Description
This module offers a wide-reaching and nuanced introduction to the overlapping phenomena of human trafficking, smuggling and exploitation. It offers students a robust overview of key challenges and considerations cutting across in these complex and contested domains, complemented by in-depth explorations of a selection of key topics. The first half of the module will cover an introduction to: the legal, conceptual and policy landscapes; the history and politics of these spaces; questions of data and measurement; ethics and research challenges; and issues around interventions and evaluation. The second half will then focus in depth on particular issues and contexts, examining key debates, tensions, empirical findings, assumptions and fallacies. This selection is expected to include child sexual exploitation (CSE); overseas domestic work; the interplay between sex trafficking and sex work; various other labour market abuses along the ‘continuum of exploitation’; and harms caused to irregular migrants both by smugglers and states. The module will draw on a wide range of disciplines and students will be encouraged to engage critically not only with academic literature but a broad array of other relevant materials. Although situated within the Department of Security and Crime Science, the module deliberately goes beyond a narrow criminal justice lens to consider structural and systemic drivers of exploitation, workers’ and migrants’ rights, and important questions of agency and constraint.Ìý
Module deliveries for 2024/25 academic year
Last updated
This module description was last updated on 19th August 2024.
Ìý