Sine Plambech | Danish Institute For International Studies (original) (raw)

Papers by Sine Plambech

Jordens Folk, 2019

Thailandske kvinders migration på film. Metode, etik og udfordringer når forskning bliver til film.

Springer eBooks, Oct 12, 2017

The chapter sheds ethnographic light on the post-deportee phase among Nigerian sex-worker migrant... more The chapter sheds ethnographic light on the post-deportee phase among Nigerian sex-worker migrants. Scholars have previously pointed to the ways in which anti-trafficking efforts unwittingly support the deportation of migrant sex-workers under the guise of securing women’s protection. They further reveal how the interventions that take place in the name of protecting women migrants often complicate the women’s situation, or even work against their interests. The ethnographic fieldwork, on which this chapter is based, extends these insights by shedding light on the particular gendered aspects of this post-deportee phase of migratory trajectories, practices, and policies.

Security Dialogue, Dec 2, 2022

Set at the intersection of debt and deportability, this article analyses how undocumented migrant... more Set at the intersection of debt and deportability, this article analyses how undocumented migrant sex workers in Europe navigate deportability and its effects. While sex trafficking into the EU has received mounting attention as part of global migration dynamics, the role of debt in the lives of migrant women has been overlooked. The migrant women in this study arrive in Europe heavily indebted after traveling through the Sahara Desert and across the Mediterranean, or via migration facilitators in Southeast Asia, to find work in the European sex industry. Their deportation might therefore entail returning to their home countries still indebted. The article draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the home areas of two of the largest groups of undocumented migrant sex workers in Europe –Thailand’s Isaan province and Benin City in Nigeria’s Edo State – where women’s migration has become a familiar social phenomenon. Moving away from either a criminalizing or a victimizing framework for understanding sex-work migration, I argue for the concept of ‘indentured sex-work migration’ as a meaningful corrective to the narrative on sex trafficking and that the situation of ‘indebted deportation’ need to be better understood within the study of contemporary border control and security.

Feminist Review, Jul 1, 2017

Feminist Economics, May 17, 2016

This contribution explores the economies interlinked by the migration of Nigerian women sex worke... more This contribution explores the economies interlinked by the migration of Nigerian women sex workers. The literature and politics of sex work migration and human trafficking economies are commonly relegated to the realm that focuses on profits for criminal networks and pimps, in particular recirculating the claim that human trafficking is the "third largest" criminal economy after drugs and weapons. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Nigerian sex worker migrants conducted in Benin City, Nigeria, in 2011 and 2012, this study brings together four otherwise isolated migration economies-facilitation, remittances, deportation, and rescue-and suggests that we have to examine multiple sites and relink these in order to more fully understand the complexity of sex work migration. Drawing upon literature within transnational feminist analysis, critical human trafficking studies, and migration industry research, this study seeks to broaden our current understanding of the "economy of human trafficking."

Routledge eBooks, Dec 7, 2021

Wagadu: a Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies, 2008

I dette nummer er følgnde bøger blevet anmeldt:Jo Doezema: Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters – The... more I dette nummer er følgnde bøger blevet anmeldt:Jo Doezema: Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters – The Construction of Trafficking. Zed Books. London & New York. 2010.Naila Kabeer et al (eds.): Global Perspectives on Gender Equality. Reversing the Gaze. Routledge. 2008.Jane Parpart and Marysia Zalewski (eds.): Rethinking the Man Question. Sex, Gender and Violence in International Relations. Zed Books, 2008

Security Dialogue

Concern about the politisation of humanitarian principles and action is not new. As conflicts and... more Concern about the politisation of humanitarian principles and action is not new. As conflicts and emergencies have become ever more complex and the desire to hinder derived effects of cross-border movements by just about any means possible has intensified, humanitarian organisations and the work they do have nevertheless attracted increasing critical scrutiny, both within the organisations as well as from various external quarters including both governments and academics (albeit on different grounds).

The Report ‘Global perspectives on humanitarianism: When human welfare meets the political and security agendas’ is based oncomprehensive research undertaken in Europe, Latin America and Asia. It takesissue with various questions and dilemmas emerging from humanitarian relief practices. Can you avoid political instrumentalization when reducing harm withoutchanging the structures that produce harm in the first place (e.g. poverty, war or insecurity)?What happens to humanitarianism when those in need of protection have different perspectives on the kinds of interventions that would relive them from suffering (e.g. access to asylum and work rather than food provisions)? And what critical lessons can be learned from exploring the wider effects of rescuing migrants from high-risk journeys as part of the governance of global migration?

