Human Trafficking Amidst Interlocking Systems of Exploitation: A Focus on Pakistan
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- Human Trafficking Amidst Interlocking Systems of Exploitation: A Focus on Pakistan
Binding:PaperbackSize: 215x140 mm
Pages: 177Year:
Trafficking constitutes a fundamental moral challenge to all those who believe in the principles of humanity and human rights. Even when many policies have been passed at global level, billions of dollars have been spent, and many efforts to combat trafficking are underway, this phenomenon, degrading human beings to the level of commodities, is yet to be eradicated. Drawing upon gender and human rights perspectives, the authors examine the issue of trafficking at both micro and macro levels to analyse how political economy of trafficking influences micro level experiences of victims of trafficking.
Based on archival and ethnographic data, this book expands the notion of trafficking from sex trafficking to trafficking as a profit making enterprise with human beings as the commodity. Critically examining the experiences of trafficked persons, the authors argue that trafficking occurs within the context of interlocking systems of exploitation. A multidimensional continuum of violence, ranging from wars, intrastate conflict, to home-based gendered violence, exacerbates people’s vulnerability to exploitation, often repeatedly, by traffickers. Thus, trafficking might occur repeatedly within a person’s life span, though not for the same purpose, and not in the same way. Using data on trafficked persons primarily from Pakistan, which is a source, transit and receiving country for trafficked victims, and other regional and international comparative data, the authors establish that contemporary definitions and debates about trafficking do not always capture the realities of trafficking on the ground.
Farhan Navid Yousaf, an Assistant Professor in Sociology at International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan is currently a Fulbright Ph D candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, USA. Farhan has extensive research experience in the areas of gender, human rights, human trafficking, and transnational migration.
Bandana Purkayastha is Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut, USA. She has published several books, peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters on race/gender/class, transnationalism, peace and human rights. Bandana has served on several international and national Sociology research committees. She is a member of the Founding Editorial Boards of Journal of South Asian Diasporas, and Race and Ethnicity. She serves in many leadership positions within professional organisations, and is American Sociological Association’s representative to the International Sociological Association (2014-2018).
