Trafficking in Human Beings and Foucauldian Biopower

Trafficking in human beings has become one of the most talked about criminal concerns of the 21st century. But there is more. Trafficking has also been declared one of the most pressing human rights issues of our time. As such, it has become a part of the expansion of the human rights phenomenon. In Trafficking in Human Beings and Foucauldian Biopower: A case study in the expansion of the human rights phenomenon, Ukri Soirila examines the reasons for, and consequences of, formulating the anti-trafficking campaign in human rights language. Drawing from Foucauldian theory of biopower and Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of bare life and homo sacer, Soirila argues that the human rights approach is a double-edged sword, but that the human rights language can nevertheless provide unidentified, excluded victims of trafficking the tools to formulate political claims and to challenge the exclusive and depoliticising concept of ‘victim of trafficking’ or to continuously redraw its borders.