Abstract
This paper highlights the significance of post-trafficking scenarios for understanding bordering practices in political geography. In so doing, it addresses two significant research gaps: the lack of attention to trafficking in geography and the failure of wider interdisciplinary debates to engage with post-trafficking specifically. While extensive research in political geography has addressed the related experiences of refugees, asylum seekers and ‘illegals’, much of this work has centred on policies, processes and practices that aim to keep ‘unwanted strangers out’. By contrast, very little research has addressed how the border is configured for and by those who are crossing-back over; those who are ‘returning home’, in this case from diverse trafficking situations. The paper draws on recent empirical research on post-trafficking citizenship and livelihoods in Nepal which examined how women returning from trafficking situations deal with stigma and marginalisation. Our analysis illuminates how bordering practices circumscribe and shape women's lives in powerful ways as they seek to (re)establish a sense of belonging and respect. We examine the interplay of state and non-state actors (national and transnational) in structuring mobility and anti-trafficking advocacy through a range of bordering practices and explore how the border is (co-)produced by varied actors at different border sites. This includes women returning from diverse trafficking situations, who invoke the border to argue that they are ‘not as trafficked’ as other women, and others who perform the border differently as agents for trafficking prevention.
Highlights
As we have shown improving access to citizenship for women returning from trafficking situations has been a key focus of anti-trafficking activism in Nepal (Laurie et al, 2015a, 2015b), as even for women who are aware of their rights to citizenship through matrilineal relations, this is rarely an easy process
We argue that a post-trafficking approach, which engages with the expertise and advocacy of women who have themselves experienced trafficking, facilitates a nuanced reading of the complex interrelationship between internal and external trafficking in the shifting terrain of migration, trafficking and anti-trafficking activism in Nepal
Research has to be there and for this we need projects.” (Interview with Padhma Mathema, Special Rapporteur, Trafficking in Persons (TIP), Office of the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Women and Children, National Human Rights Commission on 2 November 2011). Focussing on this northern border Sara Shneiderman (2013) makes an important contribution to regional border debates by highlighting how, unlike much of the rest of South Asia, the nonpostcolonial context in Nepal has allowed the emergence of alternative categories of citizenship that allow for a dual sense of belonging for those living in the border area and an everyday mobility in economic, political and religious terms
Summary
Post-trafficking bordering practices: Perverse co-production, marking and stretching borders. This paper highlights the significance of post-trafficking scenarios for understanding bordering practices in political geography. We examine the interplay of state and non-state actors (national and transnational) in structuring mobility and anti-trafficking advocacy through a range of bordering practices and explore how the border is (co-)produced by varied actors at different border sites This includes women returning from diverse trafficking situations, who invoke the border to argue that they are ‘not as trafficked’ as other women, and others who perform the border differently as agents for trafficking prevention. “We heard the Nepal Government was denying receiving us in Nepal, calling us prostitutes, sickness ridden. We heard it from the people in India. The post-trafficking testimony of a woman recalling her experiences fifteen years after being ‘rescued’ from a trafficking situation, along with a number of other Nepali women, following extensive raids on Indian brothels in 1996
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