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More than catch phrases and click bait: mutual learning as a tactic for combating the exploitation of migrants

Anti-trafficking campaigns are more concerned with generating clicks than with taking effective action against exploitation. Awareness campaigns must be grounded in the lived experiences and perspectives of their target audience.

By Borislav Gerasimov
More than catch phrases and click bait: mutual learning as a tactic for combating the exploitation of migrants
Work in the community: pre-departure training for women potential migrants in Bangladesh, 2014.
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This is a response to the above debate.

Many public awareness-raising campaigns targeting human trafficking are simplistic by design, since they are oriented towards the largest possible audience. This simplification can result in misleading messages or comical outcomes. In one example from 2015, a campaign in Bulgaria aimed to inform people about human trafficking and exploitation in the agricultural sector in Western Europe. The campaign materials appeared to offer lucrative jobs abroad picking fruit and urged the audience to call a hotline if they thought these job offers were suspicious.

While a flashy, catchy campaign can sometimes reach a lot of people, it may ultimately generate very few meaningful reactions.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0