Over the last few decades, Asian migrants who work in the sex industry have become the frequent target of police, government, and social service investigations. Indeed, a range of state and nongovernmental organizations have promoted punitive investigations and carceral policies, claiming to act to protect migrants from being trafficked. However, sex workers, sex workers’ rights activists, and critical antitrafficking scholars argue that rather than providing protection, this increased focus on Asian migrants actively produces myriad harms and has negatively impacted these workers’ lives by endangering their health and safety, increasing stigma and vulnerability to abuse and exploitation, and violating their human rights. To date, there is limited research on how the investigations claiming to protect migrant sex workers often turn into criminal, immigration, or bylaw investigations against them. This doctoral study aims to contribute to this small but growing body of knowledge. Informed by critical social work, institutional ethnography, and participatory action research, this project maps how the illegality of Asian migrant sex workers, particularly those who work in massage parlours, is constructed and produced. First-person narratives of Asian women have provided the threads (including the texts, actions, and institutions) for further investigation of how their experiences are shaped and how investigations against them are organized. This study shows how racism, whorephobia, and xenophobia have been embedded in both the laws and policies that coordinate sex and massage work and the way investigations into regulated and unregulated massage parlours have been organized in Toronto, Ontario. This finding helps us understand the ruling relations between law enforcement and the workers, and how the laws, policies, and practices that are intended to protect women who are purportedly “trafficked” instead criminalize and harm Asian migrant workers. This research also shows the autonomy and resiliency of Asian migrant massage and sex workers, revealing how they organize against and resist this injustice. The knowledge developed from this project has been used by sex worker communities in their ongoing efforts to challenge the dominant ideologies and discourses about sex workers and human trafficking. Further, it has contributed to their capacity to investigate institutional processes and, in turn, foster and create progressive institutional and policy change. This dissertation also offers important contributions to critical scholarship, including critical human trafficking studies, abolitionism, and activist scholarship. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy / This research examines how the laws and policies, particularly municipal bylaws, that claim to protect Asian and migrant massage and sex workers are actually harming them and putting them in danger. The experiences of Asian migrant sex workers, particularly those who worked in massage parlours, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, provided the threads (including the texts, actions, and institutions) for further investigation of how their experiences are shaped and how investigations against them are organized. This study examines how the workers’ illegality is constructed and produced to coordinate the ruling relationship between the workers and law enforcement. With a focus on antitrafficking organizations (particularly those related to carceral feminism and social work), this study maps out how whorephobic, xenophobic, and racist antitrafficking discourses have become embedded in institutional discourses and into the laws and policies that regulate investigations into sex work and massage parlours. However, Asian migrant workers are not simply victims of these laws. This study also reveals the autonomy and resiliency of Asian women and how they are organizing to challenge the dominant discourse about massage work, sex workers, and human trafficking to create progressive institutional and policy change. This dissertation makes important contributions to critical human trafficking studies, abolitionism, and activist scholarship.

