This seminar has been postponed until early 2010.

Trafficking in women, policy shifts and human rights agenda: Change we can believe in?

Sanja Milivojevic
University of Western Sydney

Staff Common Room
Faculty of Law
University of New South Wales

Trafficking in people and in particular sex trafficking are extreme forms of exploitation and as such have been the focus of feminist and criminological inquiry for over two decades (Barry 1988; Altink 1995; Bertone 2000). However, the approach to trafficking thus far was firmly located within law and order framework, with trafficking constructed as predominantly criminal justice, moral and migration issue (Doezema 2000; Ditmore 2005; Desyllas 2007; Weitzer 2007; Segrave et al. 2009). Consequently, the intervention by nation-states and international community with the intention of “combating” this crime and “rescuing” victims has often created more harm for those it ought to protect (Doezema 2000; Kempadoo 2005; Milivojevic & Pickering 2008). The trafficking agenda, however, has the potential for a change underpinned by recent political and economic developments, such as the election of the new Obama administration and the emerging global financial crisis. This paper discusses how current international, regional and local developments might prompt re-thinking of trafficking and redesign current anti-trafficking initiatives. It also suggests which important actors, silenced for some time, will have the potential to emerge and contest the current anti-trafficking frameworks, and who is likely to disappear from the national and international trafficking debate. In doing so this paper will challenge both human rights and neo-liberal interventionist agenda in addressing the issue, and propose the approach academics and researchers should take in redesigning the trafficking intervention.

Dr Sanja Milivojevic is a Lecturer at University of Western Sydney in Criminology and Policing Studies, School of Social Sciences. Sanja holds LL.B and LL.M from Belgrade University’s Law School, and PhD from Monash University. Her doctoral research ‘Sex Trafficking in Serbia and Australia’ is in the field of sex trafficking in these two countries, with a particular focus on how victims of trafficking have been constructed in Serbian and Australian culture, and what are its implications to women’s status inside the criminal justice system and anti-trafficking initiatives. The thesis was nominated for Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal by the supervisors, Associate Professor Sharon Pickering and Senior Lecturer Dean Wilson. Sanja has worked as a researcher on various projects with the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research in Belgrade. She is also a member of the Victimology Society of Serbia, and was instrumental in establishing the first Victim Support Service in the Balkan region. In 2001-2002, Sanja was a Public Interest Law Fellow at Columbia University Law School in New York City, USA, where she studied and worked on several projects and internships. Sanja has participated in several international and domestic conferences and has published in both Serbian and English.