Human Trafficking: Womens Stories of Agency

This book explores womens stories of agency in a lived experience of trafficking. The idea of agency is a difficult concept to fathom, given the unscrupulous acts and exploitative practices which define trafficking. In response to the 3-P anti-trafficking paradigm to prevent and protect victims and prosecute traffickers official discourse constructs agency in singular opposition to victimhood. The true victim of trafficking is reified in attributes of passivity and worthiness, whereas signs of womens agency are read as consent in their own predicament or as culpability in criminal justice and immigration rule-breaking. Moving beyond the official lack or criminal fact of agency, this collection of stories adds knowledge on agency constructed with, on, and by, women possessing a trafficking experience.Based on the stories of twenty-six women, agency is seen to exist in relationship to womens victimisation under trafficking. Exploring well-being agency (womens physical safety and economic needs), and agency freedom (womens capacity to construct choices and the conditions affecting choice), women demonstrate agency in their identity, decision making, and actions.Acknowledging the existence of a migration-crime-security nexus in contemporary human trafficking, the narratives of fifteen anti-trafficking professionals highlight how official actions mediate womens achievement of well-being and agency freedoms. This book will be of interest to students undertaking courses in modern slavery, human trafficking, human geography, police studies, social work, and criminology. See more