INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE

INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE Assignment task: For this assignment you are asked to analyse 3 different texts, all being concerned with the United Nationsand its agencies, on the topic of human trafficking. Please answer each of the questions below individually: 1. Analyse the structure, content, audience, use of stylistic devices and communication frames in the three communication artefacts. Comment on similarities and differences and identify which, in your view, is more effective in achieving its communication aim and why. (750 words) 2. Based on these three communication artefacts, can it be argued that the UN and its agencies have a unified communication approach on the topic of human trafficking? Use examples from the texts to support your arguments. (750 words) Total number of words: 1,500 words (+-10%) Style of referencing: Harvard First Class standard Text 1 Secretary-General's Message for 2016 All over the world, tens of millions of people are desperately seeking refuge, many of them far from home and even farther from safety. Migrants and refugees face imposing physical obstacles and bureaucratic barriers. Sadly, they are also vulnerable to human rights violations and exploitation by human traffickers. Human traffickers prey on the most desperate and vulnerable. To end this inhumane practice, we must do more to shield migrants and refugees -- and particularly young people, women and children -- from those who would exploit their yearnings for a better, safer and more dignified future. We must govern migration in a safe and rights-based way, create sufficient and accessible pathways for the entry of migrants and refugees, and ultimately tackle the root causes of the conflicts -- extreme poverty, environmental degradation and other crises which force people across borders, seas and deserts. These issues will be central to the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, to be held in New York on 19 September 2016. This meeting aims amongst other goals to win renewed commitment for intensified efforts to combat human trafficking and smuggling of migrants and refugees, ensure protection and assistance for the victims of trafficking and of abusive smuggling, as well as all those who suffer human rights violations and abuse in the course of large movements, and promote respect for international law, standards and frameworks. I call on every nation -- whether country of origin, transit or destination -- to recognize our shared responsibility. As a first step, we need a strong legal basis for action. I encourage all States to adopt and implement the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its protocol on human trafficking as well as all core international human rights instruments. On this World Day against Trafficking in Persons, I urge everyone to recommit to protect, respect and fulfil the human rights of all migrants and refugees. Creating and supporting well-governed, safe and human rights-based migration and asylum procedures will be an important step towards ending the abhorrent practice of profiting from human despair and misery. Ban Ki-moon http://www.un.org/en/events/humantrafficking/2016/sgmessage.shtml Text 2 Trafficking for forced labour: Diane’s story Diane was trafficked to Paris from her home country, Burkina Faso, and held in domestic servitude by an affluent family from Africa. For two years she endured terrible conditions: she was forced to work 19 hours a day, only allowed out of the apartment to take the family’s children to school, offered leftovers to eat and was threatened, insulted and debased by her employer. Eventually, Diane plucked up the courage to run away and shortly after came into contact with the French NGO, Committee Against Modern Slavery (Comitécontrel’EsclavageModerne). The Committee integrated Diane into a social assistance programme to help her recover from the trauma. Yearly, the UN Slavery Fund supports the Committee and several dozens of other organizations worldwide that offer refuge and specialized rehabilitation assistance to victims of modern slavery. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that approximately 53 million people, mainly women and children, are employed as domestic workers and of those, 30 percent, or nearly 16 million, have no access to legal protection. These figures are likely to be an underestimation, the ILO says, because domestic workers are hidden from the public view and are usually not counted in labour surveys. According to the social worker assigned to her case, Diane was “psychologically very fragile” due to the suffering she endured during servitude and her undocumented status. However, she has now rebuilt her life in France and is the mother of two children. The Committee continues to support her in the legal case brought against her former employers. 17 November 2014 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/TraffickingforforcedlabourDianesstory.aspx Text 3 TRAFFICKERS, ORGANIZED CRIME AND THE BUSINESS OF EXPLOITATION The crime of trafficking in persons is carried out by different types of traffickers, ranging from individuals exploiting their partner to organized criminal groups operating across national borders. Trafficking in persons is usually thought of as a ‘transnational organized crime.’ And indeed, many trafficking outfits meet the criteria of transnational organized crime groups, as spelled out in the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Aspects of the crime are often committed in different countries by criminals not necessarily hailing from the country where the crime was detected. These criminals may have organized themselves to a lesser or greater extent. In some cases the complexity of the crime requires a relatively high level of organization. In other cases, victims of trafficking in persons may have been trafficked by an individual trafficker operating in a local community. In both cases, the profits that human trafficking can generate is the prime motivation for the criminals, and exploiting other people can be lucrative. Just as profit potential is an important consideration for most legitimate businesses, so it is for traffickers, who have a strong financial incentive to operate where profits are high. Broadly speaking, this means that traffickers will often choose to carry out the exploitation in a location where this will be more profitable. At the same time, traffickers also have to take into account costs and the risk of detection, which tends to increase as more territory and international borders are traversed. This edition of the Global Report on Trafficking in Personssheds light on the role of organized crime in trafficking operations, and presents a first step towards a typology oftrafficking cases based on the level of organization of the crime as well as of the economic interests behind it. This work is in its infancy and will be further refined as more relevant information becomes available.However, it can already shed some light on the more typical features of many trafficking cases, which will be helpful for designing appropriate responses to this crime. From GLOBAL REPORT ON TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/2014/GLOTIP_2014_full_report.pdf p.15