The long arm of the neoliberal leviathan in the counter-trafficking field: the case of Portuguese NGOs

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, in many countries including Portugal, human trafficking has become an important issue on political agendas, attracting increased investment of financial and human resources, and the growing involvement of civil society organizations. Employing a historical perspective, this article analyses the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the counter-trafficking field, in particular, in the conceptualization of human trafficking, the elaboration of counter-trafficking policies and practices, and NGOs’ potentials and limitations in challenging them. Using data obtained through prolonged empirical research, the article argues that in contexts characterized by a high level of institutionalization and structural weakness in organized civil society, NGOs have little chance to assume a role beyond serving as a long arm of the neoliberal state apparatus. Both the outsourcing of certain counter-trafficking services to NGOs and the controversial yet undisputed national security-focused approach to trafficking represent integral parts of the practical logics of the counter-trafficking field, which remains largely unquestioned by counter-trafficking NGOs. These logics include the silencing of any debate about prostitution, at least within the Portuguese counter-trafficking apparatus.

KEYWORDS:

• Human trafficking
• NGOs
• security-led approach
• prostitution
• Portugal

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Thaddeus Blanchette and David Cairns for their helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. I am also grateful to the journal's editors, Marcella Corsi and Mariella Nocenzi, and the anonymous reviewers for extremely constructive and insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (also known as the UN Trafficking Protocol or Palermo Protocol), Art. 3(a), provides the international legal definition of human trafficking broadly understood as the forced or coerced movement of people within and between nation-state boundaries for the purposes of exploitation.

2 With the expression civil society, I refer to a wide array of social and political organizations, including NGOs, as well as political groups, faith-based organizations, professional associations, the media, intellectual groups, etc.—providing a space for the expression of views, interests, and purposes in public debate. Materialist state theory challenges an idealistic view of the relationship between civil society and the state, emphasizing the fact that civil society is subject to many different forms of economic and political coercion within a complex relationship that sees it as neither independent nor simply in opposition to the state (e.g. Hirsch, 2003).

3 I occasionally use italics to emphasize the fact that I am not taking for granted the meaning of certain terms and expressions.

4 In referring to abolitionism and abolitionist initiatives, I refer to a current legal and ideological approach to prostitution, according to which prostitutes (in particular, women) are victims of clients and pimps. Following this logic, their protection and the abolition of prostitution as a form of patriarchal violence can be achieved by penalizing them. In recent decades, however, sex workers’ participation in the debate concerning the sex trade has moved the focus from moral positions to the conditions and rights of the sex workers themselves, thus advocating for the regulation of the sex industry under civil and labor law.

5 See, in particular, the Cooperation, Action, Research, Worldview (CAIM) project (2005–2007), funded by the Equal Community Initiative.

6 This pertains to the residence permits for trafficked persons of non-European origin, which are subject to article 109 of Law No. 23 of 4 July 2007 on the Entry, Stay, Exit and Removal of Foreigners from Portugal (Immigration Law). According to this law, residence permits can be issued upon expiry of the reflection period under three cumulative conditions: (a) the potential benefit of the victim's presence for the purposes of the investigation and criminal proceedings; (b) the victim's clear intention to co-operate with the authorities to facilitate the investigation; (c) the cessation of relations with those persons suspected of having committed the offence concerned. Since 2007, a special regime for granting a residence permit has been envisaged when trafficked persons fail to meet criteria (a) and (b), but this is justified by the personal situation of the victim or members of his/her family (see Decree-Law no. 368 of 5 November 2007). However, to date, the formally envisaged regime does not appear to have been implemented in any substantive sense.

7 See Decree-Law no. 49 of 22 April 2008 and Decree-Law no. 252 of 16 October 2000.

8 Retrieved on June 2020, from http://www.umarfeminismos.org/index.php/quemsomos/historia-1o-fase-19761977.

9 Retrieved on June 2020, from https://www.oninho.pt/content/oninho/nossahistoria.htm.

10 Retrieved on June 2020, from https://oninho.pt/content/oninho/quemsomos.htm.

11 Retrieved on June 2020, from http://www.apf.pt/quem-somos/historia.

12 Retrieved on June 2020, from http://www.apf.pt/noticias/posicao-apf-trabalho-sexual.

13 Retrieved on June 2020, from https://www.saudeportugues.org/quem-somos/.

14 Retrieved on June 2020, from https://www.akto.org/pt/quem-somos/relatorios-e-planos/.

15 See https://apav.pt/apav_v3/index.php/pt/a-apav/historia.

16 See, for example, the third seminar of the northern RAPVT (Braga, 8 May 2019) or the second meeting of the RAPVT center (Figueira da Foz, 7 December 2018).

17 Retrieved on June 2020, from https://www.akto.org/pt/quem-somos/estatutos/.

18 For example, this is true for the photography exhibition organized in the course of the previously mentioned Mercadoria Humana project of Saúde em Português (see https://rb.gy/pxqubg); and the exhibition that was born out of the collaboration between the producers of the film ‘Carga’ and APF (see https://rb.gy/barbxj).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under the project SFRH/BPD/93923/2013 and the program Norma Transitória DL57/2016. The proofreading was funded by the R&D Unit UIDB/03126/2020.

Notes on contributors

Mara Clemente

Mara Clemente is an Integrated Researcher at the ISCTE–University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology, and Associate Researcher of the Emigration Observatory (OEm) in the same institution.