China’s stolen children: internal child trafficking in the People’s Republic of China

Trafficking in children has attracted worldwide attention in the last two decades primarily due to its links with global migratory movements and the role ‘transnational organised crime’ is perceived to play in these. Internal trafficking is largely ignored primarily because of a preoccupation with cross-border, transnational migratory movements. Arguably, the growth of the relevant literature has given rise to certain widespread perceptions about the uniformity in the trade characteristics and actors under the common rubric of ‘trafficking in human beings’. By capitalising on direct linguistic access to a wide range of Chinese open sources, the purpose of the article is to offer an account of the various dimensions of the issue as they present themselves in the particular Chinese context. Our main concern has been to perform a systematic presentation of this material in light of the extant wider literature. In the Chinese case the combination of socioeconomic, political and cultural factors set a complex picture that highlights the shortcomings of dominant ways of thinking about the phenomenon. This complex picture serves usefully to cast doubts with regard to how the criminal activity itself is being conceptualised as well as to perceptions of victimisation embodied in current discourses on human trafficking.     

Factitious disorder comorbid with bipolar I disorder. A case report

We describe a case of factitious disorder with physical and psychological symptoms comorbid with bipolar I disorder in a 37-year-old woman. Since the onset of bipolar disorder, which occurred at the age of 31, she increasingly complained of physical symptoms, compulsively seeking medical and surgical interventions. She has been hospitalised several times and her Munchausen-type factitious disorder recently appeared to be developing into Munchausen by proxy, involving her 11-year-old daughter. The patient adhered poorly to stabilising and antipsychotic drug treatment and did not improve through the years. We here analyse her mood phases, which were always associated with changes in the quality of factitious symptoms, according to whether the disorder was in its depressive phase (somatic complaints and suicidal ideation prevail), or in its manic or mixed phase (medical intervention-seeking and manipulation of clinicians to obtain surgical interventions). We also briefly discuss some important forensic issues to consider in similar cases, mainly stemming from the psychotic aspects of these two co-occurring disorders. Clinicians should be aware of some patients' ability to produce signs and symptoms of physical and/or psychological illness and consult psychiatrists before giving consent to invasive diagnostic procedures or surgery.     

The sex industry,human trafficking and the global prohibition regime: a cautionary tale from Greece

Using the concept of global prohibition regimes as an analytical point of departure, this article interrogates the development and results of the agitation campaign that relayed the new global prohibition regime against trafficking for sexual exploitation in Greece after 1995. In line with the international trend towards the issue of trafficking in the 1990s, the Greek campaign has been successful in shaping perceptions of the change in the Greek sex industry on the basis of an equation of prostitution, trafficking and transnational organized crime, and it also successfully capitalized on transnational supports to induce changes in legislation and public policy. However, a critical examination of the Greek situation suggests that there is a considerable discrepancy between the above conceptualisation and the knowledge of the issue emerging from the activities of criminal justice agencies. The examination of the general conditions of economic exploitation and social marginalization of migrants in Greece in the 1990s and after reveals significant homologies between the social organization of the sex industry and other sectors of the economy that have depended on migrant labour. This result underscores the nature of the idea of organized crime as an ideological construct acting as a diversion from more substantive paths of inquiry into the structures of national economy that bear upon the exploitation of sexual labour.

Pledges not kept: JICA's project challenges in Ghana

Japan's project aid initiatives for capacity development still occupy a large part of the aid discourse of the country's development cooperation programme. Over the years, Japan's development rhetoric has been significantly adapted to the wider policy shifts of Western donor countries and has introduced in its programme and project documents such terms as ‘ownership’, ‘needs-based approach’, and ‘participatory’ initiatives in order to achieve more ‘sustainable’ results. Furthermore, the importance of ‘institutional memory’ has been repeatedly highlighted by Japan as an important element for greater project effectiveness. This article investigates how this development rhetoric translates in Japan International Cooperation Agency's (JICA) project practice in a three-year community-based initiative in rural Ghana. The results illustrate that despite the short-term benefits the project has brought to the targeted communities, the development practice of JICA falls short of its discursive representation and more effort is needed by JICA toward a more committed and inclusive project practice.