Gender Dynamics of ‘Human Trafficking’: Migration from Cameroon to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States

This paper analyses ‘human trafficking’ with a focus on the unique vulnerabilities and experiences of Cameroonians who migrated to the Gulf Cooperation Council states to work, including those coerced into domestic roles. It critically examines ‘human trafficking’ as a migration category and scrutinises-related binaries. Ethnographic findings informed by the concept of ‘infrastructural violence’ indicate that exploitation is embedded in gendered macro-structures and institutions regulating labour migration, intersecting with micro-level interactions that either reinforce or mitigate the structural/institutional impacts. Furthermore, there are discrepancies between policy-induced migrant categories and migrants’ navigation of multiple categories, undermining categorical rigidity.