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Trafficking as the moral filter of migration control
The fight against ‘human trafficking’ has, since the 1990s, become a cause célèbre of modern politics. It is a bipartisan issue that everybody can be safely for and that nobody wants to be against (Quirk and Bunting 2014). It has been championed by high profile political figures as diverse as Theresa May, George Bush, Robert Mugabe and Ivanka Trump, and many thousands of NGOs around the world are working right now to eradicate it (ibid.). But, popular as the cause is, it is not without its critics. Today there are two broad camps within anti-trafficking work with academics, practitioners, policymakers and activists on both sides. One side views human trafficking first and foremost as a crime, perpetrated by individuals upon other individuals, which can be stopped through sufficient enforcement and prevention. The other side views trafficking as the far end of a spectrum of exploitation brought about by the regularly functioning, structural mechanisms of modern-day capitalism. Furthermore, it highlights the problematic governance effects of the trafficking frame. Firmly grounded in this second perspective, we argue in this chapter that the traction afforded to the discourse of human trafficking has made it a unique and powerful tool of migration governance. It operates primarily by creating a zone of exception within the broader landscape of labour migration. Inside this zone, we are told by anti-trafficking advocates, criminals move people forcibly or through deception in order to exploit them. This movement is said to constitute an egregious abuse of vulnerability, a violation of human rights, and a crime, and governments thus have a duty to prevent it.
The violent, hopeful world of children who smuggle people
Children on both sides of the US-Mexico border help smuggle people and drugs into the United States. When asked why, they usually say they need money yet lack opportunities to earn it. They know that smuggling is illegal, but on the border it is one of the few ways that young, marginalised people can effectively convert their knowledge into profit. Their earnings, while limited, benefit them and their families, so for them smuggling is a legitimate, albeit criminalised, form of labour. The testimonies in this series revolve around a central moment of violence: the murder of a young man who crossed people into the US. We learn what happened, why, and what the consequences of his death were from those who were closest to him. The stories told by his family and friends not only describe this death but also place it in context. They throw light on the crude mechanics of smuggling, the social and economic pressures of this community, and the burdens and aspirations of its inhabitants. Together these testimonies paint a fractured yet detailed picture of how lives unfold in the shadow of the border wall. They foreground the people, not the crime, and they communicate the complexities faced by a specific group of young people in a city like Juárez. These stories show the often devastating consequences of young people’s choices amid youth criminalisation, border militarisation and migration control, but also the love and determination of a community seeking to achieve change.
Everyday abuse in the global economy
In recent decades, neoliberal policies have transformed both the world economy and the world of work. Hard-won rights and protections have been eroded by deregulation, outsourcing, and subcontracting. New forms of unstable, isolated, and insecure work have emerged. The new issue of Anti-Trafficking Review examines the driving forces behind the increasing prominence of precarious work, the accelerating role of migrant labour within global economy, and the relationship between everyday abuses and forms of severe exploitation which have come to be defined as human trafficking and modern slavery. It shows that a singular focus on individual cases can draw attention away from the larger systems, interests, and abuses associated with the smooth operations of the global economy. It also shows that some of the energy which has been directed towards combating ‘modern slavery’ could be usefully redirected towards lower profile interventions concerned with worker and migrant rights.
After the “migration crisis”: how Europe works to keep Africans in Africa
Migration from Africa to Europe has, since the long summer of migration in 2015, been at the top of the European political agenda. As right-wing parties have gained at the ballot box through their anti-migration rhetoric, the priority for most policymakers has been to look tough and to prevent such an experience from ever happening again. To this end the European Union and individual EU member states have devoted large amounts of resources to trying to keep people in Africa. As this feature demonstrates in great detail, an awful lot has been going on.
Confronting root causes: forced labour in global supply chains
It is by now widely recognised that effectively tackling forced labour in the global economy means addressing its ‘root causes’. Policymakers, business leaders and civil society organisations all routinely call for interventions that do so. Yet what exactly are these root causes? And how do they operate? The two most commonly given answers are ‘poverty’ and ‘globalisation’. Although each may be foundational to forced labour, both terms are typically used in nebulous, catch-all ways that serve more as excuses than explanations. Both encompass and obscure a web of decisions and processes that maintain an unjust status quo, while being used as euphemisms for deeper socio-economic structures that lie at the core of the capitalist global economy. The question thus becomes: exactly which aspects of poverty and globalisation are responsible for the endemic labour exploitation frequently described with the terms forced labour, human trafficking or modern slavery? Which global economic processes ensure a constant and low-cost supply of highly exploitable and coerced workers? And which dynamics trigger a demand among businesses for their exploitation, making it possible for them to profit from it? This 12-part report is an attempt to answer these questions in a rigorous yet accessible way. With it, we hope to provide policymakers, journalists, scholars and activists with a road map for understanding the political economy of forced labour in today’s “global value chain (GVC) world”.
