Victims of human trafficking may be exploited for prostitution, sweatshop labor, domestic work, and as child soldiers for armed conflicts. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "after drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today, and it is the fastest growing, with an annual profit of $32 billion" (U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 2004). This thesis looks at policies that are in place to prevent, prosecute and protect against human trafficking in ten countries from around the world that have changed to Tier 1 countries according to the U.S. State Department's annual Trafficking In Persons report. This study analyzed if there were trends in what kind of policies were implemented by state's governments that allowed them to be credited with a Tier 1 ranking, as well as, compared policies that were in place the year before the state changed Tier rankings. The data showed no definite trend in what it took to become ranked as a Tier 1 country, however the majority of the countries data showed that as long as improvements were made from the previous year then that country would move to a higher ranking. This research demonstrates that the TIP report does not consistently rank countries using the same standards. However, it proves that the shaming and global pressure through sanctions that the United States puts on other countries through the annual publishing of the TIP report does make a positive difference when it comes to countries working to combat human trafficking. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy / MA; / Thesis;

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The 2000 UN anti-trafficking Protocol was the first internationally legally binding document to provide a cohesive definition of trafficking and is therefore considered one of the most important documents within international anti-trafficking discourse. Therefore, it is relevant to examine the ways in which the normative aspects and discursive themes of the Protocol are reproduced transnationally, into a national context. This thesis analyzes the ways in which depictions of women and foreigners in Swedish anti-trafficking discourse are shaped by the UN anti-trafficking protocol. Using a materialist feminist framework, it was found that the stereotypes constructed by the UN protocol are highly visible in the chosen Swedish governmental documents, which is indicative of the normative and discursive power that the UN protocol holds within anti-trafficking discourse. It was also found that the extent to which these stereotypes were reproduced varied depending on the Swedish document, which suggests that such discourse serves different functions depending on the aim and target audience of whichever document.

The creation, implementation, and ratification of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), as well as the growth of parallel private initiatives against human trafficking, have emerged from a neoliberal political agenda that focuses on redefinitions of labor, sexuality, securitization of humanitarian campaigns, and immigration policies. In this thesis, I explore some of the meanings and effects of those redefinitions by focusing on the affective registers of pity and panic in their ability to mobilize publics toward restrictive forms of assistance to real and imaginary victims of the so-called phenomenon of “modern-day slavery.”

The creation, implementation, and ratification of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), as well as the growth of parallel private initiatives against human trafficking, have emerged from a neoliberal political agenda that focuses on redefinitions of labor, sexuality, securitization of humanitarian campaigns, and immigration policies. In this thesis, I explore some of the meanings and effects of those redefinitions by focusing on the affective registers of pity and panic in their ability to mobilize publics toward restrictive forms of assistance to real and imaginary victims of the so-called phenomenon of “modern-day slavery.”

This thesis examines the gendered work experiences and labour migration aspirations of Tamang women in Nepal. The purpose of this thesis is to describe the various factors that encourage and discourage Tamang women from travelling in search of paid work. I investigated these factors by conducting a qualitative study of Tamang women’s gender roles, economic opportunities, economic contributions, physical mobility, as well as cultural attitudes regarding women’s mobility. I found that participants wish to migrate in order to seek better employment opportunities, improve the financial status of their households, acquire prestige, as well as to experience adventure, modernity and independence. Although many participants wish to migrate, discourses about appropriate gender roles, women’s sexuality, human trafficking, travel and safety are all influential in discouraging Tamang women from travelling in search of paid work. In this thesis, I argue that anti-trafficking campaigns contribute to propagating these discourses and discouraging women’s independent travel. / Richard and Sophia Hungerford Graduate Scholarship and the Richard and Sophia Hungerford Research Travel Grant

