The Perfect Business?: Anti-Trafficking and the Sex Trade along the Mekong

Conclusion: The Tenacity of the Market Metaphor

Conclusion The Tenacity of the Market Metaphor His elevation transfigures him into a voyeur. It puts him at a distance. It transforms the bewitching world by which one was “possessed” into a text that lies before one’s eyes. It allows one to read it, to be a solar Eye, looking down like a god. The exaltation of a scopic and gnostic drive: the fiction of knowledge is related to this lust to be a viewpoint and nothing more. —Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (1988, 92) I am on the top floor of one of the most expensive hotels in Vientiane —it is situated on the bank of the Mekong River. I am nearing the end of my fieldwork, and an anti-trafficking organization has invited me to attend a large planning workshop. I am sitting with many other anti-traffickers, some of them former colleagues, as well as friends and acquaintances. The Lao government is developing its first national plan of action to combat trafficking in persons, and in this meeting we will provide input, with particular focus on monitoring and evaluation. In front of me is a draft logframe (short for “logical framework”). It is the classical tool used in development planning, containing goals, supporting objectives, activities, expected outcomes, and indicators. The government has developed most of this plan, with the exception of the latter two components. Hence the meeting today to gather government officials, donors, UN agencies, and international NGOs together to brainstorm how to monitor and evaluate the national plan of action. After a formal keynote speech by a senior government official and an overview of the plan by two expatriate consultants from Bangkok, the workshop splits into smaller groups. The atmosphere is now more the tenacity of the market metaphor : 229 informal. One group discusses monitoring and evaluation in relation to policy and cooperation, a second group explores prevention, a third examines law enforcement, and a fourth group handles monitoring and evaluation. I happen to sit with the fifth group, which is exploring protection. Together, these five areas of policy comprise fairly standard policy responses to trafficking. Our group starts to examine the draft logframe, which will become the grand framework for combating trafficking in persons in Laos. A logframe is a trueborn child of Enlightenment thought. It attempts to colonize the future by identifying case-effect relationships articulated as development problems and corresponding programmatic remedies. The promise of Weberian technical-rational clarity is somewhat contradicted by our group’s hesitant and rambling discussions. “Develop clear guidelines for the identification of trafficking victims” is one of the activities. “Establish an anti-trafficking hotline” is another. “What’s the difference between an expected outcome and indicators in this instance?” one participant asks. And what would an indicator be for “Develop guidelines for care [management] of shelters”? Some participants are frustrated. We are trying to work out where activities, outputs, indicators, and outcomes belong on a piece of paper. That the activities and outputs have already been set by the government frustrates some participants. Does not activity “4.2.1—Strengthen existing transit centre for victims who have been sent by official channel” overlap with activity “4.2.4—Build and strengthen capacity of stakeholders regularly”? One participant wonders, “Do we need separate indicators for that?” Isn’t the outcome the same? We go back to the question of identifying victims. “We need to have clear guidelines for victim identification ,” one person says. “Yes,” agrees another. I ask, “Has anyone seen such guidelines?” Silence. I ask again. Nobody gives an answer. But guidelines we need. Our discussion remains disjointed. While this goes on, I am drifting off—daydreaming. I look outside the window. Through the hazy tropical sun, I see Si Chiangmai—a small Thai town directly opposite Vientiane. During both my research and my time working for the United Nations, I have never heard anyone mention the possibility of trafficking to Si Chiangmai. Yet earlier I paid a visit there to explore whether it would be a suitable place in which to conduct research. 230 : conclusion I started to think of Lek, a twenty-three-year-old Lao woman who works in one of Si Chiangmai’s clubs. After a stint of working in a garment factory in Vientiane, a friend introduced Lek to selling sex in a small bar in Si Chiangmai. In addition to being a sex worker, Lek...