ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview and analysis of the dominant discourse on trafficking by reflecting on the assumptions, interventions, and approaches followed by its practitioners. The dominant discourse of trafficking is based upon a set of assumptions. Trafficking in women and girls is acknowledged by the international community as a global problem today. Reportedly, millions of children and women are said to be trafficked across borders and within countries, and the profits accruing from this trade are alleged to be phenomenal, exceeding, according to some estimates, the clandestine gains made from the underground trade in arms and narcotics. It has been reported that even when women and minors are not ostensibly trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, their trafficked status renders them highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. The dominant trafficking paradigm rests upon an absence of the critical distinction between trafficking and migration on the one hand and trafficking and prostitution on the other.
