The trouble with trafficking: protection for children on the move

Baobab Talk Series

Heaven Crawley and Bridget Anderson
3 October 2018, 6:30pm 

As part of our Baobab Talk series, Heaven Crawley and Bridget Anderson discuss the trouble with trafficking, and protection for children on the move.

A conversation around how children seeking protection are positioned in current debates on ‘trafficking’ and the implications in both policy and practical terms. Bridget  unpacked the concept of ‘trafficking’, how it is understood and who is – and is not – included in the debate on how to prevent it. Heaven Crawley focused on the difficulties experienced by children who move, but are not considered to have been ‘trafficked’, in accessing the protection to which they entitled under international refugee law, with particular reference to the issue of guardianship in Scotland.

Heaven Crawley

Heaven Crawley is Professor of International Migration at Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations where she leads a team of researchers working on issues of migration, displacement and belonging. Heaven has served as a specialist adviser to the Home Affairs Committee and Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) on three separate occasions. She is a patron of the Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile and Asylum Justice and a Trustee of Migrant Voice. In 2012 Heaven was conferred the title of Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) in recognition of her contribution to the social sciences and to evidence-based policy making.

Bridget Anderson

Bridget Anderson is Professor of Mobilities, Migration and Citizenship at the University of Bristol. She was previously the Research Director of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford. Her interests include citizenship, nationalism, immigration enforcement (including ‘trafficking’), and care labour. Her most recent authored book is ‘Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls’ (OUP, 2013).  Although now an academic Bridget started her working life in the voluntary sector working with migrant domestic workers, and she has retained an interest in domestic labour and migration. She has worked closely with migrant organisations, trade unions and legal practitioners at local, national and international level.