Imputing diaspora: an examination of Turkish political rhetoric in Germany
In this article, I examine two different frames of diasporic identity found within the rhetoric of Turkish politicians when they address audiences in Germany. I analyze speeches given in 2011 by the then Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and leader of the opposition, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, during the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of Turkish labor migration to Germany. I argue that both wove narratives of identity that emphasized the continuing relevance of Turkey to the lives of expatriate Turks as well as their continued inclusion in Turkish society. In doing so, I suggest that these were deliberate attempts to construct or maintain imagined communities of diasporic Turks as part of broader political projects. Such transnational reinterpretations of “domestic” issues constitute an understudied dimension of diasporic engagement and diasporic identity formation.
Expert survey report on migrant integration
The INTERACT project interviewed 24 migration and integration experts across 19 countries in order to better understand the effects of current diaspora and integration policies. It further sought to determine possible pitfalls, ways forward, and areas of cooperation between countries of origin and destination. Synthesising the results of this survey, the paper argues that the task of integration is to encourage: migrant participation in all areas of society; migrant productivity within the economic sphere; and migrant parity with native citizens. To be successful, efforts must take place across many levels of governance and in a variety of sectors, especially education and labour markets. Both diaspora and integration policies must furthermore put migrants first: strategies that prioritise the perceived needs of countries or destination or origin are unlikely to work. Finally, the onus of integration cannot solely rest on the migrants themselves. Countries of origin must do more to meet migrants halfway by combatting discrimination within their societies and policies.
35 years of forced displacement in Iraq: Contextualising the ISIS threat, unpacking the movements
This brief situates the astonishing rise of the group Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham (ISIS) within Iraq’s much larger history of violent displacement. Looking across the past 35 years, it argues that ISIS may be distinct inasmuch as it has taken and held terri¬tory from Syria and Iraq, its violence is ‘non-state’, and it espouses a radically retrogressive ideology. But it is neither unique in its level of brutality nor is it an unprecedented threat to the well-being of Iraqi citizens. This report further discusses the evolution of ISIS and the human displacement it has caused. It demonstrates that Sunnis, Christians and Yazidis are fleeing north into the Autonomous Kurdish Region, while Shi’a are heading toward their southern heartlands. The longer this keeps up, the more striking will be the changes to Iraq’s ethnic and religious geography. Finally, it highlights the fatigue palpable among major donors today. It stresses that this must be overcome, for if Iraq is ever to know peace the full problem of IDPs in Iraq must be addressed and not just those scattered by the ISIS advance.
One million Syrians in Lebanon: a milestone quickly passed
Lebanon received its one-millionth refugee from Syria on April 3rd, an event that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN’s refugee agency, called a “devastating milestone.” Unfortunately, markers such as these only show the distance travelled but not how far is left to go. This one was quickly passed and there is still no end in sight. In the eight weeks following that announcement another 90,538 Syrians made their way to Lebanon in order to escape the fighting that rages on in Syria. With 1,090,538 Syrian refugees now on its territory, undoubtedly even more given the time it took for this article to come to print, Lebanon is home to nearly 40% of the 2.84 million Syrians now living in neighbouring countries. It has accepted an average of 53,000 people each month for the past 12 months, resulting in an incredible 25% population increase since fighting began three years ago. Without greater sharing of the human as well as the financial burden by rich world countries, Lebanon is at risk of paying the price for its hospitality with severe political and economic destabilisation.
Mapping Global Migration Governance
The concept of global migration governance is widely used but remains quite confusing and often poorly defined. This paper attempts to provide a mapping of this notion, in order to understand its different meanings, its usefulness and weakness, and the key questions it raises in terms of understanding and analysing migration politics. It starts by examining matters of definition, before reviewing the multi-actor and multi-level nature of global migration governance. It then moves to a critical discussion around several difficulties raised by the reliance on this notion. The last section provides a tentative historical perspective, to contextualise the concept of global migration governance.
