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Challenging popular representations of child trafficking in football

James Esson (Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK)
Eleanor Drywood (School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK)

Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice

ISSN: 2056-3841

Article publication date: 12 March 2018

424

Abstract

Purpose

Reports of human trafficking within the football industry have become a topic of academic, political and media concern. The movement of and trade in aspirant young (male) footballers from West Africa to Europe, and more recently to Asia, dominates these accounts. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper provides an overview of scholarship on this topic, with a specific focus on exploring how this form of human trafficking intersects with the broader debates over children’s rights in the context of exploitation tied to the irregular forms of migration.

Findings

The paper illustrates how popular narratives associated with the trafficking of young West African footballers mimic stereotypical portrayals of child trafficking, which have implications for the solutions put forward. It is argued that popular representations of football-related child trafficking are problematic for several reasons, but two are emphasised here. First, they perpetuate a perception that the mobility of young African footballers entails a deviant form of agency in need of fixing, while simultaneously disassociating the desire to migrate from the broader social structures that need to be addressed. Second, and relatedly, they result in regulations and policy solutions that are inadvertently reductive and often at odds with the best interests of the children they seek to protect.

Originality/value

This an original study of the narratives associated with the trafficking of young West African footballers and those of child trafficking.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

James Esson would like to acknowledge the ESRC (ES/H011234/1) for funding research underpinning parts of this paper, and to thank all the participants associated with fieldwork conducted in Accra. Eleanor Drywood would like to acknowledge the Leverhulme Trust for funding a research fellowship, during which time she undertook research that informed this paper. The authors would both like to thank the handling editor and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Citation

Esson, J. and Drywood, E. (2018), "Challenging popular representations of child trafficking in football", Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 60-72. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRPP-01-2018-0005

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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