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Published in:
Trafficking Is Problematic Read chapter Read first chapter

2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

6. Victims, Villains, and the Virtuous

Author : Jennifer K. Lobasz

Published in: Constructing Human Trafficking

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter returns to the importance of recognizing human trafficking as a social construct. It emphasizes that one of the reasons debates surrounding human trafficking are so contentious is to the recognition—often implicit—that the manner in which trafficking and its subjects are represented has real repercussions at the level of policy and service delivery. The chapter further elaborates on the argument that attempts to deny or ignore the social construction of human trafficking, and its inextricably political nature are themselves political acts that serve to shut down debate and delegitimate opposing viewpoints. The chapter then turns to the feminist, critical constructive theoretical perspective offered in the book, and the need for empathetic listening. Finally, the chapter concludes with a meditation on potential ways in which debates surrounding human trafficking might be reconfigured.

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previous chapter Who’s to Bless and Who’s to Blame
Footnotes
1
Claudia Aradau, Rethinking Trafficking in Women: Politics out of Security (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 14.
 
2
Jutta Weldes, “Bureaucratic Politics: A Critical Constructivist Assessment,” Mershon International Studies Review 42, no. 2 (1998): 219.
 
3
Christopher H. Smith, Remarks on Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 2000), H2683.
 
4
E.g., Andrea M. Bertone, “Transnational Activism to Combat Trafficking in Persons,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 10, no. 2 (2004); Birgit Locher, Trafficking in Women in the European Union: Norms, Advocacy-Networks and Policy-Change 1. Aufl. ed. (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007), Thesis (doctoral)—Universität Bremen, 2002; and Alison Brysk, “Sex as Slavery? Understanding Private Wrongs,” Human Rights Review 12, no. 3 (2011).
 
5
Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society,” International Organization 44, no. 4 (1990): 489.
 
6
On framing, see Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), 17. Jutta Joachim, “Framing Issues and Seizing Opportunities: The UN, NGOs, and Women’s Rights,” International Studies Quarterly 47 (2003); Joshua William Busby, “Bono Made Jesse Helms Cry: Jubilee 2000, Debt Relief, and Moral Action in International Politics,” ibid. 51, no. 2 (2007).
 
7
My language here is meant to emphasize Laffey and Weldes’ reference to norms scholars’ reliance on “the commodity metaphor.” In their words, “In order to be causally effective, ‘ideas require ‘political entrepreneurs’ whose role is to ‘select’ and then to ‘market,’ ‘sell’ or ‘peddle’ them.” “Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the Study of International Relations,” European Journal of International Relations 3, no. 2 (1997): 207. Nadelmann employs another suggestive metaphor, that of proselytizing, 482. As generations of “religious entrepreneurs” have demonstrated, the two metaphors are not mutually exclusive.
 
8
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations, Hearing on Trafficking of Women and Children in the International Sex Trade, 106th Cong. 1st session, September 14, 1999, 4.
 
9
Sam Gejdenson, Remarks on Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 2000), H2684. See also Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations, H.R. 1356, the Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act of 1999, Markup, 1st session, 106th Congress, August 4, 1999, 5.
 
10
Dorchen A. Leidholdt, “Demand and the Debate,” Coalition against Trafficking in Women, accessed September 29, 2009, http://​www.​childtrafficking​.​com/​Docs/​leidholdt_​2003_​demand_​and_​the_​debate.​pdf.
 
11
Keck and Sikkink, 171.
 
12
Ibid., 2.
 
13
The frequent references to fathers and daughters in Chapter 3, for example, relates to evangelical Christian beliefs about fathers’ responsibilities for guarding their daughters’ sexual purity. See Amy DeRogatis, “‘Born Again Is a Sexual Term’: Demons, STDs, and God’s Healing Sperm,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion (2009): 279.
 
14
Post-TVPA policy is outside the scope of the present work, but see Jacqueline Berman, “The Left, the Right, and the Prostitute: The Making of U.S. Anti-trafficking in Persons Policy,” Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 14 (2005–2006); Elizabeth Bernstein, “The Sexual Politics of the ‘New Abolitionism’,” Differences 18, no. 3 (2007).
 
