“To Promote the Universal Values of Human Dignity,” A Roadmap
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Published:September 2024
Chapter 4 examines the victim identification protocols presented to the Japanese government by the US government as necessary for meeting TIP Report standards. Drawn from an IOM handbook on trafficking victim assistance, these protocols are one example of the guidance culture structuring the enactment of the UN’s global counter–human trafficking campaign. The chapter focuses on the explicitly acknowledged inconsistencies and contradictions of these recommended guidelines, asking what they accomplish for this campaign and whom these accomplishments serve. It argues, first, that these guidelines endeavor to produce uniformity across agencies and sites, creating the effect of a single, unified global counter–human trafficking project. Second, the chapter maintains that as these guidelines articulate the fight against human trafficking as a globally scalable everyday protocol, they also restrict who can in practice be assisted under the UN Trafficking Protocol and turn procedural conformity into cover for recognized procedural inadequacies.