The Victim, the Villain and the Rescuer

Abstract

A term as morally and politically loaded as 'modern day slave trade' inevitably provokes strong and emotive responses. From the current Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) (António Guterres) to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Theresa May) world leaders have identified human trafficking and slavery as an issue of pressing international concern. The legal understanding of migration (whether legal or illegal, across national borders or internally) has, the article maintains, been constructed in a specific way, serving specific interests. The current 'migration crisis' in Europe demonstrates how the key actors are the same, namely, the victim, villain and the rescuer. The purpose of this paper is to critique the influence of The New Abolitionists movement on contemporary responses to female migration; and through applying a gender lens to the movement it will investigate whether their narratives further drives the gender inequalities that plague the migration framework.

Racialized, Gendered, and Sensationalized: An examination of Canadian anti-trafficking laws, their enforcement, and their (re)presentation

“…Our findings affirm our earlier research that Canadian laws and law enforcement efforts follow a largely reductive narrative that erroneously treats sex work as synonymous with trafficking in persons irrespective of individual agency or consent (Millar and O'Doherty 2015). Our findings also reveal a prevailing stereotype of a (racially threatening, male) villain, an iconic (visible and deserving White) female who is an unwitting victim, a (predominantly White) criminal justice system, and White victim advocates as benevolent rescuers that have been similarly identified for other countries (see, e.g., Faulkner 2018;Kinney 2015;O'Brien 2016;Shih 2016;Soderlund 2005;Srikantiah 2007). These findings suggest the need to challenge whether the Canadian criminal justice system effectively "protects" the safety and security interests of racialized and marginalized groups, especially migrant, Indigenous and Black sex workers; indeed, it appears virtually impossible for the state to continue down its path of targeted criminalization and meet its parallel international and domestic legal commitments to ensure a range of protected human rights and freedoms, including equitable access to justice.…”