Human trafficking and human rights

Abstract

Anti-trafficking efforts have a long tradition of engaging a human rights advocacy approach. However, the approaches adopted have been clearly gendered in their focus and, as Kapur identifies (2005), quite narrow in their scope, as they have focused primarily on the trafficking of women into the sex industry (sex trafficking), sex work and sex workers (Kapur 2005). This article argues that there is much to be gained through examining the potential for the promotion of anti-trafficking efforts that engage with international human rights instruments beyond the existing trafficking-specific framework, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (an Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime 2000). The central argument here is that the current international approach to trafficking in persons is focused primarily on law and order, where criminal justice efforts are at the foundation of the framework to address and eradicate this practice. The parameters of the overarching convention clearly establish an agenda that emphasises the trafficking in persons as cross-border criminal activity. This article draws upon the author's research on the Australian response to people trafficking and on Freedom, Respect, Equality, Dignity: Action, the major NGO report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights regarding Australia's implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ANACLC, HRLRC and KLC 2008). It is argued that the framework of this offers an alternative position from which to advocate for a more comprehensive understanding of, and response to, trafficking in persons.