subsequent critiques (and efforts at amelioration) might be based. This volume can be seen as a clear argument for a human rights platform for ongoing critique, and subsequent reform. This chapter contributes to this platform by introducing and briefly sketching a number of key issues, including: the existence of a growing body of work that I am calling a field of contemporary slavery studies; the importance of working within the rubric of slavery; the opportunity to better theorize the role of power in contemporary slavery; and the necessity 14 Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick of theorizing contemporary abolition and emancipation in addition to exploitation . Contemporary Slavery Studies Scholars contributing to our understanding of trafficking and slavery are engaged in a nascent and emerging interdisciplinary field of contemporary slavery studies. Indeed, one could argue that this field bridges research and movement fields as it increasingly involves the voices and contributions of grassroots activists and survivors of slavery as well as scholars and policy makers (Bales and Trodd 2008; Sage and Kasten 2006). This field of contemporary slavery studies has taken shape over the past decade with the emergence of special issues of journals and magazines, edited volumes and monographs in the popular and academic press, academic institutes on the topic, social movement organizations on college campuses, online and in major cities around the world, and with increased attention among members of the world policy community (governments, nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations and its affiliates, international nongovernmental organizations)—all eager to be seen tackling the issue with vigor. The momentum within national civil societies is clear, as is the salience of the issue within the world polity. Yet, despite this broad attention—or perhaps because of this attention—our understanding of what we are talking about, and what we hope to do about it, is sometimes hopelessly heterogeneous. A steady stream of popular work has introduced this issue to the general public. For example, recent and popular works have sketched the issue in broad terms for a general public (Batstone 2007; Skinner 2009). The most popular theoretical overview, inarguably, is Kevin Bales’s work emphasizing the historic dimension of modern slavery as well as its embedding in the global economy ([1999] 2004). Subsequent scholarly work has explored recent historic trends (Miers 2003), the crucial support this issue has received from evangelicals and second-wave feminists (Choi-Fitzpatrick n.d.; Hertzke 2004), the structural factors underpinning trafficking (Cameron and Newman 2008), the nature of demand (DiNicola et al. 2009), whether and how it intersects with issues of human rights (Obokata 2006), smuggling (Zhang 2007), security (Friman and Reich 2007), the global sex industry (Beeks and Amir 2006), gender (Aradau 2008; Lobasz 2009) and law (Gallagher 2010). Additional work has focused on the economic dimensions of the modern Rethinking Trafficking 15 slave trade (Kara 2009; Shelley 2010), as well as specific regions, including the Balkans (Friman and Reich 2007), South America (Guinn and Steglich 2003), and Eurasia (Strecker and Shelley 2004). Moreover, this recent literature has focused specific attention on the nature , scope, and quality of current data (Ali 2010; Feingold 2010; Laczko and Gozdziak 2005; Savona and Stefanizzi 2007; USGAO 2006), as well as contemporary policy trends (DeStefano 2008). Additional work has explored the predominant and preponderant emphasis on sex trafficking (Doezema 2010; Outshoorn 2004) and the overlooked role of labor organizing (Kempadoo 2005; Kempadoo and Doezema 1998). An emerging critical perspective on trafficking and slavery can be seen in a number of recent works, including volumes edited by Christien van den Anker (2004) and Kamala Kempadoo (2005). This volume continues this...