Professor (International Relations Theory)
NAKAMURA Ayako

In the international community, there are hundreds of thousands, or even more, of people who are unwillingly bound and sold in exchange for money, forced into prostitution or harsh labor as debt slaves. This is a serious violation of human rights, as it treats human beings as commodities and strips them of their dignity at its core.

International treaties (rules) to prohibit human trafficking have been established, primarily under the United Nations, and many countries have implemented various measures, including border control, to combat this issue. However, human trafficking has not been eradicated. I am researching the reasons for this and how this problem can be solved. The underlying causes of the issue are deeply connected to poverty and economic disparity. Furthermore, victims of human trafficking, especially those trafficked for sexual exploitation, are often women, and since many cases involve cross-border trafficking, foreign nationals are also frequently caught up in this crime. In Japan, victims of human trafficking continue to be "procured" both domestically and from abroad. Cases like that of a young girl who was sexually exploited in Japan’s "massage parlors" along with her mother, and victims being smuggled from Southeast Asia and other regions to bypass immigration controls, are still common. Additionally, there is an increasing trend in the number of Japanese victims within the country.

I am analyzing the causes of this issue from the perspective of power relations and using this as a clue to explore effective countermeasures. In doing so, I am including not only states and international organizations such as the United Nations, but also regional organizations like the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as NGOs, as key actors.

In recent years, fundamental values such as human rights have been increasingly challenged in the international community. Therefore, I am considering how human rights conventions, including human rights treaties, can be maintained and promoted, and what the mechanisms for this should be.

Related Links

• Professor NAKAMURA Ayako-- YU Researcher Directory
• Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences HP
• Japanese Edition