Lecture with Professor Jean Allain: the Evolution of the Int'l Anti-Trafficking Framework

The Evolution of the International Anti-Trafficking Framework: The Hermeneutics of Deception

This presentation brings together Professor Jean Allain’s Leverhulme Lecture series focusing on the deception which has beleaguered the development of what is today called human trafficking. From its source: 1) in the emergence of campaign to end State-regulated prostitution by Victorian women led by Josephine Butler; through its origins: 2) brought on by the 1885 Maiden Tribute to Modern Babylon scandal; to the League of Nations which: 3) took hold of the white slave traffic regime on the basis of collusion; only later: 4) to reconceptualise it behind closed doors; – each moment, in its own way, bears witness to crises in testimony. In these instances, fundamental to the DNA of anti-trafficking, a gap between voluntary testimony meant for public consumption, and statements – in private deliberation and in court documents – made ‘in spite of themselves’, revealing wilful deception.

How then to interpret the international anti-trafficking framework, built on such shaky ground, its foundations of such weak timber, its framework of such questionable design? In this presentation, Professor Allain returns to first principles: to hermeneutics – the art or science of interpretation – to seek to both understand and to salvage the kernel of original intent of anti-trafficking from its evolutionary means.

All welcome, no registration required.