Anti-Trafficking Review

Guest Editors: Claus K. Meyer and Sebastian Boll

Deadline for Submissions: 7 January 2018

The Anti-Trafficking Review calls for papers for a themed issue entitled 'Irregular Migrants, Refugees or Trafficked Persons?'

Migration, displacement and human trafficking have become staples of headline news. Reactions range - and sometimes change - from outrage over abuse and sympathy for individuals and groups seen as victims, to open hostility towards those perceived as foreign intruders or threats to security, political, cultural and business interests.

Where international instruments of varying age and origin provide a set of at times overlapping categorisations, policy-makers and public discourse often look for clear classifications and impose mutually exclusive labels on groups and individuals, whose circumstances are complex, diverse and not always well understood. Such categorical overlaps, however, may be exploited at the expense of the individuals concerned. It is hardly surprising then that persons caught in this legal and conceptual web prove at times wary of the labels offered to or imposed upon them.

Further, aid agencies and organisations working in the areas of migration, displacement, and human trafficking cannot avoid the contest over categorisations and classifications either. Legal definitions help shape opportunities for and conditions of assistance while public perceptions associated with different terms impact on available funds. Donors of aid programmes expect accountability, which requires clear classifications of those provided with assistance. But actual needs for assistance may cut across rigid differentiations between migrants, refugees or trafficked persons.

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