Discursive alignment of trafficking, rights and crime control

Abstract Since the 1990s, human trafficking has become battleground for competing discourses on rights and penality. While solutions are generally presented as in opposition to crime-control measures, context of anti-trafficking interventions, rights-based initiatives criminal governance often linked together both discursively practice. Drawing findings Discourse Analysis 120 texts about trafficking, this paper explores how dominant alternative voices construct relationship between It is contended that penality framed a crucial tenet rights. Dominant (the ‘law enforcement’ ‘victims first’ discourses) link state coercive action, seen necessary component their effectiveness. Alternative ‘incompatibility’ ‘transformative justice’ reject appropriateness penal intervention, but they end up preserving what denounce.