Co-producing a post-trafficking agenda: collaborating on transforming citizenship in Nepal

Abstract

This article discusses how a new agenda on post-trafficking is gaining momentum through academic and activist anti-trafficking collaborations focused on co-producing knowledge with women who have returned from trafficking situations. Co-production of this nature is important as the issues raised by post-trafficking scenarios are largely ignored in antitrafficking strategies, and the stigmatisation and poverty which women in these circumstances encounter means they rarely have a voice in policy-making. Drawing on research in Nepal, we present four types of co-produced data around transforming citizenship post-trafficking, and reflect on the strategies for generating and using them for advocacy purposes.Cet article traite de la manière dont un nouvel ordre du jour relatif à l'après-traite prend de l'élan grâce à des collaborations anti-traite entre des universitaires et des activistes centrées sur la coproduction de connaissances avec des femmes rescapées de situations de traite. La coproduction de cette sorte est importante car les questions soulevées par les scénarios posttraite sont largement ignorées dans les stratégies de lutte contre la traite, et la stigmatisation et la pauvreté auxquelles se heurtent les femmes dans ces circonstances font qu'elles sont rarement dotées d'une voix lors de la formulation de politiques. En nous inspirant de recherches menées au Népal, nous présentons quatre types de données coproduites sur la transformation de la citoyenneté post-traite, et menons une réflexion sur les stratégies en vue de les générer et de les utiliser à des fins de plaidoyer.La creciente colaboración entre académicos y activistas ha impulsado la creación de una nueva agenda en torno al tema de las consecuencias sufridas por personas que han sido víctimas del tráfico. El presente artículo analiza la coproducción de conocimientos entre los actores mencionados y mujeres que han sufrido el tráfico, coproducción cuyo valor se hace evidente cuando se constata que las cuestiones surgidas en una situación de postráfico en gran parte son obviadas en el momento en que se elaboran estrategias destinadas a combatir el fenómeno. En este sentido, debido al estigma y la pobreza que deben enfrentar, las mujeres que atraviesan estas circunstancias raras veces pueden expresar su opinión de modo que puedan contribuir a moldear las políticas elaboradas con este fin. Apoyándose en investigaciones realizadas en Nepal, las autoras examinan cuatro ejemplos de información en torno a la transformación de la respuesta ciudadana al tráfico y sus consecuencias posteriores, elaborados en coproducción con las mujeres. Asimismo, analizan la creación de estrategias que podrán ser utilizadas en el trabajo de incidencia.

Women and Citizenship Post-Trafficking: The Case of Nepal

“…The research was carried out via research collaboration with Shakti Samuha who were involved as collaborators in a number of ways including as participants, interviews were carried out with members of the Executive Committee; via two large co‐hosted workshops, an activist and a policy workshop; and through a research training programme for the Shakti Executive Committee members, which was a central element of the research project's design (for further discussion see Laurie et al ., ). The project ran from November 2009 to April 2012 a period when, as outlined in the previous section, new democratic processes were unfolding in Nepal including recommendations on the rights of citizenship to be incorporated into the drafting of the new Constitution.…”

“…Analysis of the data indicated that this was the approach that many of the women who had experienced trafficking thought should be adopted. While they spoke about how women could get citizenship by marrying and then on the basis of the recommendation of their husbands, this was a model of citizenship they saw as problematic for many women who did not have the support of their husbands both for their own citizenship status and for their children (for further analysis of this issue see case study discussion in Laurie et al ., ). Highlighting the vulnerability of women if their trafficking past becomes known Rupa, for example, said that:

Many of the trafficked women are hiding it by doing so [getting married].

…”

“…First, as other studies have also found (eg Brown, ; Joshi, ; Tamang, ; Samarasinghe, : Richardson et al ., ; Poudel, ), the forms of sexual stigma and social rejection that women typically encounter if they are labelled as trafficked have important implications for their citizenship status and rights of citizenship that throw into sharp relief the ways in which assumptions about gender and sexuality intersect with state‐sanctioned forms of citizenship. Second, post‐trafficked women have had a key role as activists both in organizing around rights to sustainable livelihoods and in lobbying for changes in citizenship rules which discriminate against women (Joshi, ; Hennick and Simkhada, ; Laurie et al ., ). Finally, despite a large body of research having been carried out into trafficking over the last two decades the majority of studies have focused on its causes and characteristics leaving many aspects of trafficking under‐theorized (Doezema, ; Yea and Kitiarsa, ), including analyses of the challenges that post‐trafficking scenarios raise.…”

Relational geographies of human trafficking: Inequality, manoeuvring and im/mobility across space and time

“…There is a body of literature addressing the spatial connotations of human trafficking. These works range from links between anti‐trafficking and state‐sanctioned activities concerning border management and territorial governance (Andrijasevic, ; Molland, ), “control of mobility” (O'Connell Davidson, , p. 58) and the biopolitical “regulation of specific populations” and “other national geopolitical agendas” (FitzGerald, , p. 185) to criminological emphasis on the spatial organisation of trafficking networks (Campana, ) and post‐colonial analyses of spatialities of power in the production of knowledge about human trafficking (Kamler, ; Laurie, Richardson, Poudel, Samuha & Townsend, ; Yea, ). Yet, despite such a spatial resonance, there is a lack of an explicit conceptualisation of how geographies underpin human trafficking.…”

“…At one point this could be attributed to the pronounced dearth of human trafficking studies by geographers (Laurie, Richardson, Poudel, & Townsend, ; Smith, ), but disciplinary interest is growing, with studies on border practices and management (Choi, ; FitzGerald, ; Laurie, Richardson, Poudel & Townsend, ), children's agency (Beazley, ; Blazek & Esson, ; Boyden & Howard, ), perceptions of human trafficking, anti‐trafficking policies and institutional praxis (Mendel & Sharapov, ; Yea, , , b), trafficking practices and experiences (Choi, ; Esson, ; Laurie, Richardson, Poudel, Samuha & Townsend, ; Laurie, Richardson, Poudel & Townsend, ; Yea, ), socio‐legal aspects (Strauss, ) and confluences between human trafficking and precarious labour (Lewis et al., ; McGrath, ; Strauss & McGrath, ) and sex work (van Blerk, ). However, arguably, what is missing is a sustained effort to conceptualise human trafficking as a geographical phenomenon and develop a relationally‐spatial perspective.…”