America marches in to solve Thai trafficking

The slow-moving world of academia is finally coming to understand that America treats trafficking purely as a criminal-justice issue. President George W Bush was wrong on many things, and declaring a “war on trafficking” (his words) is just one example. Trafficking laws control movement of people, keep refugees in camps, seal borders and toss bad guys in prison. This is America’s response to the international trade in trafficking people, one they pressure other countries to adopt under threat of sanctions.
Self-serving NGOs often say crazy things to gain public attention (witness the Somaly Mam exposé). In movies the American hero rushes in, guns blazing, kills horrible traffickers and saves real victims (witness the movie franchise “Taken”). The news media respond by setting a distorted, scary tone on this issue. But a political response based on sensationalised media stories is not a good way to form foreign policy.
Last year marked a turning point as recognition grew of the distortions in the trafficking story. Academics are coming forward with probing and accurate research that shows trafficking to be symptomatic of a spontaneous mass movement, a churning mass of people, based on population growth and a growing shortage of unskilled jobs. The poorest people struggle for any opportunity and they turn to traffickers. Abuse of women is the exception, not the norm, because there is no shortage of willing sex workers in this situation. Yes, many jobs seem like slavery, but immigrants want them. America is controlling, even attacking, migration as never before. The Statue of Liberty is blushing.
It is Thailand that might be on the right track with its new labour regulations. Until countries respond to trafficking as a migration issue, and not as a criminal-justice issue, all countries that follow American leadership will find themselves on the wrong side of history.
John Kane