‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse
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 phenom...
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| Format: | Article |
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Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45686/ |
| _version_ | 1848797174096199680 |
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| author | Okyere, Samuel |
| author_facet | Okyere, Samuel |
| author_sort | Okyere, Samuel |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | 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. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:59:41Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-45686 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:59:41Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-456862020-05-04T19:09:58Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45686/ ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse Okyere, Samuel 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. Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women 2017-09-30 Article PeerReviewed Okyere, Samuel (2017) ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse. Anti-Trafficking Review, 9 . pp. 92-105. ISSN 2287-0113 child trafficking anti-trafficking Ghana history Volta lake political Africa fishing http://www.antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/atrjournal/article/view/266 doi:10.14197/atr.20121797 doi:10.14197/atr.20121797 |
| spellingShingle | child trafficking anti-trafficking Ghana history Volta lake political Africa fishing Okyere, Samuel ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse |
| title | ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse |
| title_full | ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse |
| title_fullStr | ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse |
| title_full_unstemmed | ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse |
| title_short | ‘Shock and awe’: a critique of the Ghana-centric child trafficking discourse |
| title_sort | ‘shock and awe’: a critique of the ghana-centric child trafficking discourse |
| topic | child trafficking anti-trafficking Ghana history Volta lake political Africa fishing |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45686/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45686/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45686/ |