Migration, labour, and 'rescue' - rethinking the boundaries of freedom. 

A joint seminar by the Department of Sociology, University of Ghana and the School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies (SPAIS), University of Bristol, UK

Internal child labour migration and irregular youth labour migration outside of Ghana have been topics of intense national and international debate for the past decade. Dominant discourse increasingly characterises these journeys as human trafficking, child trafficking, or "modern slavery," citing the surrounding hazardous travel or labour conditions and other adverse outcomes. Governmental agencies, UN organisations, local and international NGOs, and other partners have thus joined forces on campaigns and other interventions to prevent such movements. Such initiatives, such as anti-trafficking rescue missions, migrant returns and repatriations, have been portrayed as providing freedom to stranded, exploited, trafficked, or enslaved children and youth. Yet freedom is inextricably linked to migration for many. Child and adult labour migrants alike describe their journeys as essential to their quest for better life opportunities, the fulfilment of basic socioeconomic needs, and the attainment of other rights that are synonymous with liberty. Many therefore argue that rather than focusing on preventing their movement, efforts should be placed on addressing the lack of employment and social protection, unfair visa regimes, and inhumane border and immigration systems that drive migrants towards precarious routes and into hazardous work. 

These competing visions of freedom and slavery surrounding migration and labour in contemporary Ghana have been a central focus of the work of Sam Okyere, Julia Davidson, and others at the University of Bristol (UK) working on the ERC funded project ‘Modern Marronage? The Pursuit and Practice of Freedom in the Contemporary World’ (MMPPF). These questions are equally central to current and previous research by many scholars at the Department of Sociology, the Centre for Migration Studies, and others at the University of Ghana. This symposium, which is jointly organised by the MMPPF team and the Department of Sociology, brings together scholars from the two universities for dialogue on these themes. The MMPPF team will share the findings of their research on anti-trafficking rescue missions, ‘voluntary’ returns, and migration deterrence efforts in Ghana, as well as a series of short films produced by UK based asylum seekers on the question of freedom and ‘modern slavery’. The discussion will then turn to the ambiguities of freedom as an ideal and a lived experience, the ways in which different ideas and claims about slavery and freedom are used by different actors in Ghana and elsewhere, among other related questions raised by these presentations, and the work of Legon based scholars working on similar themes.