Migration control and gendered discipline of trafficking victims in Asia

Abstract

Although the formal justification for immigration detention and protective custody of migrants in shelters may bedifferent, there are clear parallels between the experience of trafficking victims in semi-carceral institutions and what Kalhan has termed ‘a quasi-punitive system of immcarceration’. This talk will reflect on the changing nature and harms of migration control in the global South by examining the logic and practices of protective custody especially of women and girls in Asia. How can we make sense of the disciplinary purposes performed by semi-carceral institutions for trafficking victims? In what ways does the dominant anti-sex trafficking discourse of ‘rescue’ intersect with gendered notions of citizenship? And, ultimately, what can a study of gendered carceral practices tell us about the problems and paradoxes of trafficking prevention and migration control?