Gendered exploitation in the digital border crossing? An analysis of the human trafficking and information technology nexus

Borders in the globalised risk society have long ceased to be simply lines in the sand. They are permeable yet enforced, horizontal and vertical, physical and digital. The claim that human trafficking is innately linked to mobile and information technologies is anything but new. One of the pioneers in exploring the connection between trafficking and information technologies was Donna Hughes, an American abolitionist and prolific scholar on the topic of sex trafficking. Decades of research in terrestrial trafficking led some researchers to believe that when 'states enact law and policy or sign conventions to stop trafficking, they overwhelmingly opt to intensify border and immigration control'. A growing scholarship in social sciences and criminology is scrutinising the appropriation of the women's rights agenda in response to both domestic and cross-border crimes in order to promote conservative law-and-order and exclusionary policies.