Ms Marta Iniguez de Heredia

Ms Marta Iniguez de Heredia (Deakin University)

Conceptual Issues around the Crime of People Trafficking

Abstract:

The crime of people trafficking is an assault on human rights and is tied to overt inequalities of current economic systems that have intensified in the last 30 years. Responses by the international community go back to nineteenth century attempts to abolish slavery. Unfortunately, such endeavours lacked a comprehensive framework and thus effectiveness. The most recent instrument to combat people trafficking, the “United Nations (UN) Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Organised Crime (Trafficking Protocol)” is an important step forward. It has provided for the first time a definition of trafficking and introduced references to poverty and inequality as the root of the problem. However, the conceptualisation of trafficking remains inadequate and has itself been one of the most significant obstacles to monitoring the issue. The paper therefore critically assess this new instrument and concludes that institutional efforts must be accompanied by the daily struggles of women and men to overcome underlying oppressive circumstances.

Biographical note:

Marta Iniguez de Heredia Sunye is a political scientist specialising in International Relations and Human Rights. She is presently teaching at Deakin University, Melbourne. Her main research areas are human trafficking, weapons availability, and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.