Promise Land: Broken Dreams :: Morvary Samaré and Børrea Schau-Larsen

Extrait de la video PromiseLand de Morvary Samare and Børrea Schau-Larsen

Over the last two decades, human trafficking has emerged as a pressing political issue on the international agenda (Doezema, 1999).   Worldwide, the Red Cross (2007) estimates that 700 000-800 000 people are trafficked across borders every year, whilst another 2-4 million people are believed to be trafficked within their own borders. Consequently, the international community now considers trafficking in human beings to be nearly as lucrative a business as trafficking in weapons and drugs (Kempadoo, 2005; Von der Anker & Doomernik, 2006). 1

The illegal and therefore underground nature of human trafficking certainly explains, to some degree, the heterogeneous state of availale statistics . Also problematic are the varying and ever-changing interpretations of the term “trafficking in persons”. Has the term been applied uncritically? In an effort to establish a shared understanding of trafficking, the UN Protocol to Suppress, Prevent, and Punish Trafficking in Persons , Especially Women and Children (henceforth: The Palermo Protocol ) was signed in Palermo in 2000. In Article 3 (a), it defines:

“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of abduction, of fraud, or deception, or the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Though successful in establishing an international consensus, the UN definition leaves much room for doubletalk.   Its main weakness is that it rests on notions such as coercion, deception, abduction and exploitation (O'Connell Davidson and Anderson, 2006). Needless to say, the understanding of these words varies from one culture to another and ought therefore to be further defined.   As O'Connell Davidson and Anderson (2006: 15) poignantly ask in their article “The Trouble with Trafficking”: “How exploitative must an employment relation be before we can say that a person has been recruited and transported for ‘purposes of exploitation'?”

On that note it seems pertinent to ask: How, if at all, has the Palermo protocol improved our understanding of gender-based, international, illegal migration? In spite of its obvious weaknesses, the Palermo Protocol recognizes trafficking as a process, a form of international, organized crime that take advantage of the fact that the majority of the world's poor happen to be women (O'Connell Davidson and Anderson, 2006: 11). This is also an important contribution in the sense that allegedly, the feeling of being trapped and unable to get out of the situation is stronger “when the criminal organization controls the whole chain from recruitment, threat, transportation to the concrete sex exploitation (ibid).”

Interestingly, trafficking in women has been considered a global concern since the “White Slave Trade” in the early 19 th century, yet it is only recently that the term has entered our public consciousness (Kempadoo, 2005).   Thanks to sensationalist newspaper headlines and captivating movies about the topic, such as Lucas Moodysson's Lilja 4 Ever (2002), the term has certainly become familiar to most of us.   Arguably, the dominant cultural image of a trafficked woman can best be described as that of an innocent female teenager who is befriended by an older, scrupulous man who eventually lures her into the sex trade.

In his book , An Invitation to Social Construction, Gergen (1999) writes that cultural narratives are underpinned by dominant social representations, well-known literary images and social values.   Different cultural narratives express different power positions and interests. Think about it: the expression ‘victim of trafficking' evokes significantly different images from that of ‘migrant sex worker'.   Whilst the former evokes notions of coercion, abuse and human rights violations, the latter indicate s freedom of choice and active agency (O'Connell Davidson and Anderson, 2006; Kempadoo, 2005).   The image of the migrant sex worker simply does not fit into the tale of the vulnerable female victim and the criminal male (ibid).   This may suggest why the debate on trafficking has gained more momentum than that promoting the rights of migrant sex workers?

Lately, feminist scholars have fiercely criticized the framing of the current anti-trafficking debate, claiming that stereotypical images of female vulnerability and male oppression continue to shape the debate to a larger extent than findings from up-to-date research (Doezema 1999, Andrijasevic 2007).   Contrary to the myth, recent empirical studies indicate that sometimes women are aware that they might end up working in the sex industry, and moreover, sometimes the traffickers are in fact women (ibid).   Trafficking is a multi-faceted phenomenon, deeply intertwined with restrictive immigration policy and economic deprivation. Sadly enough, the current debate on trafficking in women tends to be reduced to a discussion over semantics while efforts should be directed towards developing sustainable policies that will protect the rights of the women in question and prevent more women from ending up in similar situations.  

The anti-trafficking milieu, however, is divided into two camps, split by their divergent views on prostitution (Doezema 1999, O'Connell Davidson 2006).   On the one hand, you have those organizations that seek to distinguish between migrant sex workers and victims of trafficking.   Basically, this regulationist camp recognizes prostitution as a legitimate profession and seeks to secure the civil rights of the women working in the sex trade (Doezema 1999).   On the other hand, you have the abolitionist camp, consisting of organizations which advocate that all women in the sex trade are victims. Trafficked or not, prostitutes are victims in the sense that they are “subjected to violence and/or find themselves working in slavery-like conditions (Doezema, 1999).”

Extrait de la video PromiseLand de Morvary Samare and Børrea Schau-Larsen

When Ramz Media was commissioned to make a short video-installation for the Spanish contemporary art festival Esperanza in the fall 2007, our aim was not to take a stand on the feminist debate concerning who is to be considered a victim of trafficking and who is to be considered a sex migrant.   Rather, given that the theme for the festival was “hope” , we wanted to portray the broken dreams of a better life in a country far away.  

