Abstract
To fulfil obligations in international law State parties have to take the issue of human trafficking seriously. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) provides General Recommendations (GR) to member states on the interpretation of the Women’s Convention. In 2018 the CEDAW Committee started to develop a GR on trafficking in women and girls in a process planned to conclude in 2020. The first stage towards this was through the publication of a Concept Note to serve as a basis for dialogue during the two-year international consultation period. The Concept Note is a vital link in a textual chain because it frames the policy problem and actively constructs its own ‘documentary reality’. This article provides a critical analysis of the CEDAW Concept Note on the grounds that such analysis provides an understanding of its discursive construction of trafficking, migrant labour and sex work, by an institution responsible for international jurisprudence on human rights. Analysis of the Concept Note explores the documentary constructions including narratives that merge adult women with girls, the symbolism of exploitation, the silencing of scientific research, the elision of sex worker voices, and sex work as work. The analysis leads us to conclude that the General Recommendation should define what counts as ‘exploitation’, and ‘forced labour’, and address the growing international recognition of best evidence on the wider impact of sex work laws, in order that legal framing and constructions of sex trafficking are not erroneously used to curtail rights of sex workers.
Highlights
One of the nine core human rights instruments is the Convention on the Elimination of AllForms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
The growing appreciation of the importance of understanding migration, migrant labour, and trafficking led to the CEDAW Committee decision to develop a General Recommendations (GR) on Trafficking in Women and Girls in the Context of Global Migration in order to interpret the definition, scope and expectations of States’ obligations in relation to Article 6 of the Convention, ensuring that ‘the human rights of women and girls are respected, protected, and fulfilled in accordance with international law’
The Concept Note is divided into six sections comprising 54 short paragraphs
Summary
One of the nine core human rights instruments is the Convention on the Elimination of All. Formed in 1979, it is overseen by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women ( called CEDAW) It came into force as an international treaty in 1981 and the function of the CEDAW Convention is to bring women into the focus of human rights concerns (OHCHR 2019). The growing appreciation of the importance of understanding migration, migrant labour, and trafficking led to the CEDAW Committee decision to develop a GR on Trafficking in Women and Girls in the Context of Global Migration in order to interpret the definition, scope and expectations of States’ obligations in relation to Article 6 of the Convention, ensuring that ‘the human rights of women and girls are respected, protected, and fulfilled in accordance with international law’. The aim of this article is to explore how this document reproduces shared assumptions, and creates others, for a particular kind of audience
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