From Anti-Trafficking Shelters to Factories
In anti-trafficking programmes as well as in academic discussions, the issue of labour exploitation is often overshadowed by that of sexual exploitation and the migration movement. Based on a study in Laos, the paper argues that the anti-trafficking sector does not only produce discourses and policies that ignore (non-sexual) labour exploitation, but also contributes to it through rehabilitation programs for victims of trafficking. The ethnography of shelters for trafficked persons suggests that this sector actively feeds the recruitment channels of low-paid female workers in a globalized labour market. Partnerships established both to secure funding and to demonstrate the success of its empowerment programmes contribute to the stabilization of a proletarian feminized workforce in the precision production sector. Questioning the singularity of the reintegration programmes of former trafficking victims into factory workshops with regard to international policies of reintegration of former trafficking victims, the article shows that the anti-trafficking sector contributes to a gendered international division of labour.