Re-thinking Anti-Trafficking Law and Practice: European and Commonwealth Caribbean Perspectives

Abstract

Human trafficking has increasingly been referred to in academic circles as ‘modern slavery’. It thrives in conditions of poverty, prejudice, inequality and discrimination, and has a deleterious impact on its victims. Its perpetrators come from all walks of life, and are actively involved in myriad forms of exploitation, which generate billions in profits on an annual basis.
Since the passage of the Trafficking Protocol in 2001, there has been a marked increase in anti-trafficking policy and legislation at the international, regional and domestic levels. Notwithstanding this, however, the effectiveness of these measures remains a hotly contentious issue. It is against this backdrop that this thesis has been conceptualised; the overarching aim being to critically assess the existing law and practice on human trafficking at the European and Commonwealth Caribbean levels, and to explore and evaluate possibilities for an enhanced regulatory framework. To achieve this aim, several objectives are actively pursued over the course of nine chapters. The first objective involves a deconstruction and critical evaluation of the various 'hegemonic assumptions' that underlie the conventional criminal justice and human rights approaches to human trafficking. The second involves a critical examination of the existing law and practice on human trafficking at the European and Commonwealth Caribbean levels from a comparative socio-legal perspective. The main argument advanced is that, at present, there is a ‘disconnect’ between anti-trafficking law and practice, which has an adverse impact on the prevention of human trafficking, the prosecution of traffickers and the protection of trafficked victims. The final objective involves an exploration of a non-exhaustive list of possibilities for reform that are aimed at ameliorating this ‘disconnect’.
The methodological approaches of the thesis to its research question involve doctrinal analyses, comparative analyses, as well as socio-legal analyses.