Abstract
The focus of this issue of the Anti-Trafficking Review—public perceptions and responses to human trafficking—reflects the growing unease and disagreements among anti-trafficking practitioners and scholars about the current state of public awareness of human trafficking: how and by whom such awareness is produced and manipulated, whom it is targeting, and whether it leads, or can lead, to any meaningful anti-trafficking action. A central assumption in the anti-trafficking field is that the general public still lacks sufficient knowledge about human trafficking, and that creating more knowledge and awareness will lead to its reduction. However, there neither exists a common understanding of who should know what in order to achieve this goal, nor is there sufficient information available about the awareness of the general public or, especially, the impact of this awareness.
Highlights
‘Scientia potentia est’, or ‘knowledge is power’, a quote commonly attributed to sixteenth-century English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon, has become a popular axiom for the transformative power of learning and knowledge
A central assumption in the anti-trafficking field is that the general public still lacks sufficient knowledge about human trafficking, and that creating more knowledge and awareness will lead to its reduction.[4]
Acknowledging the heterogeneity of public opinion, the diversity of cultural, socio-economic and political contexts in which individual perceptions are formed and responses are enacted, one of the key messages that runs through the contributions in this issue is that public awareness of ‘wicked’ social problems[5] does not emerge out of nowhere—it is actively manufactured, sustained and manipulated by those in the position of economic and political power to set the agenda
Summary
‘Scientia potentia est’, or ‘knowledge is power’, a quote commonly attributed to sixteenth-century English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon, has become a popular axiom for the transformative power of learning and knowledge.
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