Abstract
Global Human Trafficking: Critical Issues and Contexts, edited by Molly Dragiewicz, makes a critical contribution to contemporary literature on global human trafficking by highlighting key issues and empirical research in the area along with the critical context in which human trafficking occurs. The authors of the 14 essays are scholars and researchers from various disciplines such as criminology, political science, law, anthropology, and women’s studies. The book caters to a multidisciplinary audience and presents a discourse that cuts across ideological and political barriers that exist in the debate around trafficking.
The book’s chapters are divided into themes: critical contexts for thinking about trafficking, key issues in trafficking research, trafficking policy, and concludes with moving forward. Joyce Outshoorn begins by describing the complexity of defining human trafficking in light of current ideological and political differences among researchers and scholars. A key issue is the debate between radical/abolitionist feminists, who consider all prostitution to be exploitative versus sex workers’ rights activists, who advocate for sex work as a form of legitimate labor. This debate on prostitution versus sex work influences and complicates the understanding and definition of trafficking. Elzbieta Gozdziak discusses the lack of empirical research on global human trafficking and highlights the need to produce more generalizable, academic research in the area.
In the category of research, Anna Maternick and Melissa Hope Ditmore describe a study of people trafficked from Mexico to the United States for commercial sex. They urge readers to focus on issues of poverty, gender-based violence, and the lack of support for undocumented individuals, while investigating the meaning of human trafficking. Rebecca Surtees describes the difficulties faced by seafarers and fishers as male victims of labor trafficking, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes discusses how organ trafficking is also a part of human trafficking that is often neglected or ignored. The definition of human trafficking is more complicated as Neil Howard and Simona Morganti’s research points out that child trafficking in Benin may actually be migration of child laborers and Kelly Richards and Samantha Lyneham highlight trafficking for marriage in Australia and debunk some of the assumptions around trafficking victims and perpetrators. The section on research exemplifies how trafficking needs to be understood in the context in which it occurs and that generalizations may not be useful in defining trafficking situations.
Trafficking policy discusses trafficking policies primarily in the United States. Erin O’Brien and Michael Wilson discuss the political ideologies in the United States and how they have informed policy over the past decade. Claire Renzetti describes how the perceptions of service providers influence the services that are provided to trafficking victims. Julia O’Connell Davidson concludes the section by discussing the “demand side” of the policy debate. It is interesting to note that the policy-related chapters are written from the U.S. and the U.K. perspective, which is consistent with the current Western definition of human trafficking.
Finally, moving forward includes essays that reiterate the complexity of defining human trafficking by providing an example from India by Aziza Ahmed and Meena Seshu and the Ivory Coast by Kum-Kum Bhavnani and Emily Schneider. Both of these chapters from the developing world show how social work activism is used to address trafficking in a localized context.
One of the major challenges highlighted in the book is the lack of empirical research on human trafficking globally, and Molly Dragiewicz makes recommendations for funding to researchers for supporting and publishing empirical research in the area. While additional studies are needed for addressing the global problem of human trafficking, the book does not include studies on trafficking prevention, victim interventions, and so on from disciplines such as social work, sociology, public health, and nursing. While it’s understandable that all disciplines cannot be covered in one book, there is indeed empirical research stemming from these fields on global human trafficking. Overall, this book is engaging and informative with a good balance of contributions from different countries of the world. Unlike some other books on the topic, it focuses not only on adult sex trafficking but also on other forms of trafficking such as organ, labor, and child trafficking. The concluding section of each chapter provides learning objectives and discussion points for a classroom setting. In addition to using the book as a teaching tool, social workers and scholars would benefit from the knowledge about definition and contextual understanding of trafficking that is provided in the book.