ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the politics of inter-organizational security governance by looking at the practice of governing child trafficking in West Africa. It begins by briefly outlining some key components of actor-network theory (ANT), paying particular attention to its spatial implications, and contrasting this to conventional assumptions about the spatiality of governance in International Relations (IR). The chapter traces in broad terms the International Labor Organization's (ILO's) place in the governance of human trafficking at a global level. It examines specific initiatives on child trafficking in West Africa. Since 2001, the ILO has set about trying to map the practice of forced labor and child labor. A key 2001 report on forced labor made note of the limited availability of information about forced labor, suggesting that the major reason was that "forced labor is increasingly exacted in the illicit, underground economy", areas that escape national statistics and are often hard to trace.
