Safe Migration and the Politics of Brokered Safety in Southeast Asia by Sverre Molland

Author:Sverre Molland [Molland, Sverre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781032015439
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

Here, the hotline goes well beyond direct assistance as it connects migrants “with eyes and ears on the ground” and the NGO's ability to maintain a “constant pulse on the voices of thousands of workers.” This purportedly allows the NGO to map abuse and exploitation within supply chains, which no doubt is aimed at appealing to corporate donors’ social responsibility sensibilities. As such, hotlines wed a panoptic and synoptic gaze where the many (i.e. migrants) watch the few (employers and brokers) and the few (hotlines) watch the many (migrant populations and work conditions). Given this, it is unsurprising that aid officials see hotlines as central to safe migration practice given the allure of its legibility effect (Trouillot 2001). Whether hotlines have the actual capacity to achieve such legibility is an entirely different question (to which we shall return to).

In the Mekong region, numerous organisations working on either human trafficking, safe migration, or migration assistance have launched hotlines. The Thai government advocates hotlines as a central response to both human trafficking and labour migration assistance more broadly, including in their annual trafficking report (Government of Thailand 2015). ILO's project document stipules the development of hotlines as central activity (International Labour Organization 2009). Moreover, as demonstrated within the context of pre-decision, pre-departure, and post-arrival training in the two previous chapters, government agencies emphasise hotlines in their training (including information booklets that are distributed to all participants). This underscores both cross-border connectivity and the role of the state as a central actor within safe migration discourse.

The formal endorsement of hotlines contrasts with informal widespread criticisms within the migration assistance sector itself. Although rarely articulated in a formal capacity, several aid officials express concerns regarding hotlines in private. As one NGO manager, Thomas (see Chapter 2) exclaimed: “we used to run a hotline. It didn't work at all. No-one called! Hotlines are completely useless.” But what about cases where migrants do call a hotline? What assistance is actually provided? By whom? And how? Despite the fetishisation of hotlines as a humanitarian-bureaucratic magic wand that can generate assistance, such criticisms speak to the simple fact that hotlines are complex assemblages of objects and persons. This raises broader questions of how governance materialises. Within a context where hotlines are formally celebrated but informally critiqued, limited research to date examines migrant hotlines in the Greater Mekong Sub Region. This dearth of knowledge is surprising. Academic research on hotlines in western contexts (relating to suicide prevention and psychological trauma) points to important discrepancies between the intent and actual usage of hotlines (Backe 2018). Such discrepancies will now be explored.

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