Part IV Access to Protection and International Responsibility-Sharing, Ch.30 Human Trafficking and Refugees

Subject(s):

Non-refoulement

This chapter assesses the interactions between the international trafficking regime and international refugee and human rights law. In practical terms, refugees and other forced migrants can fall victim to trafficking when they travel irregularly in search of protection, or when they seek livelihoods while lacking legal rights, as may arise when they await the outcome of protracted status determination, or live without the right to work. The chapter takes a feminist approach, highlighting the gendered nature of trafficking and the responses thereto. Women and girls are more likely than men and boys to be trafficked, and are also more likely to be trafficked for particular forms of exploitation. The chapter studies the international trafficking regime, a complex and multilayered regime with diverse legal sources; it explores its links with the suppression of mobility and compares the limited rules that protect some refugees and trafficked persons from criminalization. It also highlights the links between trafficking and refugee recognition and looks at the protections provided to both refugees and trafficking victims by ‘general’ international human rights law and the specialist legal regimes concerned with discrimination and violence against women.