Non-Migration Policies and Mobility Decisions
This paper explores theoretical and empirical research examining the ways in which different policy arenas affect people’s decisions to migrate. We propose an analytical framework to assess various qualities of non-migration policies in a systematic way. We then focus on four diverse policy areas: agricultural policy, transport policy, education policy and social welfare policy, and analyse evidence for their direct impact on migration decisions or their indirect effects as they shape the decision-making context. These policy areas are chosen as examples of different types of policies in terms of their source of impact, level, locus and logic of impact, and – effectively - mechanisms through which they shape decision-making of migrants. Our review is not comprehensive, it rather sets ground for further systematic theoretical and empirical thinking about the role of non-migration policies in migration decision-making.
Changing the Migration Narrative: On the Power of Discourse, Propaganda and Truth Distortion
Despite huge improvement in data and research on migration, most scientific knowledge about migration is ignored in polarized public debates about migration. Migration policies are frequently ineffective or backfire, because they are not based on a scientific understanding of the nature, causes and consequences of migration. ‘Talking truth to power’ will not solve this problem, because politicians, international organizations, and mass media routinely ignore evidence that challenges dominant narratives or actively distort the truth about migration. Four narratives dominate public debates: the (1) Mass Migration Narrative, the (2) Migration Threat Narrative, the (3) Migrant Victim Narrative and the (4) Migration Celebration Narrative. These powerful narratives are one-sided, misrepresent the true nature of migration, and largely disregard migrant agency. This reveals the need for researchers to communicate their insights directly to the general public based on a long-term vision of migration as an intrinsic part of global change and development instead of a priori as a ‘problem to be solved’ or a ‘solution to problems’. The goal should not be to prescribe a particular policy agenda, but to equip the largest possible audiences with knowledge that will enable them to critically scrutinize claims made by politicians, pundits, and interest groups, and see through the various forms of misinformation and propaganda that abound on this subject.
The Impact of Covid-19 on NGOs’ Provision of Primary Healthcare and Its Utilisation by Irregular Migrants in Italy
This paper examines the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on non-governmental organisations’ (NGOs) provision of primary healthcare services and its utilisation by irregular migrants in Italy. Through 30 semi-structured qualitative interviews with key informants – NGO members and healthcare professionals – and migrants, the study highlights the critical role of NGOs in bridging healthcare gaps for irregular migrants, particularly during the pandemic. The study also identifies challenges irregular migrants face in accessing public healthcare in Italy, including bureaucratic barriers in obtaining special healthcare registration cards (STP and ENI codes). Policy implications include facilitating regularisation processes, increasing funding for public healthcare, and harmonising interpretations of norms governing healthcare access across regions. Networking among NGOs and associations is encouraged to enhance comprehensive support for irregular migrants. At the same time, information improvement is vital to mitigate disparities in healthcare access and utilisation among different regions and to empower migrants in seeking timely and relevant healthcare. Overall, the study contributes to understanding the dynamics between NGOs, irregular migrants, and healthcare services during crises, advocating for an inclusive healthcare system based on the human right to health.
Researching the Politics of Knowledge in Migration Policy
This paper explores the intricate relationship between knowledge and power in migration policymaking. It challenges the notion that knowledge exists as an objective truth awaiting application by policymakers and argues that bridging the knowledge-policy gap in migration requires a deep understanding of the politics of knowledge. This entails grasping the power relations within migration research and policymaking and recognizing the diverse roles knowledge plays within the policy process. By bringing into dialogue literatures on knowledge use and knowledge production, the paper discusses how knowledge is always inherently intertwined with power dynamics, who is deemed legitimate to produce knowledge on migration, how policymakers employ knowledge either instrumentally or symbolically, and how this is shaped by the politicization of migration issues at stake. The paper ends with introducing four key methodological strategies for analyzing the politics of knowledge in migration policy: backtracking dominant assumptions, tracing issue-specific dynamics, identifying temporal shifts, and critically assessing the links between knowledge production and utilization. These strategies form the foundation for the empirical investigation of migration policymaking in the PACES project, which hopes to offer novel insights into the power-knowledge nexus in the field of migration.
