Anti-trafficking awareness campaigns share many features with fake news and alternative facts. While the latter are derided, campaigns continue to be widely celebrated despite their serious flaws.
Public awareness campaigns targeting human trafficking can be messy and imperfect, but we also see positive examples grounded in respect and lived experiences rather than in rescue attempts by self-appointed saviours.
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.
Public awareness campaigns have lots to say about sex trafficking, but often fail to reach communities directly impacted by trafficking or to complement programmes that help survivors.
Anti-trafficking campaigns can help to tip the scales towards justice, but they will only succeed if they are grounded in the lived experiences of survivors and oriented towards systemic solutions.
Campaigns to raise public awareness have limitations, but they are also constantly being refined and improved. They must be regarded as a key first step on the road to more mature forms of engagement.
Efforts to raise awareness about human trafficking contribute to a save and rescue rhetoric that helps little, yet renders the lives of sex workers and minors in the sex trade unsafe.
It can be hard to say what works, but we need an enduring commitment to empowerment and self-liberation rather than unhelpful images of pleading hands and whipped backs.
While broad-scale awareness raising tactics have succeeded in generating public interest in human trafficking, they also come with negative consequences.
Raising awareness campaigns may be motivated by good intentions, but how much do they actually accomplish? What are the costs and benefits of campaigns? What works and doesn’t work? How can we know?