Promise Land is a two-screen projection, seeking to capture the hopelessness of a trafficked woman's everyday life, or if you prefer, the situation of a migrant sex worker who has little control over her own work schedule and life conditions.   Our aim was also to depict the commercial aspect of trafficking by means of natural sound - in the room you hear customers come and go.

Given the nature of the topic, we were committed to immerse ourselves in the general literature on the visual representation of trafficked women.   One article that quickly captured our attention was “Beautiful Dead Bodies: Gender, Migration and Representation in Anti-trafficking Campaigns” by Rutvica Andrijasevic (2007). Having studied a series of awareness raising campaigns directed towards Eastern European women, she concluded: “A close analysis of female bodies displayed in the campaigns indicates that the use of victimizing images goes hand in hand with the eroticization of women's bodies.”  

Without the intention of putting her observation into question, we are eager to take the opportunity to say that eroticization can very well be avoided in visual representations of trafficked women.   It is a well-known fact that depictions of nude female bodies have tended to be sexualized and objectified in Western art history (alluring to the male gaze).   As young female video artists, we wanted to make an intimate and utterly sensitive depiction of a desperate human being who is subject to sexual exploitation without eroticizing her body.

Needless to say, we believe that visual representation plays an important role in the current debate on trafficking, a debate where the idea of victim equalizing woman and woman equalizing object needs to be put into question.   Removed from her natural social environment, the girl in Promise Land finds herself entrapped.   She is a commodity with a use-value and an exchange-value.   The curator of Esperanza , Blanca Garay, decided to exhibit the video inside a small fridge in the old market place (the festival's venue) to convey a feeling in the audience of being locked up.

To conclude, this article has attempted to argue the importance of a multifaceted debate on the subject of human trafficking of women.   Increasingly, the anti-trafficking debate needs to be linked to the wider debate on migration policy, regulation of borders and the promotion of civil rights for migrant sex workers.   As for why stereotypical images continue to shape the debate on trafficking, perhaps there is some truth to Laura Augustin's (2006) claim that moral outrage may facilitate “the avoidance of uncomfortable truths for Western society: their enormous demand for sexual services and the fact that many women do not mind or prefer this occupation to others available to them.”

Extrait de la video PromiseLand de Morvary Samare and Børrea Schau-Larsen

Notes

1  In 2001, the UN estimated the industry to be worth 5-7 billion US dollars annually (CATW, 2001: 1, cited in Doezema 2002: 13).

Bibliography

Andrijasevic, R. (2007) ”Beautiful Dead Bodies: Gender, Migration and Representation in Anti-trafficking Campaigns”, in Feminist Review , Vol. 86, No. 1: 24-44 (21).

Augstin, L. (2006) “The Disappearing of a Migration Category: Migrants who sell sex” in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies , Vol. 32, No. 1: 29-47 (19).

Doezema, J. (2000) ”Loose Women or Lost Women? The re-emergence of the myth of 'white slavery' in contemporary discourses of 'trafficking in women'” in Gender Issues , Vol. 18, no. 1: 23-50.

Doezema, J. (2002) “Who gets to choose? Coercion, Consent, and the UN Trafficking Control” in Masika, R. (2002): Gender, Trafficking and Slavery . Oxfam Focus on Gender, Information Press, Eynsham.

Gergen, K. (1999) An Invitation to Social Construction. Sage Publications, Ltd.

Kempadoo, K., J. Sanghera and B. Pattanaik (eds.) (2005) Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work and Human Rights . Paradigm Publishers, London.

Masika, R. (2002) Gender, Trafficking and Slavery . Oxfam Focus on Gender, Information Press, Eynsham.

O'Connell Davidson, J. (2006) ”Will The Real Sex Slave Please Stand Up?” in Feminist Review , Vol. 83, No. 1: 4-22 (19).

O'Connell Davidson, J. and B. Anderson (2006): “The Trouble with ‘Trafficking'” in Van der Anker, C. and J. Doomernik (2006): Trafficking and Women's Rights . Palgrave Macmilian, UK.

Van der Anker, C. and J. Doomernik (2006): Trafficking and Women's Rights . Palgrave Macmilian, UK.

Websites:

The Danish Red Cross: http://www.redcross.dk/sw32119.asp

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/trafficking_human_beings.html  

Anti-Slavery.org http://www.antislavery.org/

The Protection Project: http://www.protectionproject.org/

World Revolution.org: http://www.worldrevolution.org/guidepage/humantrafficking/website

Human Trafficking.org: http://www.humantrafficking.org/resources/links/

Biography

Morvary Samaré was born in Tehran/Iran and raised in Sweden. Morvary received her MA in Political Science from the University of Lund in Sweden, where she also studied International Politics, Economics and Russian Film at the undergraduate level.   Before moving on to further film studies at the European Film College in Denmark, she took summer courses at the London Drama School. Morvary is currently working as a producer, director and sound-editor for Ramz Media – a Scandinavian production company making documentaries focusing on the universal human rights.

Børrea Schau-Larsen was born in Bergen/Norway, but has spent long periods in Montreal, Berlin and London over the last ten years. She holds a Masters in Politics and Communication from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a BA in Political Science and Art History from McGill University. After graduating from McGill, Børrea interned at Artexte Information Centre before she moved on to work on various social research projects in Berlin. She recently moved back to Montreal to work as a producer for Ramz Media.