PODCAST: Child Trafficking in South Africa: Exploring the Myths and Realities

The University of Pretoria’s Centre for Child Law (CCL) in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand’s African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) released a research report titled Child trafficking in South Africa: Exploring the Myths and Realities. The report forms part of the CCL’s efforts to show the realities and complexities shaping the lives of vulnerable children in South Africa, and to recommend ways of reducing the vulnerabilities they face.

The study was conducted by Rebecca Walker and Stanford Mahati, both from the ACMS, along with CCL researcher Isabel Magaya.

In this podcast Walker discusses the research report on the SAfm show, Sound Awake.

About Becky Walker

Becky Walker is a research associate with the African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS).

With a background in Social Anthropology and Development Becky’s work has largely explored women’s experiences of everyday violence in both South Asia and Southern Africa. Becky holds an Msc and PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh where her research focused on the conflict in Sri Lanka and women’s strategies for negotiating everyday violence.

In 2010 Becky moved to South Africa to take up a Postdoctoral fellowship with the Centre of Indian Studies in Africa (CISA) at Wits University and also taught Gender and Development as a sessional lecturer in Social Anthropology. In 2013 she then was awarded a Wotro-funded postdoctoral project through ACMS that explored the multiple vulnerabilities faced by migrant sex workers in Johannesburg.

The project considered the impact of migration legislation, trafficking discourses and transnational networks on feelings of belonging amongst migrant sex workers in Johannesburg and Amsterdam. It also drew from an innovative arts based participatory project that Becky and a colleague ran in a women’s shelter in inner-city Johannesburg, and on-going research at ACMS into sex work, migration and trafficking. Becky’s current work builds on the Wotro project to explore the vulnerabilities faced by migrant mothers who sell sex in South Africa with a particular focus on the intersections of mothering, being migrants and selling sex and also, challenges encountered such as access to healthcare, stigmatisation and discrimination.

Becky has published widely from her research including a articles and chapters on everyday violence, sex work, trafficking and migration and sex work and motherhood.

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