On June 30, 2016, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) released a study detailing Thailand’s initiatives to counter human trafficking over the past five years. The report, supported by a research grant from the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington, DC,  contains a review of documents and interviews with experts in the field of trafficking prevention, as well as an assessment of the methodologies of the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office).

In summary, JHSPH found that there is significant disagreement between stakeholders surrounding what Thailand has accomplished in their efforts to counter human trafficking, and JHSPH concludes that the disagreements are both the cause, and the result of, great mistrust between public and private stakeholders. Additionally, there is also a dispute regarding whether or not the TIP Reports utilize reliable assessment measures and ranking criteria.

Click here to read the full report.

Call for Papers: Where’s the Evidence? The Anti-Trafficking Review (Deadline for Submission: July 1, 2016)

Responses to, and international interest in, human trafficking have proceeded apace over the past 15 years in line with the adoption of the UN Trafficking Protocol. Yet, a great deal of anti-trafficking work is based on assumptions that are not well-proven and infrequently questioned. Why, for example, do some regions or groups emerge as trafficking hot-spots to become ‘intervention intensive’? How do anti-trafficking actors justify and explain the need to continue work in a particular area, or with a particular group? Similarly, anti-trafficking measures often continue in the absence of efforts to monitor and evaluate their effectiveness. How, in these circumstances, can the value of anti-trafficking work be estimated? On what basis is funding continued or denied to organisations undertaking such interventions? There has been some critical reflection on these issues, with a number of critical commentators questioning the production, global circulation and validity of statistics on human trafficking in particular. Statistics often take on a life of their own, despite their often questionable genesis, whilst the place and value of qualitative approaches in the field is also open to some scrutiny. Qualitative research methods are not necessarily any more robust in this relatively young field, and critics have questioned unethical and sometimes directly harmful methods of both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. This special issue builds on such work, to critically explore the question of evidence in both the characterisation of human trafficking and in evaluating the merit of anti-trafficking work.Special Issue to be published in April 2017. Those interested in submitting to follow the Review’s style guide and submission procedures, available at www.antitraffickingreview.org. Manuscripts should be submitted in line with the issue’s theme.

Issue 3 of the Anti-Trafficking Review focuses on money trails in the anti-trafficking sector, and is the first of its kind as to date there has been no research on how much is spent combating the human rights abuses that amount to human trafficking. This themed issue looks at money trails that reveal how anti-trafficking money has changed the world for the better or for worse.

Trafficked persons do not always benefit from money flows aimed in their direction, or indeed may suffer as a result of anti-trafficking spending. In addition, politics behind anti-trafficking money abound, and recipient organisations wonder whether they should take ‘tied’ funds or funds with ideological, geographical or other restrictions. In recent years governments have rushed to spend money on a range of poorly designed initiatives in the hope of avoiding or moving out of a low ranking in the US government’s yearly Trafficking in Persons Report.

Published by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, the Anti-Trafficking Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal that promotes a human rights based approach to anti-trafficking, and offers a space for dialogue for those seeking to communicate new ideas and findings. The journal is an open source publication with a readership in 78 countries.

You can read the volume here.   Issue 3 (“Following the Money”) is edited by Mike Dottridge, and includes contributions from Kiril Shaapov, Victoria Ikeoma Nwogu, Rebecca Surtees, Fabrice de Kerchove, Allison Clancey, Noushin Khushrushahi, Julie Ham, Suzanne Hoff, Martina Uncnikova, Randy Newcomb, Matt Friedman, Vincent Tournecuillert, Nisha Varia, Nina Ilona Ellinger, and Seeta Sharma.

You can also read back issues of the ATR here:

Issue 1 – “Where’s the Accountability?” 

Issue 2 (edited by – Human Rights at the Border

An upcoming event:

Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling: A Fireside Chat with Anne Gallagher and Dina Haynes

Date: Thursday, October 16, 2014, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Location: American Society of International Law Headquarters, Tillar House (2223 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington DC)

Description:  Fifteen years have elapsed since the international community decided to use international law as a weapon against human trafficking and migrant smuggling. The results have been mixed, at best. This fireside chat brings legal practitioner Dr. Anne Gallagher (author of The International Law of Human Trafficking and The International Law of Migrant Smuggling) and Professor Dina Haynes, renowned scholar on trafficking and migration, to address some of the most pressing questions facing States in responding effectively to large-scale exploitation of human beings for profit. Where do migrant smuggling and trafficking intersect and how do the different legal regimes operate in such situations? To what extent has international law made a positive contribution to ending trafficking and smuggling-related exploitation? Where are the critical gaps and weaknesses and how could these be addressed? What is the US government doing and how could it be making a better contribution?