La thématique de l’esclavage aux États-Unis nous a toujours interpellés, interrogés et nous a toujours donné envie d’en savoir plus et de comprendre comment un tel système a pu perdurer pendant plus de deux cents ans, provoquer la division profonde d’une nation et une guerre civile pour finalement laisser des traces et des marques indélébiles sur les États-Unis. Cet intérêt nous a poussés à nous intéresser tout d’abord à la notion du traumatisme culturel de l’esclavage, puis, à sa représentation cinématographique dans le cinéma américain par trois cinéastes américains (D. W. Griffith, né en 1875 dans le Kentucky, Steven Spielberg, né en 1946 dans l’Ohio et Tate Taylor né en 1969 dans le Mississippi), qui traitent de trois périodes historiques différentes à des époques distinctes. Nous nous sommes alors posé la question du lien qu’il existe entre la réalité physique, vécue, d’un événement et sa représentation cinématographique qui est forcément distanciée, temporellement et/ou spatialement. Comment les réalisateurs peuvent-ils représenter fidèlement la réalité historique ? Comment évitent-ils (ou non) d’insérer des « filtres », qu’ils soient personnels ou sociologiques, et, comment ne pas transformer l’histoire, la modeler, en occultant par exemple les éléments qui n’abondent pas dans le sens du message que l’on souhaite véhiculer ? Dans l’hypothèse où le réalisateur est de parti-pris, comment le spectateur peut-il en avoir conscience au moment où il regarde le film ? Ce travail est donc né d’une réflexion sur l’importance culturelle et civilisationnelle de la notion de traumatisme culturel dans la représentation cinématographique de l’esclavage aux États-Unis. Les trois films que nous avons choisis pour notre corpus sont The Birth of a Nation de D.W. Griffith (1915), Amistad de Steven Spielberg (1997) et The Help, de Tate Taylor (2011). Ces films représentent trois époques distinctes de la vie et de la société américaine puisque The Birth of a Nation raconte le déroulement de la Guerre de Sécession en se plaçant dans la vie d’une famille sudiste. Amistad prend pour contexte les années 1839 à 1841 et The Help se déroule à Jackson, dans le Mississippi des années 60.En choisissant des films qui représentent des époques historiques distinctes mais qui ont également été réalisés à des périodes différentes les unes des autres, nous avons souhaité prendre en compte cette question de la réadaptation et de la réinterprétation de l’événement traumatique.Nous avons souhaité montrer, à travers notre travail, comment les cinéastes adaptent un fait réel ou un ouvrage littéraire, en supprimant certains éléments ou en rajoutant, en adaptant la réalité historique pour en faire une fiction qui cherche à montrer une représentation du réel. Nous avons aussi et surtout démontré comment la notion de « traumatisme culturel » influence le travail des cinéastes qui se sont penchés sur l'héritage culturel qu'est l'esclavage. Nous avons souhaité voir dans quelle mesure cette notion de traumatisme culturel influe sur la création artistique filmique, et dans quelle mesure ses caractéristiques pouvaient s’appliquer à notre corpus. Quels en sont les aspects les plus représentés et prégnants ? Nous avons fait l’analyse de notre corpus dans un ordre chronologique de création, en premier lieu nous nous sommes penchés sur The Birth of a Nation de D.W. Griffith, sorti en 1915, puis nous avons analysé Amistad de Spielberg, sorti en 1997, pour finir avec l’étude de The Help, réalisé par Tate Taylor et sorti en salle en 2011.Pour chacun de ces films, nous avons étudié le contexte historique et géopolitique inhérent à l’époque représentée, puis, le passage de la réalité historique à l’œuvre de fiction, le processus d’adaptation cinématographique, (éléments fidèles, ajouts, simplifications et suppressions) pour analyser la globalité de chacun en regard de cette notion de traumatisme culturel. / Slavery in the USA has always been an interesting thematic to us. We have always wanted to learn more about it thus understanding how such a system could have been implemented for more than 200 years, have caused the division and a fracture in a nation, have led to the Civil War and have left permanent scars ont the United States of America. This particular interest led us to look into the concept of cultural trauma, and into its representation by three American film directors (D. W. Griffith, born in Kentucky in 1915, Steven Spielberg, born in Ohio in 1946 and Tate Taylor born in Mississippi in 1969), who picture at various distinct periods three different historical eras. We have considered the link existing between the physical reality of an event and its cinematographic representation, which is spatially or temporally distanced from the event. How can film directors faithfully represent historical reality ? How do (or don’t) they avoid to insert in their work personal or sociological filters ? How don’t they transform history, or shape it by not mentionning the elements that do not concur to the message one wants to deliver ? What if the director’s views are biased? How can the viewer be conscious of it and keep it in mind as he or she watches the film?Our work initiated from a reflexion upon the cultural and socialogical importance of the notion of cultural trauma in the cinematographic representation of slavery in the United States. The three movies we have chosen to work on are : The Birth of a Nation, (D.W. Griffith, 1915), Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997) and The Help (Tate Taylor, 2011). These films represent three distinct periods in the life of the American society since The Birth of a Nation pictures the progress of the American Civil War inside a Confederate family, Amistad is set between the years 1839 and 1841, and The Help takes place in the sixties, in Jackson, Mississippi.In choosing films that represent various historical periods and that have been directed at different periods of time, we wanted to take into account both the notions of re-adapting and re-interpreting the traumatic event. We have wished to demonstrate, through our work, how film directors adapt a real fact or a book by deleting some elements or adding some others, by adapting historical reality to turn it into a fiction showing a representation of reality. We have also tried to show how « cultural trauma » acts upon the audiovisual work of film directors who choose to picture the cultural heritage of slavery. We have analyzed to what extent cultural trauma has an influence on filmic creation and how its characteristics can be applied to our corpus. What aspects of it are most represented ?We have decided to analyze our corpus in a chronological order. We have started with D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), we have then analyzed S. Spielberg’s Amistad, (1997), and ended with T. Taylor’s (2011). For each of these films, we have first studied the historic and geopolitic contexts of the historical periods represented, we’ve then dealt with the transition from historical reality to fiction and we’ve analyzed the entirety of each movie compared to to the notion of cultural trauma. How and to what extent can it be found into these artitic works ? As a mass media, cinema has an educational role and we have demonstrated its link with cultural trauma.

The death penalty has been an issue of debate for decades and it is of great relevance at present. Different reasons have emerged that make recourse to the death penalty appear necessary, such as, that it serves as a deterrent, it meets the need for retribution and that public opinion demands its imposition. Conversely, more convincing arguments have been raised for its abolition, amongst which is the argument that it is a violation of human rights. Africa is seen as one of the “death penalty regions” in the world, as most African states still retain the death penalty despite the growing international human rights standards and trends towards its abolition. Further, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights makes no mention of the death penalty. The death penalty in Africa is therefore an issue that one has to be particularly concerned about. During the 36th Ordinary Session (2004) of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, for the first time, the death penalty was one of the issues discussed by the Commission. Commissioner Chirwa initiated debate about the abolition of the death penalty in Africa, urging the Commission to take a clear position on the subject. In view of this and the international human rights developments and trends on the death penalty, discourses on the abolition of the death penalty in Africa are much needed. Accordingly, this study examines the death penalty in Africa from a human rights perspective. It seeks to determine why African states retain the death penalty, the ways in which the current operation of the death penalty in African states conflicts with human rights, what causes obstructions to its abolition in Africa, and whether it is appropriate for African states to join the international trend for the abolition of the death penalty. The current status and operation of the death penalty in Africa is first examined. The historical background to the death penalty in Africa from a traditional and western perspective is also discussed. Subsequently, the main arguments advanced by Africans (including African leaders, writers, priests and government officials) for the retention of the death penalty in Africa are evaluated. The study goes further to examine the death penalty in African states in the light of the right to life, the prohibition of cruel inhuman and degrading treatment and fair trial rights at both the international and national levels. After examining the death penalty in African states, the study arrives at the conclusion that it is appropriate for African states to join the international trend for the abolition of the death penalty, considering that the death penalty in Africa conflicts with human rights, the justifications for its retention are fundamentally flawed, and that alternatives to the death penalty in Africa exist. A number of recommendations are then made, which are geared towards the abolition of the death penalty in Africa. / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

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