Apart from an introduction to humanitarianism in the context of global migration and refugee movements, the report consists of three individual case studies focusing on respectively humanitarianism enacted on the maritime EU border in the central Mediterranean; a variety of recent state-defined migration crises in Latin America deriving from Cuban, Haitian and Venezuelan mass migrations combined with massive forced return movements of nationals deported from the United States and Europe; and, finally, the tensions between asylum seekers and the organisations that pledge to assist them in Hong Kong. Together, the contributions raise important questions of the directions humanitarianism may take during moments defined as ‘crisis’.

When we first set out to record the views of women who had returned from trafficking-related expl... more When we first set out to record the views of
women who had returned from trafficking-related
exploitation abroad we expected a fairly predicable
and universal response – one of relief at being
back in their native countries and an emotional
fulfilment from reunification with their families.
What we discovered was that returning home
carried with it a complex set of difficulties for
these women – some new and some exactly the
same as before they left. In fact, many had
returned after years abroad, some penniless, and
most facing the same set of real-life difficulties
that prompted their outbound migration in the
first place.
Going back – Moving on: A synthesis report of the trends
and experiences of returned trafficking victims in Thailand
and the Philippines studies the issues, obstacles and
opportunities related to the return and integration
of women migrants from Thailand and the
Philippines. It uncovers a variety of exploitative
situations abroad and the complications many
women faced upon their return.

In recent decades, news media all over the world have increasingly covered the issue of human tra... more In recent decades, news media all over the world have increasingly covered the issue of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a notoriously complex subject involving migration, border politics, gender, consent, agency and morality. Yet, simplistic ideas and framings of human trafficking often end up shaping broader understandings of human trafficking in policy and the public sphere.

This report is written by DIIS Senior Researcher Sine Plambech and journalist Maria Brus Pedersen. The aim is not only to provide insights into the framing of human trafficking in the Danish media, but furthermore to serve as a learning tool for journalists covering human trafficking. An analysis of this type has not been undertaken in Denmark before and thus provides the reader with new insights into the evolution of how the Danish media framed human trafficking from 2010 to 2019.

The report has three main findings:
First, the framing of human trafficking in the Danish media has changed significantly over the past decade, from mainly covering human trafficking solely as a matter of prostitution and a human rights issue for women in 2010 to becoming an issue of migration with security and legal implications in 2019. As such there has been a development away from a focus on women’s ‘bodies’ to a focus on ‘borders’ and migration politics.

Secondly, in comparison to 2010, today the media more commonly describe the trafficking of men to forced labor and human trafficking generally to other sectors than prostitution. Yet, the framing continues to be significantly gendered. Though identified victims of trafficking in Denmark are most usually migrants, the men are framed primarily as migrant workers in exploitative situations, whereas the women are described as victims of trafficking. This gendered framing derives primarily from the perspective that prostitution is victimizing by default and is not seen as a kind of work.

Thirdly, despite the more nuanced framing, a simplistic sensationalist language still risks dehumanizing and overshadowing the complexity of human trafficking. In particular, this is because it is the media, rather than those who have been identified as victims of trafficking, who use these terms to describe their situation, as some of the journalists also confirmed.

The report has a number of suggestions for journalists covering issues of human trafficking, some of them being;

