The Role of Anti-trafficking Organizations in Human Trafficking Policy Implementation

It is always nice to see an article I worked on for months finally published. Especially since most academic articles go through two reviewers, editors, and numerous revisions that it such a sense of accomplishment when it finally appears in print. I started working on this article "The Role of Anti-trafficking Organizations in Human Trafficking Policy Implementation" back in April 2015 and it was finally published this week (almost a year later) in a special issue on Modern Slavery and Extreme Exploitation in Globalised Labour and Gender Relations of Femina Politica: Feminist Journal of Political Science.

The paper examines how human trafficking non-governmental and international organizations in the Post-Soviet region act in forming norms and values contributing to the implementation of international law into national law. Utilizing most similar case studies of Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia, the article begins by addressing three ways NGOs have helped guide policy implementation focusing on monitoring implementation, building and shaping anti-trafficking institutions, and strengthening government capacity. It also discusses the constraints that impede this type of assistance in all three countries. This paper demonstrates the ways NGOs have held governments accountable when this implementation has fallen short and by doing this, have helped instill international norms and values related to human trafficking into society. NGOs in these states succeeded with alterations in legal regulations and contributed to public awareness of human trafficking by cooperation with international organizations.

It was my first solo authored piece from my dissertation fieldwork and it is exciting to see all of that hard work pay off. It is also appropriate because it was the first opportunity I had to go back over the implementation findings from my research and it is great to reflect on that as I work on the implementation chapter for my book. If you would like to read the article you can access it here.