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‘Traffickers and their victims’: anti-trafficking policy in the United Kingdom

  • Kiril Sharapov
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Sustainable Development Goals

  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
    SDG 5 Gender Equality
  • SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth
    SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
    SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
    SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Abstract

This paper relies upon the ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ approach to policy analysis to interrogate key representations of human trafficking implicit in the UK government’s anti-trafficking policy. It identifies six policy vectors, or representations, of human trafficking embedded within the policy, including organized crime, ‘illegal’ immigration, and victim assistance as three primary vectors; sexual exploitation/prostitution, poverty in countries of victims’ origin, and isolated instances of labour law infringements as three secondary vectors. In addition, a series of assumptions, which underlie the current interpretation of trafficking, are also identified. By exploring what the problem of human trafficking is represented to be, the paper also provides an insight into what remains obscured within the context of the dominant policy frameworks. In doing so, it highlights the role of state-capital entanglements in normalizing exploitation of trafficked, smuggled and ‘offshored’ labour, and critiques the UK’s anti-trafficking policy for manufacturing doubt as to the structural causes of human trafficking within the context of neoliberalism.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 91-111

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Critical Sociology (Volume 43, Issue 1)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 20/08/2015

Publication status

Published - 20/08/2015

ISSN

0896-9205

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/624338
  • Scopus: 85008703729

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