Be cautious with language. There is often a difference between the language used by politicians and NGOs and the language used by migrant workers to describe their situations. Sensationalist language like ‘prostitutes’, ‘sex slaves’ and ‘meat markets’ are loaded terms that contribute to marginalization and stigmatization.
Migrant workers are not only victims of trafficking, they have agency in respect of their own migration trajectories: the one does not exclude the other.
Human trafficking can be used as a yardstick for many different political agendas: consider which agendas you might be contributing to.
Consider using counter narratives, activist reporting and investigative journalism as these approaches contribute to expanding our understanding of human trafficking.
This report is published by DIIS · Danish Institute for International Studies with funding from the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), in partnership with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Saliou receives a call from his two younger brothers living in a rural town in Casamance, Senegal... more Saliou receives a call from his two younger brothers living in a rural town in Casamance, Senegal. They wish to come to Dakar to discuss their plans to migrate. Saliou has experience: he returned two years ago, though thirty kilograms lighter than when he left Senegal, after attempting to reach Italy through Libya. He never made it to Europe but instead was held for ransom by bandits for nine months in a prison in Libya, where he survived on meagre food rations, was forced to work without pay, and saw other migrants killed when their families were unable to pay a ransom. Saliou’s family did not have money either, and although he had more luck and was not killed, he still felt like a slave. After a while he stopped believing that he would ever get out alive. But he did, and eventually managed to come back to Senegal under the International Organization for Migration (IOM) programme of assisting stranded migrants to return to their home communities.
When his two younger brothers arrive to see Saliou in Dakar a few days after their phone call, they are eager to know everything about the migration route. Their plan is to embark within days on an overland journey to reach Morocco and try to cross over into Spain. Saliou listens carefully and explains everything he knows, emphasising that they should never let themselves be tricked into going to Libya, be ready to see and experience anything, and never trust anybody, even people they come to consider friends. However, after learning that they have only saved half the money they would need for the journey, Saliou convinces them that they will face too many problems without the extra funds and that it is better for them to return home and continue their studies. The two young men are disappointed but decide to follow their brother’s advice, at least until they manage to save the rest of the money.

Information about migration and the journey ahead is not only shared by experienced migrants like Saliou. Alongside concrete efforts to manage African migration to Europe through enhanced border controls and return and readmission agreements, information campaigns aimed at discouraging young Africans from migrating have become an increasingly popular policy measure. Especially in the wake and aftermath of the 2015 refugee crisis, the European Union (EU) and European nation states have been investing in campaigns that aim to influence people’s aspirations to migrate and stop unwanted migration (Carling and Collins 2018). Similar efforts are made by humanitarian organisations, with the intention of decreasing migrants’ vulnerability and saving lives. As such, information campaigns cover a wide spectrum of interests, from political deterrence strategies to humanitarian concerns. But what kinds of information do migrants rely on and can they contribute to saving migrants’ lives and reducing vulnerabilities en route?
This report aims to provide nuanced answers to these questions by focusing on how migrants select, access, and use information when leaving their home communities and while moving along the often dangerous migration routes to North Africa or Europe. As migration from West African countries has for decades been an intrinsic part of society and of families’ survival and livelihood strategies, our approach has been to identify both the ‘strengths’ and ‘vulnerabilities’ in migrants’ experiences, which is crucial to providing adequate humanitarian assistance. In doing so, we also identify the perpetrators who cause the abuses and create the situations of vulnerability along the migration routes. For instance, in current European policy debates, migrant smugglers are often portrayed as those actors who are most responsible for putting migrants’ lives at risk. In this report, we ask whom the migrants consider the perpetrators and question the one-sided policy figure of the ‘unscrupulous violent smuggler’. We hope that the report’s findings and the key dilemmas concerning trust and information-sharing en route can spark debate and inform humanitarian actors and policy-makers about how to improve assistance to migrants who, like Saliou, end up in vulnerable situations, and how potentially to create safer migration alternatives.

Set at the intersection of debt and deportability, this article analyses how undocumented migrant... more Set at the intersection of debt and deportability, this article analyses how undocumented migrant sex workers in Europe navigate deportability and its effects. While sex trafficking into the EU has received mounting attention as part of global migration dynamics, the role of debt in the lives of migrant women has been overlooked. The migrant women in this study arrive in Europe heavily indebted after traveling through the Sahara Desert and across the Mediterranean, or via migration facilitators in Southeast Asia, to find work in the European sex industry. Their deportation might therefore entail returning to their home countries still indebted. The article draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the home areas of two of the largest groups of undocumented migrant sex workers in Europe-Thailand's Isaan province and Benin City in Nigeria's Edo State-where women's migration has become a familiar social phenomenon. Moving away from either a criminalizing or a victimizing framework for understanding sex-work migration, I argue for the concept of 'indentured sex-work migration' as a meaningful corrective to the narrative on sex trafficking and that the situation of 'indebted deportation' need to be better understood within the study of contemporary border control and security.

