The Celebrification of Human Trafficking, Part III
Ricky Martin Ricky Martin has been a recent favorite of both the Executive and Legislative branches of the US government. He has been the recipient of substantial US government anti-trafficking funding, and has been a frequent celebrity witness before Congress. How does Martin’s work relate to human trafficking? Martin is a Goodwill Ambassador to UNICEF, and through this humanitarian interest in children, created his own NGO, the Ricky Martin Foundation, which specifically works...
Read MoreCelebrification of Human Trafficking, Part III
Ricky Martin has been a recent favorite of both the Executive and Legisative branches of the US government. Through his Foundation, he has been the recipient of substantial US government anti-trafficking funding, and has been a frequent celebrity witness before Congress. How does Martin’s work relate to human trafficking? He was drawn to human trafficking through his interest in children, expressed through his work as a Goodwill Ambassador to UNICEF and his own NGO, the Ricky Martin...
Read MoreCelebrities in Human Trafficking, Part II
In Part II of this posting I begin to detail the involvement of particular celebrities in human trafficking activism, policy making and general influence. 1. Angelina Jolie Angelina Jolie was recently promoted from Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, to Special Envoy. Inspired to become an “ardent, persistent and well-briefed humanitarian activist” after filming Tomb Raider in Cambodia, her humanitarian travels for UNHCR to places like Sudan, Sri Lanka, Ecuador, Chad, and Pakistan, receive...
Read MoreThe Celebrification of Human Trafficking, Part 1 (in a Six Part Series)
Celebrities, people “known for [their] well-knownness,”[1] now regularly engage in and effect human trafficking policy and practice. As a result, celebrities are not only raising public awareness about the existence of these problems, but influencing people, policy objectives, and ameliorative schemes in the public and private sectors. While criticizing people purporting to help other people can sound like sour grapes, it is important to critique one-dimensional, oversimplified,...
Read MoreThe Eye of the Beholder: How Bad Data, Scrambles for Funding and Professional Bias Shape Human Trafficking Law and Policy, Dina Francesca Haynes
Following is a portion of a draft chapter entitled The Eye of the Beholder: How Bad Data, Scrambles for Funding and Professional Bias Shape Human Trafficking Law and Policy Human trafficking is not unique in having attracted multiple and conflicting points of view on everything from the extent of the problem, the definition of what the problem is precisely, and who are its victims to how to best to support them. Like “sexy” and “of the moment” human rights issues of...
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