ABSTRACT
This chapter presents three debates that are central in contemporary child research and explains how they are relevant to the analysis of child trafficking situations: childhood as a social construction, child agency, and the inter-generational contract that binds children to family and kin, especially in uninsured societies. Leading international agencies currently apply some very broad definitions of child trafficking. The broad definition of child trafficking makes it even harder to distinguish a trafficking case from a non-trafficking case, when acts and practices in a given situation would be similar. The International Labour Organization (ILO), after consultations with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), has suggested distinguishing between child trafficking and migration-related child labor much along the lines of the State Department's distinction between the trafficking and smuggling of adults.