Report , 2022

This report explores the interconnections between trafficking, sex work and reproductive health a... more This report explores the interconnections between trafficking, sex work and
reproductive health along the West African–European corridor. Fifty-one women were interviewed at different points of their journeys from Nigeria and Ivory Coast through Niger, Tunisia, Libya, across the Mediterranean to Italy and onwards to Northern Europe.
Moving away from the do not migrate message, this project draws on migrant women’s experiences to develop better harm reduction measures, with a special focus on reproductive health along the route. The argument that women are using ‘anchor babies’ to exploit humanitarian systems ignores how difficult it can be to reach Europe without getting pregnant, given the high level of sexual violence en route. Irregular migrant women face exclusion from reproductive healthcare and stress their need for assistance and information services.
The report applies a trafficking-migration continuum to understand how categories of forced, voluntary or irregular migration will vary according to political and moral values. While often overlooked, debt plays a central role in the migratory experience.
With the term indentured sex work migration, we switch the focus from human trafficking to a labour migration actively organised by women.

Jordens Folk, 2019

Thailandske kvinders migration på film. Metode, etik og udfordringer når forskning bliver til film.

Springer eBooks, Oct 12, 2017

Security Dialogue, Dec 2, 2022

Feminist Review, Jul 1, 2017

Feminist Economics, May 17, 2016

Routledge eBooks, Dec 7, 2021

Wagadu: a Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies, 2008

Security Dialogue

The report has a number of suggestions for journalists covering issues of human trafficking, some of them being;

Set at the intersection of debt and deportability, this article analyses how undocumented migrant... more Set at the intersection of debt and deportability, this article analyses how undocumented migrant sex workers in Europe navigate deportability and its effects. While sex trafficking into the EU has received mounting attention as part of global migration dynamics, the role of debt in the lives of migrant women has been overlooked. The migrant women in this study arrive in Europe heavily indebted after traveling through the Sahara Desert and across the Mediterranean, or via migration facilitators in Southeast Asia, to find work in the European sex industry. Their deportation might therefore entail returning to their home countries still indebted. The article draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the home areas of two of the largest groups of undocumented migrant sex workers in Europe-Thailand's Isaan province and Benin City in Nigeria's Edo State-where women's migration has become a familiar social phenomenon. Moving away from either a criminalizing or a victimizing framework for understanding sex-work migration, I argue for the concept of 'indentured sex-work migration' as a meaningful corrective to the narrative on sex trafficking and that the situation of 'indebted deportation' need to be better understood within the study of contemporary border control and security.

Report , 2022

The authors are all part of the Gender, Justice, and Neoliberal Transformations Project at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, Barnard College, Columbia University, USA., 2022

From the rise of far-right regimes to the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic, recent years have brou... more From the rise of far-right regimes to the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic, recent years have brought global upheaval as well as the sedimentation of longstanding social inequalities. Analyzing the complexities of the current political moment in different geographic regions, this book addresses the paradoxical persistence of neoliberal policies and practices, in order to ground the pursuit of a more just world. Engaging theories of decoloniality, racial capitalism, queer materialism, and social reproduction, this book demonstrates the centrality of sexual politics to neoliberalism, including both social relations and statecraft. Drawing on ethnographic case studies, the authors show that gender and sexuality may be the site for policies like those pertaining to sex trafficking, which bundle together economics and changes to the structure of the state. In other instances, sexual politics are crucial components of policies on issues ranging from the growth of financial services to migration. Tracing the role of sexual politics across different localities and through different political domains, this book delineates the paradoxical assemblage that makes up contemporary neoliberal hegemony. In addition to exploring contemporary social relations of neoliberal governance, exploitation, domination, and exclusion, the authors also consider gender and sexuality as forces that have shaped myriad forms of community-based activism and resistance, including local efforts to pursue new forms of social change. By tracing neoliberal paradoxes across global sites, the book delineates the multiple dimensions of economic and cultural restructuring that have characterized neoliberal regimes and emergent activist responses to them. This innovative analysis of the relationship between gender justice and political economy will appeal to: interdisciplinary scholars in social and cultural studies; legal and political theorists; and the wide range of readers who are concerned with contemporary questions of social justice.

