ABSTRACT
Tra†cking in persons gained considerable attention in the early twenty-rst century when it was cast alongside terrorism and drug tra†cking “as one of the three ‘evils’ that haunts the globe” (Kempadoo 2005, p. vii). Global and regional perceptions and responses to human tra†cking (HT) have elevated HT from a “women’s issue,” driven by nongovernment organizations (NGOs), in the 1980s to “the global agenda of high politics” of the European Union and the United Nations (Lee 2007, pp. 1-2). While HT remains the subject of much research, debate, and advocacy in diverse disciplines and elds, such as criminology, politics, law, sociology, human rights, migration studies, gender, and public health (Lee 2011), explanations of HT are varied and, at times, contradictory. Moreover, studies of HT are frequently polarized by moralistic debates that cluster around a number of contentious issues, evoking strong sentiments of morality, justice, citizenship, and sexuality. From these perspectives, HT has variously been understood as, and ošen con³ated with, prostitution and sex slavery, irregular migration, labor exploitation, transnational organized crime, and a threat to national sovereignty and security (Sanghera 2005). While HT occurs within each of these sites, a broad understanding of HT is necessary to address the multiple ways in which individuals are tra†cked and the unique experiences of each tra†cked person.
