Book Review: Revisiting the Law and Governance of Trafficking, Forced Labor and Modern Slavery
| Author | Laura Lammasniemi |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663919834178 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book Reviews
Social & Legal Studies
2019, Vol. 28(3) 414–425
Book Reviews
ª The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663919834178
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PRABHA KOTISWARAN, Revisiting the Law and Governance of Trafficking, Forced Labor and Modern
Slavery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 581, ISBN 9781107160545, £120.00
(hbk).
In 2006, Prabha Kotiswaran, together with Janet Halley, Chantal Thomas and Hila
Shamir, published a seminal article on feminist legal responses to rape, prostitution/sex
work and sex trafficking (Halley et al, 2006). This influential text has now, a decade
later, finally been followed by two much-anticipated titles: Governance Feminism: An
Introduction (Halley et al, 2018) and a collection of essays edited by Kotiswaran that
includes chapters by Halley, Thomas and Shamir. Kotiswaran’s edited collection, the
subject of this review, provides critical and wide-arranging writings on governance and
law concerning trafficking and forced labour.
Revisiting the Law and Governance of Trafficking, Forced Labor and Modern Slavery
offers an in-depth look at anti-trafficking since the enactment of Trafficking Protocol in
2000. The 18 chapters in the book are written by an impressive cast of leading scholars
from diverse disciplines, varying from anthropological and conceptual studies to more
doctrinal legal and policy ones. The chapters in the book are diverse in their methodo-
logical approaches and geopolitical focus, but what combine them are critical
approaches to current anti-trafficking legislation and modes of governance. In the intro-
duction, Kotiswaran says that
despite its poor implementation, seventeen years after its adoption, the Trafficking Protocol
leaves behind a trail of collateral damage. It has continued to have negative effects on sex
workers, migrants, migrant brides and sexual minorities in countries as diverse as Romania,
Bulgaria, Mexico, Sweden, Brazil, Singapore and Myanmar. (p. 36)
The book, therefore, is no celebration of the Trafficking Protocol, nor of the transna-
tional law in the field. What emerges from all the chapters is, in the words of Kotiswaran,
‘chronic ineffectiveness of law’ (p. 6). Pointing out that the law is flawed is nothing new,
as anti-trafficking legislation has in the past decade come under intense scrutiny from
various authors, many of whom have contributed to this collection. The key contribution
of the book is not in pointing out that...
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