" Rich in ethnographic case studies, this excellent volume is part of a growing trend among criti... more " Rich in ethnographic case studies, this excellent volume is part of a growing trend among critical academics who shed light on the other side of deportation. The different chapters trace, document and analyze diverse deportation trajectories, following the lives of those who suffered forceful or " voluntarily " removal from the societies where they thought and hoped they could live their lives. Contributors manage to strike an inspiring balance between, on the one hand, unique insight into the economic and social hardship that is involved in post-deportation existences, and, on the other hand, astute attention to the creative agency of those who must reinvent their lives after an abrupt physical, emotional and geographical interruption cause by deportation. " —Barak Kalir, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands " Too often deportation has been imagined from the point of view of the states and societies from which people are expelled. But what happens to people after they are deported? What forms of life do they create in the countries to which they are sent? What dangers and challenges do they encounter following 'removal'? Theoretically nuanced, empirically rich, and geographically diverse, the essays collected in After Deportation fundamentally rethink the time and space of deportation. This book greatly enriches our understanding of post-deportation worlds. " —William Walters, Carleton University, Canada This book analyses post-deportation outcomes and focuses on what happens to migrants and failed asylum seekers after deportation. Although there is a growing literature on detention and deportation, academic research on post-deportation is scarce. The book produces knowledge about the consequences of forced removal for deportee's adjustment and " reintegration " in so-called " home " country. As the pattern of migration changes, new research approaches are needed. This book contributes to establish a more multifaceted picture of criminalization of migration and adds novel aspects and approaches, both theoretically and empirically, to the field of migration research.

This book analyses post-deportation outcomes and focuses on what happens to migrants and failed a... more This book analyses post-deportation outcomes and focuses on what happens to migrants and failed asylum seekers after deportation. Although there is a growing literature on detention and deportation, academic research on post-deportation is scarce. The book produces knowledge about the consequences of forced removal for deportee's adjustment and " reintegration " in so-called " home " country. As the pattern of migration changes, new research approaches are needed. This book contributes to establish a more multifaceted picture of criminalization of migration and adds novel aspects and approaches, both theoretically and empirically, to the field of migration research.

What is the biggest problem for sex workers? Is it sex work in itself? Is it violence and abusive... more What is the biggest problem for sex workers? Is it sex work in itself? Is it violence and abusive clients? Chi Adanna Mgbako argues that when we listen to the multiplicity of sex worker voices, we learn that violence is not inherent to prostitution. We also learn that the main problem for sex workers is not their job as such, nor their clients. The source of abuse lies elsewhere—it is structural. Abuse follows laws and policies that criminalise sex work and thereby marginalise sex workers. Yet, within the midst of violence, discrimination and stigma, Chi Adanna Mgbako's important book is also about how surprising and beautiful responses emerge. The introductory descriptions of the loud and fearless crowds stomping through the streets of Nairobi during the 17 December protest March in 2012, 1 carrying red umbrellas and rainbow-coloured flags, paint a symbolic picture of the developments that African sex worker movements have undergone over the last decade. Three years earlier, the protest was a silent March, but now sex workers throughout Africa are no longer quiet. With the recent release of Amnesty International's policy of decriminalisation of adult sex work, the topic of decriminalisation is as heated as ever. To Live Freely in This World, which centres on the African sex worker movements fighting for decriminalisation of sex work, is thus highly topical, not only because it presents compelling arguments about the consequences of the illegality of sex work for people in the business, but also because it is built on the voices of the actual people involved: the sex workers. Mgbako pushes back against the dangerous notion that all sex workers want to be rescued from sex work, because at times those who want to rescue sex workers from sex work—for instance abolitionist, anti-trafficking saviours—end up being the biggest problem. Such rescuing may end up in deportation or leave sex workers more financially vulnerable. In fact, Mgbako finds that no reliable data suggest that rehabilitation programmes in Africa, or elsewhere, succeed in either implementing alternative livelihoods or reducing violations of sex worker rights. Mgbako is a woman of Nigerian heritage, an Africanist, human rights law professor and advocate who works in solidarity with sex worker activists. The argument presented in the book, by both Mgbako and the activists she interviews, is that sex work should be regarded as legitimate work and decriminalised in order to secure sex workers from violence and violations of their rights.