How Policing across Regions Constructs the Notion of “Threat”: Europol and Aseanapol’s Cooperation to Combat Child Trafficking

Combatting the “threat” of transnational child trafficking has become of increasing concern to policymakers in the EU and ASEAN in the past decade. This phenomenon has triggered the need for common legal frameworks and transnational policies. Regional cooperation mechanisms have started to emerge between ASEAN and EU agencies, with law enforcement authorities Aseanapol and Europol recently announcing their closer cooperation on the issue.

This paper addresses the underlying assumptions upon which this cooperation rests. It explores the common and diverging norms, interests and practices tied in both regions to notions of “threat” and child trafficking, and questions the modes-of-thought upon which their common policing practices are posited. In so doing, the paper argues that, by defining their common action, Europol and Aseanapol engage with politics of categorization. They contribute to defining what constitutes a threat, what child trafficking consists of, and who is framed as the accursed Other, within both regional ensembles. The paper finds that trafficked children tend to be subjected to processes of transfer of illegitimacy, being alternately framed as victims or threats.

The implication for research and practitioners hence lies in the impact of current policies’ ideational constructs on the physical and structural violence experienced by trafficking victims.