Traversing the intersections of decoloniality and liquid modern consumerism in human trafficking

Lead Researcher(s): Archil Niña F. Capistrano
Status: Published

Abstract/summary: The discourse on human trafficking displays inordinate attention to victims and their countries of origin. Research and policy responses to trafficking in persons tend to be condensed to the ‘3 Ps + R’ formula of prosecution, protection, and prevention plus repatriation. However, these state-centric measures contrast with the magnitude of this global issue. Drawing from the Trafficking in Persons reports of the US State Department and the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, this paper will point out how greater attentiveness to victimhood in the locus of supply for human trafficking betrays colonial underpinnings as it distracts from the more attention-­worthy locus of demand in countries of destination. These realities highlight how intensified mobility in globalisation and the enticements to consume in a neoliberal-capitalist world order are both power to perpetrators and a vulnerability to actual and potential victims of human trafficking. Foregrounded by Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity, this study infuses a decolonial reading of human trafficking to argue for equal, if not greater, attention to consumerism in globalisation as a major culprit behind the sustained enterprise of human trafficking.

Keywords: Decoloniality, Liquid Modernity, Human Trafficking, International Relations