15
See also Wendy Brown, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 40.
 
16
Specifically Laura María Agustín, Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labor Markets, and the Rescue Industry (London: Zed Books, 2007); Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema, eds., Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition (New York: Routledge, 1998).
 
17
Brysk, 259.
 
18
One might say that human trafficking’s “turtles,” to borrow a phrase, only go so far down. Chris Brown, “‘Turtles All the Way Down’: Anti-foundationalism, Critical Theory and International Relations,” Millennium, no. 23 (1994).
 
19
Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” in Inside/Out, ed. Diana Fuss (New York: Routledge, 1991), 309.
 
20
Quite literally insofar as the TVPA required reauthorization in 2003, 2005, 2008, and 2013.
 
Literature
Agustín, Laura María. Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labor Markets, and the Rescue Industry. London: Zed Books, 2007.
Aradau, Claudia. Rethinking Trafficking in Women: Politics out of Security. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.CrossRef
Berman, Jacqueline. “The Left, the Right, and the Prostitute: The Making of U.S. Anti-trafficking in Persons Policy.” Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law 14 (2005–2006): 269–93.
Bernstein, Elizabeth. “The Sexual Politics of the ‘New Abolitionism’.” Differences 18, no. 3 (2007): 128.CrossRef
Bertone, Andrea M. “Transnational Activism to Combat Trafficking in Persons.” Brown Journal of World Affairs 10, no. 2 (Winter/Spring 2004): 9–22.
Brown, Chris. “‘Turtles All the Way Down’: Anti-foundationalism, Critical Theory and International Relations.” Millennium, no. 23 (June 1994): 213–36.CrossRef
Brown, Wendy. States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Brysk, Alison. “Sex as Slavery? Understanding Private Wrongs.” Human Rights Review 12, no. 3 (2011): 259–70.CrossRef
Busby, Joshua William. “Bono Made Jesse Helms Cry: Jubilee 2000, Debt Relief, and Moral Action in International Politics.” International Studies Quarterly 51, no. 2 (2007): 247–75.CrossRef
Butler, Judith. “Imitation and Gender Insubordination.” In Inside/Out, edited by Diana Fuss. New York: Routledge, 1991.
DeRogatis, Amy. “‘Born Again Is a Sexual Term’: Demons, STDs, and God’s Healing Sperm.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77, no. 2 (2009): 275–302.CrossRef
Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 887–917.CrossRef
Gejdenson, Sam. Remarks on Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 2000.
Joachim, Jutta. “Framing Issues and Seizing Opportunities: The UN, NGOs, and Women’s Rights.” International Studies Quarterly 47 (2003): 247–74.CrossRef
Keck, Margaret E., and Kathryn Sikkink. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Kempadoo, Kamala, and Jo Doezema, eds. Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition. New York: Routledge, 1998.
Laffey, Mark, and Jutta Weldes. “Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the Study of International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 3, no. 2 (1997): 193.CrossRef
Locher, Birgit. Trafficking in Women in the European Union: Norms, Advocacy-Networks and Policy-Change 1. Aufl. ed. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007. Thesis (doctoral)—Universität Bremen, 2002.
Nadelmann, Ethan A. “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society.” International Organization 44, no. 4 (Autumn 1990): 479–526.CrossRef
Scott, Joan Wallach. “Deconstructing Equality Versus Difference, or, the Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for Feminism.” In Feminist Social Thought: A Reader, edited by Diana Tietjens Meyers, 758–70. New York: Routledge, 1988.
Smith, Christopher H. Remarks on Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, 2000.
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations. H.R. 1356, the Freedom from Sexual Trafficking Act of 1999, Markup, 1st session, 106th Congress, August 4, 1999.
Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations. Hearing on Trafficking of Women and Children in the International Sex Trade, 106th Cong. 1st session, September 14, 1999.
Weldes, Jutta. “Bureaucratic Politics: A Critical Constructivist Assessment.” Mershon International Studies Review 42, no. 2 (November 1998): 216–25.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Victims, Villains, and the Virtuous
Author
Jennifer K. Lobasz
Copyright Year
2019
Book
Constructing Human Trafficking

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91736-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-91737-5

Copyright Year: 2019

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91737-5_6