Date of Award

6-1-2010

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences

First Advisor

Richard Clemmer-Smith, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Tracy Ehlers

Third Advisor

Peter Van Arsdale

Fourth Advisor

M. Dores Cruz

Keywords

Critical Theory, Human rights, Non-governmental organizations, Political economy, Sex trafficking, South Asia

Abstract

Despite participating in rehabilitation programs, many survivors of sex trafficking in India and Nepal are re-trafficked, ‘voluntarily’ re-enter the sex industry, or become traffickers or brothel managers themselves. This thesis discusses the challenges of institutional rehabilitation from a critical theory perspective. Drawing from three months of participant observation, interviews, and focus groups with rehabilitation professionals, this thesis will show that there has been a recent, positive shift in the discourse of survivor rehabilitation at the institutional level. However, a focus on individual rather than holistic change, the structure of the rehabilitation process, and a lack of assessment tools has made these theoretical changes difficult to implement, resulting in a gap between “rehabilitation in theory” and “rehabilitation in practice” and the persistence of the status quo.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Robynne A. Locke

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

151 p.

Discipline

Cultural anthropology

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