Cambodia’s commercial sex industry has long been the subject of transnational concern, yet this enduring problematization has yielded little in the way of lasting ‘solutions.’ Central to constructions of Cambodia’s sex trafficking problem are stories – narrative and numerical – that are not entertainment or fact, respectively, but political and ideological discourses that structure social problems and their solutions while masquerading as unmediated. In this media ethnography, I thematically analyzed aid documentaries, websites, reports, and tax returns to explore how sex trafficking in Cambodia is constructed in aid discourses as a problem to be solved. I argue that anti-trafficking rhetoric, narrated over iconographies of Cambodia’s savagery, entangles notions of material and moral poverty. Documentaries construct Cambodian families as both broke and broken, and thus as giving rise to Cambodian sex trafficking’s central, archetypal dyad: the bad mother and the innocent daughter. I further articulate how the trope of the innocent daughter is contingent on her framing as a ‘sex slave.’ These reductive discursive constructions enable similarly oversimplified solutions. The solution to ‘bad mothers’ is ‘better parents,’ enacted through maternalistic and paternalistic interventions; the solution to ‘sex slavery’ is ‘freedom at all costs,’ articulated through raid and rescue interventions. I suggest that articulations of the civilizing mission run through anti-trafficking discourses and interventions, evidenced by their attempts to use numbers to render the complexities of sex trafficking knowable and therefore manageable, but also in their commitment to ‘developing' the Cambodian sex slave through rehabilitation programs that replace sex trafficking with more civilized, though still exploitative, forms of gendered labour. The ways in which sex trafficking in Cambodia is constructed in aid discourses as a problem to be solved therefore ensures the ongoing presence of the anti-trafficking apparatus in Cambodia and the ongoing exploitation and abuse of the Cambodian girls subjected to aid interventions. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This study sets out to explore Swedish anti-trafficking policy, both how it is defined in official policy-documents as well as on the local level. A brief overview of the history of anti-trafficking policy and contemporary international measures relating to Swedish legislation on trafficking provides a glimpse into the contested meanings of these measures. This aspect finds foothold in the theoretical framework and is further developed throughout the study. By combining qualitative content analysis and interpretative policy analysis with interviews conducted among practitioners working in this field in a local context, Swedish anti-trafficking policy is explored on different levels. The analysis of the legal Swedish framework and one national anti-trafficking action plan suggests that the Swedish fight against trafficking is strictly interlinked with another fight, one against prostitution. However, there seems to be a discrepancy between the theory and practice of this national policy. In the interviews with the local practitioners it is revealed that what is framed as anti-trafficking policy in official policy-documents is both contested and reconstructed on the local level. Thus, this study argues that Swedish anti-trafficking policy is far from a straightforward matter.

For many years human trafficking has transcended national borders and posed a major challenge to countries around the world. The European Union is one of many supranational organizations that has prioritized the eradication of sex trafficking on their policy agenda. Public policies not only contain aims and approaches to achieve objectives, but they also contain a problematization of the issue at hand. The way a phenomenon is constructed in public policies can influence society and its citizens in terms of how the issue and those involved should be perceived. The aim of this study is to examine the way EU represents sex trafficking in their public policies. In order to achieve the research objective, the following two policy documents by the Union have been examined, namely Directive 2011/36/EU and The strategy towards the eradication of sex trafficking in human beings 2012–2016. A discourse analysis has been applied in this study. The method of choice is Carol Bacchis What’s the problem represented to be. The questions presented in Bacchis approach, and the theory of Governmentality has been applied to analyze the policies at hand. The result of this study showcases that human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation is constructed as an issue of inadequate legal action, crime against human rights, benefiting gender-based inequality and jeopardizing democratic values and the safety within the Union and its member states. Trafficking victims are represented as forced participants in trafficking, a perception that doesn’t necessarily correspond with reality. EU’s problem representation promotes gender stereotypes while also excluding and silencing other perspectives.

This thesis analyses the crime of trafficking in persons under international law with a special focus on Jordanian legislation, arguing that efforts to address the crime of trafficking in persons require a holistic approach, but it will focus on questions of jurisdiction and legal definitions. After analysing the definitions, elements, forms, and typologies of the crime of trafficking in persons under the Trafficking in Persons Protocol (TIPP) as the main legal international instrument, this thesis further examines whether or not Jordanian legislation is in line with international standards. Then, under the holistic approach to addressing the crime of trafficking in persons, this thesis examines trafficking in persons as a transnational organised crime. Subsequently, it examines trafficking in persons as a crime against humanity by examining whether or not the International Criminal Court (ICC) might be regarded as an effective organ for addressing trafficking in persons as a crime against humanity. Later, the thesis examines the efforts made in Jordan to address the crime of trafficking in persons. Accordingly, this thesis concludes that trafficking in persons is a multi-dimensional problem and that long-term success will not be achieved by taking a disjunctive approach to addressing its many facets. Therefore, achieving a unified approach will lead to a permanent solution or will at least make a major contribution to addressing the problem.