and the Construction of Vulnerability - Child Trafficking

tant to gather data on the problems and social injustices faced by migrants, this selective
focus encourages a tendency to imagine migrants as eternal victims rather than
active (if constrained) agents. It also makes it very difficult to describe positive
aspects of the migrant experience. Research becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
If our primary concern is with children’s rights, we cannot start from the assumption
that migration is, in itself, a problem. It is vital to recognise that migration,
whether through legal or irregular channels, and whether with or without parents
or family, may represent a child’s only or best chance of accessing basic rights set out
in the CRC. We therefore need to ask which children migrate and why, when and
why the process of migration puts children at risk, and when and why child migrants
are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and other rights violations in the country of
destination. We should also concern ourselves with questions about the consequences
of remaining at home when others migrate.
Above all, we need to ask whether children who migrate are inevitably exposed
to risks, or whether their vulnerability is politically and socially constructed. For reasons
outlined above, the existing research literature does not always make it easy to
address these questions. However, as the following review will show, there is evidence
within it that suggests the harms that all too frequently attend on child migration
are not the inevitable consequence of migration. Instead, they largely reflect a lack
of political will to protect the rights of those who move, and the prioritising of immigration
control over the protection of the human and child rights of migrants.
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Child Migration and the Construction of Vulnerability