Annotated Bibliography: Child Slave Trafficking

Diniz, Veridiana Bessa Franciozo, and Jody Lynn McBrien. “Children and Drug Trafficking in Brazil: Can International Humanitarian Law Provide Protections for Children Involved in Drug Trafficking?” Societies, vol. 12, no. 6, 6 Dec. 2022, p. 183, https://doi.org/10.3390/soc12060183.

Diniz and McBrien discuss the above issue where Brazilian children involved in narcotrafficking cannot be referred to as child soldiers since drug trafficking is different from armed conflict as described in international humanitarian law. They also think that the application of the child soldier label may be equal to its utilization and could distort the legal and policy framework. From the paper, Diniz and McBrien conclude that socio-economic and local community interventions would be more suitable for preventing the vulnerabilities of children as a population. Both authors can conclude that, although the IHL intends to protect the children, there is no applicable framework for the OC's context and call for developing a more appropriate socio-legal approach.

Segarra, Paulina, and Ajnesh Prasad. “Undocumented Immigrants at Work: Invisibility, Hypervisibility, and the Making of the Modern Slave.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, vol. 11, no. 1, 3 Jan. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02449-5.

In Segarra and Prasad's article Undocumented Immigrants and the Struggle for Recognition of Their Socio-legal Identity and Labor Rights, the argument against framing Brazilian children as drug trafficking child soldiers is implicit, as the article raises complicated issues of identity and labor exploitation. Some scholars note that such children are better referred to as social and economic outcasts, child laborers, but not child soldiers or participants in an armed conflict. Based on this misclassification, Segarra and Prasad presume that targeted policies to empower women may entail and perpetrate "ineffectual and pale mimicry of activism measures that do not address the exploitation processes." The authors can, therefore, conclude that socio-economic conditions need enhancement and that legal shields should be offered based on their circumstances.

Turanjanin, Veljko, and Jelena Stanisavljević. “Human Trafficking and Forced Prostitution under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights.” German Law Journal, 29 Jan. 2024, pp. 1–27, https://doi.org/10.1017/glj.2023.98.

Turanjanin and Stanisavljević speak about human trafficking and forced prostitution in connection with Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights and assert that these scenarios practically cannot be identified with the armed conflict that involved child soldiers. In this respect, they stress that the legal instruments relating to human trafficking and forced prostitution are more pertinent to the exploitation of children in narco-trafficking. For Turnjanin and Stanisavljević, when the intended initial technique to identify and support child soldiers is applied to other groups of people, it weakens the universal law and its enforcement. They argue that more specific rules should be addressed to address the problem of human trafficking and labor exploitation to ensure that these children are adequately protected.

Analysis and Reflection

These three articles provide strong reasoning against the positioning of Brazilian children involved in narco-trafficking as child soldiers. Similar to other researchers such as Diniz and McBrien, there is a call to distinguish the characterization of drug trafficking as different from armed conflict; the authors also suggest interventions related to socio-economic and community development instead of focusing on the child soldiers’ label. Segarra and Prasad are equally sensitive to the challenges of socio-legal subjectivities and labor abuse, arguing that these children are victims and not warriors. There are works, such as the ones written by Turanjanin and Stanisavljević, which insist on this concept from a legal perspective, pointing out that the frameworks of human trafficking and forced prostitution are more relevant to such child exploitation.

The authors counter my argument by distinguishing between organized crime and armed conflict, emphasizing the need to adapt the strategies labeled as organized crime according to the context, and defining the legal concept of each activity very restrictively. From such an assumption, they deduce that categorization mistakes might prompt undesired policy measures and legal issues that stifle attempts to eradicate the causes and aid those in need. Such realizations call for non-reductionist, interdisciplinary approaches to multifaceted social justice concerns, thus underscoring the significance of paying sufficient attention to the meanings and strategies concerning safeguarding children.