Border woman: an experience of feminist participatory action research (FPAR) with women victims of human trafficking

Abstract

Trafficking is a highly lucrative crime that affects hundreds of thousands of women all over the World. Most policies to combat trafficking and assist victims are developed for the women but without them. This is a neo-colonial practice that creates imagined victims that are far away from the experience, the needs and the priorities of real victims. This doctoral thesis is the result of a process carried out in four countries with 22 women who have been trafficked. It has been a three year long empowering and decolonising exercise in which the women and the researcher have analysed, reflected and finally challenged mainstream protocols and handbooks to combat trafficking, leading to suggestions for alternative approaches. The process has been conducted using a feminist participatory-action-research (FPAR) methodology that has allowed the women to establish a horizontal dialogue with feminist and postcolonial scholars.