Abstract
Chapter 5 focuses on the historical and legal classification of human trafficking and the adaptation of the concept in the South African context with its instrumentalisation for a restrictive state migration policy and a criminalisation of commercial sexual services. The chapter also reveals that attempts to categorically separate cross-border migration and sexual services from trafficking can actually strengthen demands for stricter border control and a legal ban on sexual services. Thus, the controversy over human trafficking obviously intensifies the antagonism between the advocates of liberal approaches to immigration and to sexual services and the supporters of the control discourses.
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Notes
- 1.
Different to the 1956 convention, the amending protocol of 1953, which related to the slavery convention of 1926, did not change the definition of slavery. It only served to incorporate the 1926 League of Nations’ document into the legal sphere of the UN (cf. Sitaraman 2016:127).
- 2.
Similarly, Kevin Bales (2008:11) criticises the “dilution” of the term slavery for “stretching the meaning of the word ‘slavery’ to include such issues as all forms of prostitution” so “that something that is not slavery will hide behind that name”.
- 3.
However, Anne T. Gallagher (2010:336) recognises that a lot of states turned towards protection of and support for trafficked persons in their anti-trafficking measures.
- 4.
While the UN (1973) condemned apartheid in its ‘International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid’, this document did not relate slavery and apartheid. For a detailed analysis see Jean Allain (2012:152ff).
- 5.
While the Palermo Protocol is not specific about monitoring measures, the US Department of State took initiative and admonished countries who did not comply with the provisions of the protocol (Warren 2007:266).
- 6.
This is a parallel to the Palermo Protocol, which concentrates on (transnational) crime and border enforcement instead of victims’ assistance (cf. Warren 2007:251f).
- 7.
Africa Check is a non-profit organisation, which is concerned with verifying the accuracy of information in public debate and in media on the African continent.
- 8.
This forum, founded in 2007, consists of the IOM and different South African NGOs from a wide range of backgrounds including sex workers’ organisations and neo-abolitionist organisations (cf. ANEX 2015).
- 9.
The IOM staff Rashita’s earlier mentioned quote, which made reference to the figure of an ‘uncle’ as trafficker, suggests that she shared this assumption.
- 10.
While the legalisation of sex work refers to the permission of offering sexual services in certain zones, for instance, parts of a municipality, the decriminalisation refers to the removal of restrictions for the sex business as long as it is conducted in adherence to labour regulations and other legal provisions (cf. SWEAT 2015).
- 11.
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Hüncke, A.S. (2023). Negotiating around ‘Human Trafficking’ in South Africa and the Border Area. In: Migration and Making an Income in the Context of ‘Human Trafficking’. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41670-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41670-6_5
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