Set in a context of migration causes and migrant laborer exploitation, human trafficking represents a global security challenge. The complexities of exploitation and trafficking-related risks migrant ...laborers experience remain too broad for the narrow framework of forced trafficking alone. Furthermore, it may be counterproductive to isolate trafficked people from the rest of undocumented migrants because the label often assumes victimization and overlooks exploitation among willing migrants. This study uses the country example of Thailand to demonstrate how a paradigm of human trafficking alone cannot fully address the trafficking-related vulnerabilities and exploitation the majority of irregular migrants face. Thailand hosts model anti-trafficking initiatives, yet the risks and problems associated with trafficking continue. Fortunately, Thailand also hosts development initiatives targeting root causes of certain vulnerabilities associated with trafficking. This study suggests that anti-trafficking efforts’ broader collaboration with development efforts would best address the interconnected vulnerabilities associated with irregular migration. The example of street children and their exploitation offers a possible venue for anti-trafficking efforts and collaborative development efforts.
For various reasons, irregular migration has become a more frequent phenomenon during the last decades. Without going deeper into the globalising context of growing and changing migration tendencies ...in different parts of the world, it should be remarked that this topic is gaining attention. Until recently, there was only a limited amount of scientific evidence on irregular migration (with a focus on clandestine activities such as human trafficking and smuggling). But these days, in Western societies there are humanitarian and social problems related to the growth of this group, problems which have stimulated political discussion. This has subsequently led to scientific research on the subject. Irregular migrants have become visible in our everyday lives. They defend their rights in self-help groups, protest marches and hunger strikes and they are visible in the streets: we are all familiar with the salesman in the Pakistani night shop, the East-European or South-American cleaning lady in the hotel, the gipsy woman begging for money. These clichés provide prototypical examples of the role irregular migrants play in the public imagination. As a consequence of this situation, both politicians and scientists want to ‘grab hold’ of what is happening and to acquire an overview of the state of affairs. Predominantly short-term government-driven research is flourishing.
A canonical text of the history of science, more in particular of educational research, reads as follows: ‘One cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth ...century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost’ (Lagemann, 2000, p. xi). Apart from whether or not one agrees with this bold claim (see, among others, Depaepe, 2010; Gibboney, 2006; Tomlinson, 1997), one has to admit that the kind of research that uses quantitative, i.e. statistical techniques, has gained most prestige in the 20th century (see, among others, Depaepe, 1993; Wooldridge, 1994; Richardson & Johanningmeier, 1997; Porter & Ross, 2003; Johanningmeier & Richardson, 2008). Various often interrelated factors are responsible for this, such as the belief in and the acceptance of the assumptions of positivism, the institutional growth of the educational market, the so-called scientisation of educational research, the professionalisation and academisation of the training of education(al)ists, the supremacy of meritocratic values in modern societies and the constant need to legitimate these by ‘objective’ and ‘neutral’ research. Unlike his colleague Dewey, with whom he worked for more than 40 years at the renowned Teachers College, University of Columbia, New York, Thorndike embraced this ‘trendy direction’ of educational research. In 1968 Thorndike’s biographer admiringly described him as the sane positivist (Jonçich, 1968). As a ‘cult figure’ Thorndike was the sign of the ‘new’ world with which the old continent could not keep pace: ‘… while Europeans were exploring the subjective and personal dimensions of experiences – using the eyes and insights of Bergson, Freud and Van Gogh – Americans are keeping their art representational, their novels realistic, making their philosophy empirical, their historiography scientific, and above all, their psychology behavioral’ (Jonçich, 1968, p. 55).
