Alicia Peters contributes chapter to new book on human trafficking

Alicia Peters, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Society, Culture, and Languages, has contributed a chapter to the recently published book,Human Trafficking Reconsidered: Rethinking the Problem, Envisioning New Solutions.

The volume, commissioned by the Open Society Institute and edited by Kimberly Kay Hoang and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, examines the definition of trafficking, analyzes the effectiveness of current anti-trafficking regimes, and discusses the challenges faced by anti-trafficking advocates on the ground. The book is intended to reach a broad audience and will be distributed to high school students across the country.

Peters' chapter, “Challenging the Sex/Labor Trafficking Dichotomy with Victim Experience,” examines the gap between popular and law enforcement perceptions of trafficking and the actual experiences of survivors. Drawing on two and one half years of ethnographic fieldwork, the chapter argues that the narratives of trafficking survivors call into question distinctions between “sex” and “non-sex” trafficking and contest the view of sex trafficking as uniquely harmful or “worse” than any other form of trafficking.

The chapter concludes with a call to look at the full spectrum of survivor experience and draw on survivor narratives to inform policy development, to educate law enforcement, and to help forge a deeper understanding of human trafficking more generally.

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