Searching for best practices to counter human trafficking in Africa: a focus on women and children
The paper is structured as follows:
- analysis of the political, legal, social and cultural aspects of trafficking of women and children in Africa
- introduction of Haas’ concept of epistemic community to trace how a BP flows directly from a particular framework of knowledge, values and norms a particular community adopts
- selected best practices in Africa by participating organisations, discussing their profiles, strengths and weaknesses, as well as the way they understand causation in trafficking and the replicability of their practices
- discussion on the use of the concept of BP in the policy field of human trafficking for the future.
The main conclusion of the report is that it is impossible to dislodge a best practice from the ideological and political framing of human trafficking as a societal problem. In the report’s review of epistemic communities, it finds that they tend to be self-maintaining and to produce practices that reflect the values they hold. However, at times these practices can be distant from what trafficked persons consider as their experience of human rights abuse. A best practice should be treated as part of a broader process of transformation of a web of social relationships. Depending on the context, some relations are stronger than others in causing human trafficking. BP cannot be adopted as a one-size-fits-all instrument, but requires context-specific knowledge.
The report suggests that there needs to be public dialogue on diversity to be undertaken in the spirit of epistemic egalitarianism, which begins with the acknowledgement that each perspective has its own merits. In the field of human trafficking, epistemic egalitarianism should foster such dialogues between policy-making bodies, engaged grass-roots organisations and scholars to address the congruence of forces behind the phenomenon in the interest of human rights protection.