Speakers: Dr. Anne Gallagher, author of The International Law of Human Trafficking (2010) and The International Law of Migrant Smuggling (2014), Dina Haynes, Professor of Law, New England Law | Boston, Christie Edwards (moderator), Director, International Humanitarian Law, American Red Cross, WILIG Co-Chair

Please see this flyer for registration information:  Upcoming ASIL events- Human Trafficking and Migrant Workers

Anne Gallagher, the author of the indispensable treatise, The International Law of Human Trafficking (Cambridge 2012), has just published (with Fiona David), a book entitled “The International Law of Migrant Smuggling.”   Here’s the description of the book:

“Whether forced into relocation by fear of persecution, civil war, or humanitarian crisis, or pulled toward the prospect of better economic opportunities, more people are on the move than ever before.  Opportunities for lawful entry into preferred destinations are decreasing rapidly, creating demand that is increasingly being met by migrant smugglers. This companion volume to the award-winning The International Law of Human Trafficking, presents the first-ever comprehensive, in-depth analysis into the subject. The authors call on their experience of working with the UN to chart the development of new international laws and to link these specialist rules to other relevant areas of international law, including law of the sea, human rights law, and international refugee law. Through this analysis, the authors explain the major legal obligations of States with respect to migrant smuggling, including those related to criminalization, interdiction and rescue at sea, protection, prevention, detention, and return.”

The New York Law School Law Review will be hosting a symposium entitled “Innovations in the Fight Against Human Trafficking: Perspectives and Proposals,” on October 10, 2014.

Speakers include members of the Project, including Denise Brennan, Florrie Burke, and Janie Chuang.  Martina Vandenberg, Founder and Director of the Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center, will provide the keynote address: “Putting Survivors First: Innovative Legal Strategies in Human Trafficking Cases.”

Click here for more details regarding the event.

The US recently launched its 13th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report. According to project member Ann Gallagher, its influence is still “undeniable.” One of the reasons is that while governments may distrust the report and question its findings, they dread a negative assessment. For example, Thailand recently drew attention by retaining expensive Washington lobbyists in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to avoid a downgrade in this year’s TiP report. The Royal Thai embassy in Washington, DC even went so far as to issue a press release disagreeing with the State Department’s decision to downgrade it to the lowest ranking—instead highlighting the government’s “significant advances in prevention and suppression of human trafficking.” For more background and analysis read Ann Gallagher’s article “The Trafficking Watchlist May be Flawed, but it’s the Best Measure We Have” here.

Two roundtable members, Denise Brennan and Dina Francesca Haynes, recently published articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (May 2014) edited by Ronald Weitzer and Sheldon X. Zhang. See the full Table of Contents for  additional scholarship on recent empirical research on human trafficking.

Trafficking, Scandal, and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Argentina and the United States by Denise Brennan (Abstract)

This article examines the varied consequences that the label “trafficked” holds for migrants and for the organizations that assist them. In the case of migrants from the Dominican Republic to Argentina, threat of U.S. economic sanctions prompted the two governments to document incidents of trafficking by labeling all forms of migrant labor exploitation as trafficking. Collapsing a range of coerced and noncoerced labor experiences under one label has muddied the definition of trafficking. In contrast, U.S. trafficking policy systematically ignores significant exploitation of labor migrants, in part because of the volatile politics of immigration in the United States, and because of the conflation of sex trafficking with trafficking. The article uses these two examples of the effects of labeling exploited workers as trafficking victims to draw attention to the politicization of the term “trafficking.

The Celebritization of Human Trafficking by Dina Francesca Haynes (Abstract)

Human trafficking, and especially sex trafficking, is not only susceptible to alluring and sensational narratives, it also plays into the celebrity-as-rescuer ideal that receives considerable attention from the media, the public, and policy-makers. While some celebrities develop enough expertise to speak with authority on the topic, many others are neither knowledgeable nor accurate in their efforts to champion antitrafficking causes. Prominent policy-makers allow celebrity activists to influence their opinions and even consult with them for advice regarding public policies. Emblematic of larger, fundamental problems with the dominant discourse, funding allocations, and legislation in current antitrafficking initiatives in the United States and elsewhere, celebrity activism is not significantly advancing the eradication of human trafficking and may even be doing harm by diverting attention from aspects of the problem and solution that sorely require attention.

Life Interrupted: Trafficking into Forced Lab or in the United States is a newly released book by Denise Brennan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Georgetown University.  Life Interrupted follows the lives of survivors of trafficking in the United States.  It documents the ordinary tasks of settling into a new country after extraordinary abuse.  At once scholarly and accessible, her book links these firsthand accounts to global economic inequities and under-regulated and unprotected workplaces that routinely exploit migrant laborers in the United States.  Brennan contends that today’s punitive immigration policies undermine efforts to fight trafficking. Life Interrupted is a riveting account of life in and after trafficking and a forceful call for meaningful immigration and labor reform. All royalties from this book will be donated to the nonprofit Survivor Leadership Training Fund administered through the Freedom Network.