Researching Decisions to Stay and Migrate: A Temporal Multilevel Analysis framework
This paper explores how people make migration decisions. After a review of the rich literature and models that capture the factors, mechanisms, and phases of migration decision-making, this paper presents the Temporal Multilevel Analysis (TMA) framework, which examines how people decide whether to stay or migrate as their personal and societal situations change. The TMA framework explores how people perceive social change, and their role within it, with the goal of identifying under what contextual and personal circumstances people choose to migrate. The framework proposes a two-level comparative model that explores people’s perceptions of their social and personal circumstances, and investigates the role of social norms and values, with the understanding that these are fundamental yet relatively understudied influences on a decision to stay or migrate. The TMA framework also integrates a time dimension to explore how changing views about the past, present, and future influence mobility choices. This document should be read as an introduction to the TMA framework, which will be further refined through its application in empirical research through the PACES project.
Immigration attitudes, national identity, and development in mainland China
As China transforms into a global power and an emerging immigrant country, this paper investigates how Chinese citizens experience the increase in immigration over the past decades and what their policy priorities are. Based on 46 semi-structured interviews in three locations, as well as national-level online survey data, I find a shift in societal attitudes from viewing immigration as a necessary and largely beneficial aspect of China’s economic modernization towards a more multi-dimensional issue with rising socio-political salience. While moderate views occupy most of the spectrum of Chinese immigration attitudes, the paper identifies an uptick in anti-immigrant sentiment in the past decade, most notably among higher-educated groups. However, examining attitudes towards immigration effects, selection and control among a diverse national sample, it finds less anti-immigrant sentiment than existing studies conducted within population subgroups suggest, including towards African migrants. Overall, I argue that immigration attitudes are shaped by broadly shared perceptions of China’s national identity as a country rising in a global developmental hierarchy, with a growing need - but also more capacity - to manage immigration. The connection this paper identifies between developmental status and public views of desirable immigration policy brings out contrasts between the Chinese case and early-stage immigrant reception in Western countries, with wider relevance for the study of immigration attitudes outside Western and other high-income contexts.
Voluntary Immobility: A Global Analysis of Staying Preferences
In the last decade, there has been growing interest from both policy and academic communities in understanding why people migrate. The focus, however, remains biased towards understanding mobility, while the structural and personal forces that restrict or resist the drivers of migration, leading to different immobility outcomes, are much less understood. This paper offers the first global analysis of staying preferences, enhancing knowledge about the factors associated with voluntary immobility, defined here as the aspiration to stay in one’s country of residence. We make use of the unique Gallup World Polls which provide information on aspirations to stay (as opposed to migrating abroad) as well as on individual characteristics and opinions for 130 countries worldwide between 2010-2016. Staying aspirations are far more common than migration aspirations, and we uncover important ‘retain factors’ often overlooked in research on migration drivers – related to social ties, local amenities, trust in community institutions, and life satisfaction. Overall, those who aspire to stay tend to be more content, socially supported and live in communities with stronger institutions and better local amenities. We further explore differences in the relative importance of retain factors for countries at different levels of urbanization, and for different population groups, based on gender, education, rural/urban location, migration history, religiosity, and perceived thriving. Our findings contribute to a more holistic understanding of migration decision-making, illuminating the personal, social, economic, and institutional retain factors countering those that push and pull.
Mobilization trajectories as a tool to study migration and protest intentions: An illustration from Morocco
When dissatisfied with socioeconomic and political conditions, why do some people migrate, others protest, and others do neither? While existing literature shows that migration and protest are both responses to discontent, and that migrants and protesters have similar sociodemographic profiles, the initial choice between these two behaviors and their relationship at the individual level need further investigation. In this conceptual paper we introduce mobilization trajectories, an original analytical conceptual device that allows a combined analysis of migration aspirations and protest intentions as alternative, but not always equally available, strategies that individuals can adopt when dissatisfied with socioeconomic and political conditions. We argue that mobilization trajectories as an analytical tool offers three contributions: it (1) uncovers individuals’ negotiations between multiple possible courses of action and inaction, (2) illuminates how intentions are shaped by changing socioeconomic and political conditions at home and abroad, networks, previous experiences with protest or migration, and gender, and by doing so (3) aids our understanding of why aspirations may or may not lead to actual migration. We illustrate the working of mobilization trajectories as an analytic tool for the combined analysis of migration and protest intentions with vignettes from interviews conducted in 2020 and 2021 with Moroccan youth aged 18-35.