The Trafficking of Children : International Law, Modern Slavery, and the Anti-Trafficking Machine

The phenomenon of child trafficking holds a unique position as an issue of significant contemporary relevance, occupying a principal place in debates about human rights today. The interchangeable terms trafficking and modern slavery evoke emotive responses and proclamations about abolition of contemporary ills, viewed as the ultimate aberration when a child is involved. The classification of children under legal frameworks marks them as different, as other, and in the context of laws implemented to address trafficking, slavery, and children on the move more generally, this distinction is complicated. This book charts the emergence, decline and re-emergence of child trafficking law and policy during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of the historical origins of child trafficking by utilising the wealth of information located within the non-digitised archives of the League of Nations. It focusses upon the Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children to engage with League of Nations policy to provide an insightful and original contribution to the current body of literature. This is a book that seeks to critique the entanglements of childrens rights and colonialism in relation to the mobility and exploitation of children. It centralises the legacy of colonialism, the undercurrents of race, white supremacy, patriarchy, and their ongoing influence upon contemporary anti-trafficking legal and policy responses. Through utilizing what the author identifies as the anti-trafficking machine as a theoretical framework, the book challenges contemporary law and policy responses to child trafficking. This theoretical framework has been adopted to illustrate a central hypothesis of the book that the contemporary anti-trafficking agenda is both imperialist and a continuity of colonial attitudes. Elizabeth A. Faulkner is Lecturer in Law at Keele University, United Kingdom. Her interests, broadly conceived, are in international child law, human rights, migration, legal history, and crime specialising in human trafficking, slavery, childrens rights, exploitation, and abuse Foreword Acknowledgements Contents Abbreviations List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction—The Tale of Children and the Anti-trafficking Machine 1.1 Introduction 1.2 The Neglected Histories of Child Trafficking 1.3 Child Trafficking Globally—A Brief Overview 1.4 Defining the Trafficking of Children 1.5 Contemporary Anti-trafficking 1.5.1 The Trafficked Child: Prostitution, “Sex Trafficking”, and Victim Pornography 1.6 Methods and Theoretical Framework 1.6.1 The League of Nations Archival Research 1.6.2 The Theoretical Frameworks: Introducing the “Anti-trafficking Machine” 1.7 Structure of the Book References 2 Protecting Children: Childhood, Rights, and the Trafficked Child 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Childhood, Children’s Rights, and International Law 2.2.1 Childhood 2.2.2 Human Rights, Children’s Rights, and International Law 2.2.3 The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 The Four ‘General Principles’ of the Convention on the Rights of the Child The Agency of the Child General Comments to the Convention on the Rights of the Child 2.3 International Law and “Children on the Move” 2.3.1 The Global Compacts (2018) 2.3.2 The Clash: Fears of Migration and the Anti-Trafficking Machine 2.4 Summary References 3 The Emergence of Child Trafficking (1900–1946) 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Human Trafficking in the Twentieth Century—A Brief History 3.2.1 The International Instruments 1904–1933 The International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, 1904 The International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, 1910 3.3 The League of Nations (1919–1945) and Human Trafficking 3.3.1 The League of Nations: Anti-Trafficking International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and Children 1921 3.3.2 The Advisory Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children 3.3.3 The Summary of Annual Reports: 1922–1945 A Question of Children Child Trafficking Identified Exploitation 3.4 Empire, Race, and White Slavery 3.5 Summary References 4 Child Trafficking, Children’s Rights, and Modern Slavery: International Law in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Conflict of Definitions: Trafficking, Slavery, and Modern Slavery 4.3 The International Legal Framework of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Slavery and Trafficking 4.3.1 The Slavery Convention 1926 Siliadan v. France (2006) 43 EHRR 16 (ECHR, 26 July 2005) 4.3.2 The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery 1956 4.4 The United Nations (1945–Present Day) 4.4.1 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 1948 4.4.2 UN Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, 1949 4.4.3 The UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children 2000 Defining Human Trafficking The Palermo Protocol: Defining Child Trafficking 4.4.4 The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989 The Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children (OPSC) 4.5 Summary References 5 Child Trafficking: Contemporary Action in the Twenty-First Century 5.1 Introduction 5.1.1 The Contemporary Anti-Trafficking Crusaders 5.2 Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5.3 The International Labour Organization (ILO) 5.3.1 International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) 5.4 The Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations 5.4.1 Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, Including Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and Other Child Sexual Abuse Material 5.4.2 Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children 5.4.3 Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Including Its Causes and Consequences 5.5 Unicef 5.6 The Anti-Trafficking Giant—Understanding the Role of the USA, (TIP) 5.7 The International Criminal Court (ICC) 5.8 The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR): ‘Hacienda Brasil Verde Workers V. Brazil’ 2016 5.9 The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: Human Trafficking Case Law Database 5.9.1 Labour Exploitation Case, Malawi, 2005 5.9.2 Illegal Adoption Case, Guatemala, 2009 5.9.3 Sexual Exploitation Case, The Philippines, 2011 5.9.4 Begging and Labour Exploitation Case, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2017 5.10 Summary References 6 Child Trafficking in Europe: Nationalism, Vulnerability, and Protection 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Anti-Trafficking Legal Regime of Europe 6.2.1 The Council of Europe Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings 2005 6.2.2 The European Union EU Framework Decision on Combatting Trafficking 2002 Directive 2011/36/EU on Preventing and Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings and Protecting Its Victims Non-Legislative Actions of the European Union and Council of Europe 6.3 The European Court of Human Rights 6.4 Case Study: The UK of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 6.4.1 The Rise of Modern Slavery in the UK 6.4.2 The Modern Slavery Act 2015 The National Referral Mechanism 6.4.3 Children: Slavery, Trafficking, and Exploitation 6.4.4 “Categorical Fetishism” and Children in the UK The Hypocrisy of Modern Slavery and the UK 6.4.5 The UK and the European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights Facts of the Case Commentary on the First and ‘Second Applicants’ The Appeals of the Applicants 6.5 Summary References 7 Conclusion: A Tale of Child Trafficking and the Shift to Modern Slavery References Appendix A: The White Slavery Agreement of 1904 and Convention of 1910 The International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, 1904 International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, 1910 Final Protocol Appendix B: The Questions of the Summary of Reports (1921–1938) Questions Within the ‘Summary of Annual Reports’ (Extracted from the 1922 Document) Questions Within the ‘Summary of Annual Reports’ (Extracted from the 1932–1933 Document) Index