Trafficking in Women and Children to India and Thailand

Dr Siddhartha Sarkar (Department of Commerce and Economics, University of North Bengal)

Being a complex phenomenon, the problem of trafficking is profoundly entrenched in the socio-economic, political and cultural reality of the context in which it occurs, although this may not be its immediate cause. The perpetrators are the traffickers about whom relatively little is known. This gap has to be urgently addressed, along with the demand factors, which drive trafficking of women and children. A twin-country comparative perspective in terms of the nature, trends and patterns of trafficking considering this is not as discrete event that is unconnected, but to examine them within the wider framework of human insecurity as structurally dogged. The roles and functions of the formal and voluntary agencies those are involved in containing and combating trafficking within the current international security debate to be analyzed. The inclusion of structures of violence and the role of human agency within this re-conceptualization provides a manageable framework from which human insecurity can be considered, and control violence such as the sex trafficking of women may be understood and examined.

Dr Sarkar received his PhD in Economics (2004) from University of North Bengal, Darjeeling, India (Research Topic: Women and Informal Economy in India). He has previously been a Post Doctoral Fellow and Visiting Professor (2006) in University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Research Topic: Gender, Environment and Health Linkages in Developing Countries), a Senior Post Doctoral and Professorial Fellow (2010) in Thammasat University and Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand (Research Topic: Gender and Human Security in South and Southeast Asia), Senior Post Doctoral Fellow and Visiting Professor (2011) in Corvinus University and Central European University, Hungary (Research Topic: Gender and Human Security in Central Europe). He is currently a Commonwealth Academic Fellow (2013) at SOAS, University of London and Cambridge University, United Kingdom (Research Topic: Sex Trafficking and Human Security in Asia and Europe)
Dr Sarkar is also an Associate Professor and A.C.College of Commerce and Director, Asian School of Management and Technology, West Bengal, India. For more information about his work, see Dr Sarkar blog .

Organiser: Gina Heathcote

Contact email: gh21@soas.ac.uk

Contact Tel: 020 7898 4367