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Biography

Monique Emser, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Discipline of Political Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. She has been involved in counter-trafficking research and practice for close to two decades, serving on both national and international anti-trafficking civil society networks, such as the G-100 Women’s Anti-Human Trafficking Wing and the steering committee of the UNODC UNTOC SE4U South Africa: National Civil Society Alliance, where she chairs the Human Trafficking Working Group.

Abstract

The crime-conflict nexus has been well-documented in conflict-affected and post-conflict states. Criminal networks make use of manifold methods and strategies to exploit individual and structural vulnerabilities, particularly those affected by war, displacement, and precarious migration journeys, forming the backbone of most conflict-induced trafficking ecosystems, whether in countries of origin, transit, or receipt. This article examines the intersection of sex trafficking, diaspora communities, and organized crime within South Africa as a receiving state from a civil society perspective. It underscores the deficiencies in traditional, reductionist, enforcement-based approaches to counter-trafficking by the state, where nested subsystems, such as those produced by endemic corruption, create negative feedback loops amplifying harm. The article advocates leveraging community-based interventions which prioritize the experiential knowledge of affected populations to complement regulatory systems.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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