Child Trafficking, Youth Labour Mobility and the Politics of Protection

Neil Howard is Marie Curie Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. His research combines political economy and political anthropology to examine the political, economic and ideological construction of human trafficking and forced labour, and to analyse how, why and whether policy-makers are active in this construction. He has worked with and advised both the ILO and ITUC, and is a Founder-Editor at openDemocracy’s ‘Beyond Trafficking and Slavery.’

• 1. Introduction: Child Trafficking and Its Discontents.- 2. The Dominant Paradigm: Child Trafficking and the Fight Against It.- 3. Challenging the Paradigm: Young People at Work and On the Move.- 4. Explaining the Paradigm: Inside the Anti-Trafficking Field.- 5. Drawing Conclusions.