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‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse

Okyere, Samuel

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Authors

Samuel Okyere



Abstract

This paper is a critique of the dominant anti-trafficking discourse and activism in Ghana. The paper argues that the discourse grossly underplays the role played by external forces in shaping the conditions underpinning children’s labour mobility in the past and the hardships underpinning the phenomenon today. In place of critical analysis and understanding, anti-child-trafficking campaigns employ melodramatic ‘shock and awe’ tactics and a tendency to blame local culture or traditions for activists’ claims of ‘pervasive’ child trafficking in the country. The paper suggests that dominant anti-trafficking discourse and activism in Ghana thus reinvigorate historic and persistent external causal agents of inequality which drive Ghanaian children’s labour mobility today. The paper demonstrates this problem and offers correctives to it.

Citation

Okyere, S. (in press). ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse. Anti-Trafficking Review, 9, https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.20121797

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Sep 1, 2017
Online Publication Date Sep 30, 2017
Deposit Date Sep 11, 2017
Publicly Available Date Sep 30, 2017
Journal Anti-Trafficking Review
Print ISSN 2286-7511
Electronic ISSN 2287-0113
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 9
DOI https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.20121797
Keywords child trafficking, anti-trafficking, Ghana, history, Volta lake, political, Africa, fishing
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/885736
Publisher URL http://www.antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/article/view/266
Contract Date Sep 11, 2017

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