Abstract
This chapter introduces the key argument of this book: there is often a significant disconnect between the experiences of individuals who are trafficked and the discursive construction and programmatic and policy responses to human trafficking. Discussing a similar kind of disconnect in the Bosnian context, Edward Snajdr [Dialectical Anthropology, 37(2), 229–256 (2013)] suggests that a ‘master narrative’ of human trafficking operates at the discursive level, often despite emerging counter-discourses that challenge the specific type of victim story that forms such a master narrative. By disclosing the discursive rendering of trafficking by the state and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), we can understand how master narratives about human trafficking are constructed and actualised in practice. In the Singapore context, the book argues that the government has effectively managed to reduce the numbers of prospective trafficking victims by narrowing the criteria for victim identification (the indicators of trafficking) to the most severe and unambiguous cases, particularly in the sex industry. The chapter outlines the theoretical bases for discussion in the book, as well as contextualising Singapore’s anti-trafficking responses in political and economic circumstances and broader regional trends in Southeast Asia.
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- 1.
A Special Pass is a visa type issued to migrants in Singapore who are involved in a legal case, civil claim, or police investigation. A Special Pass does not, however, allow the bearer legal working rights in Singapore apart from in a few special cases.
- 2.
Director of Singapore’s only sex worker outreach organisation, Project X, also lamented to me in an interview that Bangladeshi women were ‘almost impossible to reach because of language barriers and the isolation and surveillance that is commonplace during their sojourns in Singapore’ (Vanessa Ho, personal communication, 14 November 2015). The story of one Bangladeshi woman’s experience being trafficking into the sex industry in Singapore is recounted in A Thousand and One Days: Stories of Migrant Worker Hardship in Singapore (Vol. I). Dhaka: Bangla Kanther Publications.
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Yea, S. (2020). Introduction. In: Paved with Good Intentions?. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3239-5_1
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