The Victim, the Villain and the Rescuer: the trafficking of women and contemporary abolition

A term as morally and politically loaded as ‘modern day slave trade’ inevitably provokes strong and emotive responses. From the current Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) (Antonio Guterres) to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Theresa May) world leaders have identified human trafficking and slavery as an issue of pressing international concern. The legal understanding of migration (whether legal or illegal, across national borders or internally) has, the article maintains, been constructed in a specific way, serving specific interests. The current ‘migration crisis’ in Europe demonstrates how the key actors are the same, namely, the victim, villain and the rescuer. The purpose of this paper is to critique the influence of The New Abolitionists movement on contemporary responses to female migration; and through applying a gender lens to the movement it will investigate whether their narratives further drives the gender inequalities that plague the migration framework.