Human trafficking has long been a huge dilemma for governments worldwide.
Redefining the conversation - Dr Sverre Molland
Human trafficking has long been a huge dilemma for governments worldwide.
But viewing it as a solution, rather than a problem, could change that, asEVANA HO reports.
We're familiar with the images of human trafficking.
Hungry, tired people crammed into the back of a truck.
Underage girls deceived into becoming sex workers.
However, a policy shift is taking place and it's one that requires us to rethink our approach to labour migrants.
It's a shift that is defined by terms much less attention-grabbing than human trafficking.
But it's one that has the potential to affect greater positive change in the lives of millions worldwide.
In 2013, the United Nations (UN) estimated there were 232 million international migrants.
Those moving within and beyond eastern and southern Africa often do so "in pursuit of better economic opportunities", according to the International Organization for Migration.
The use of migrant labour has frequently been marked by exploitation.
In response, governments have attempted to deter migration and strengthen border control.
This, say experts in the field, created a market for human traffickers. And so governments and non-governmental organisations created anti-trafficking programs.
ANU anthropologist Dr Sverre Molland, whose research is focused on the Mekong region, a hub of labour migration activity, describes the disillusionment with anti-trafficking interventions in that area.
"After all these years, we're still debating definitions of what is really trafficking.
"There's no real consensus on the scale, let alone whether these interventions have had any impact," he says.
Molland, who served as an adviser to the UN on an anti-trafficking program, says the reactive nature of interventions largely involves only responding when someone is in trouble.
"Certain law enforcement people will say that's a deterrence because you're making it more risky for people to traffic people. But there's little evidence to suggest that's the case," he says.
Enabling migration in safe terms
[A safe migration advertisement on the Laos/Thailand border.]
A safe migration advertisement on the Laos/Thailand border.
Molland says there are cases where trafficking victims have ended up in shelters that are intended to help them - sometimes for long periods of time - because police and prosecutors want to use them as witnesses.
"I think what you see now is that you have a lot of agencies that are looking for a different language, a way of re-framing what they're dealing with."
The new way of framing and dealing with labour migration is one that Molland is a proponent of.
It's also the subject of his Australian Research Council grant.
It's defined as 'safe migration' - a term Molland agrees doesn't have emotional appeal.
"It has an appeal to policymakers because it feeds into this idea of controlled, ordered management of migration," he says.
An important difference between an anti-trafficking approach versus that of safe migration is that the former seeks to restrict migration and repatriate migrants to their countries of origin.
While anti-trafficking proponents may have every intention of helping migrants, in practice these policies have tended to serve anti-immigration agendas.
Safe migration, on the other hand, is about enabling migration, in acknowledgement of the economic, social and cultural benefits for the source country and the destination.
The policies and activities that stem from each reflect this difference.
"Anti-trafficking has become, in many cases, a police, law or crime way of trying to solve a particular problem.
"If you look at safe migration, police don't enter the picture in quite the same way," Molland says.
Inspecting workplaces and regulating recruitment firms
Less and less common is an approach that's about telling people 'don't go'.
Instead, the lead agencies tend to be those concerned with labour, with duties including inspecting workplaces and regulating migrant recruitment firms.
"Safe migration is much more about trying to structure support mechanisms along the whole migration chain, including workplaces, to make sure people are well-informed, secure legal status and that sort of thing."
Safe migration also has a harm reduction bent, which Molland likens to public health approaches to HIV.
"Less and less common is an approach that's about telling people 'don't go'," he says.
"Over the years, momentum has built behind the approach of, 'If you go, think about a...b...c."
Awareness-raising is one of the tools of safe migration.
Others, as he sees it, include legal status of migrants, the fostering of trusted network, and support mechanisms, such as hotlines.
How can safe migration be a practical reality?
So how do we govern mobility? Because that's what safe migration is trying to do.
With these tools in mind, Molland is interested in whether policymakers and NGOs can successfully utilise these to realise their notions of 'safe' migration.
"Safety is in itself is an impossible concept because how can you ensure something is safe in advance of any event?" Molland says.
"So the question becomes how in practice these ideas are instrumentalised and acted upon within a policy context."
Molland's research will have increasing relevance in light of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) progress towards establishing a single market and production base which will allow for the "free flow of skilled labour, services, investments and capital".
Australia also has a stake, given its lead role in the $20 million Tripartite Action to Enhance the Contribution of Labour Migration to Growth and Development in ASEAN project, among other migration programs.
Practical applications aside, Molland is fascinated by the study of migration as a subject of knowledge.
"What is theoretically interesting for me is [...] governance in terms of space. How do you govern something if you're trying to enable mobility?" he asks.
"When people move around, it makes it harder for people to keep tabs on them.
"So how do we govern mobility? Because that's what safe migration is trying to do."