CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2008
| Author | Sushko, Iryna Leonidivna |
|---|---|
| Title | Challenging the Discourse on Trafficking in Ukraine: Including the Cultural Dimension and Problematizing Women's "Consent" |
| Summary | This research identifies and questions several key characteristics of the dominant public discourse on trafficking in Ukraine. It focuses on two issues: firstly, on introducing the cultural dimension of trafficking, which has been mentioned but not sufficiently studied in the existing literature and, secondly, on problematizing the binary approach taken in the public discourse in Ukraine of consensual migration vs. non consensual trafficking. For this purpose the interviews conducted by the anti-trafficking NGO La Strada with 23 trafficked women upon their arrival back to Ukraine have been analyzed. The content analysis, used as a main tool of research, has shown that first, apart from economic factors that shaped these interviewed women’s decision to leave Ukraine there was also a cultural dimension that included the legacy of the socialist ideology, the post-1991 transitional period with the import of “western glamour”, the psychological climate in the family, etc. Second, the analysis of the interviews has shown that in all 23 cases the trafficked women did give their express consent to traffickers either verbally or in a written form. This shows that trafficking could be a “voluntary” act, but that, in turn, does NOT mean that the trafficked women consented to be exploited, abused, etc. My analysis of the La Strada’s interviews also shows that the 23 trafficked women tried to frame their narrations as retrospective justification of consent and according to the pattern created by the public discourse in order to reintegrate back into their families and communities. |
| Supervisor | De Haan, Francisca |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2008/sushko_iryna.pdf |
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