Mindfulness Mondays - Mindfulness to reduce stress- Nov 25 at 12:30

The Faculty of Law offers a 6-session mindfulness training program as part of its wellness programming. 

For more information about the mindfulness program at the law school, and to register for this and future sessions, please click here.

 Professor Prabha Kotiswaran
King’s College London

"The Sexual Politics of Anti-Trafficking Discourse"

Thursday, 28 November 2019

5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
Reception to follow

Almost twenty years since the negotiation of the Palermo Protocol on Trafficking, anti-trafficking law and discourse continue to be in a state of flux and dynamic evolution. The anti-trafficking field has gone from an early almost exclusive, preoccupation with sex work to addressing exploitation in varied labour sectors, reflected in the mainstreaming of the term ‘modern slavery’. Correspondingly, scholars and activists are going beyond the criminal law to propose alternate forms of regulation as manifest in human rights, labour and development approaches to trafficking. These trends would suggest a reduced focus on the nature of the work performed and a greater focus on the conditions under which it is performed. We could therefore expect that all forms of extreme labour exploitation whether in sex work or fishing or cotton cultivation would attract the equal application of anti-trafficking law. This is sadly not the case as cultures of ‘sex work exceptionalism’ persist and are gaining strength around the world.

In my lecture, I ask why. I interrogate the sexual politics of anti-trafficking discourse by revisiting its contentious history. I examine what the expanded understanding of trafficking has meant for feminist theorising and mobilising on sex work and trafficking and how sex workers’ groups have responded. I explore the terrains on which feminists, sex workers, conservatives and left-progressive movements engage with each other and with the state and which alliances have been brokered successfully and which ones have failed to materialise. Importantly, I question what this has meant for long-term struggles for a politics of redistribution within the sex sector. I conclude by reflecting on how anti-trafficking campaigns play out in postcolonial contexts and what this means for retheorising the sexual politics of anti-trafficking discourse.

See the Event Poster (PDF)

The law school’s annual Promise Auction is coming up and we are looking for Promise donors! The Promise Auction is a fundraising event where members of the law school community provide “promises” and your peers will have the opportunity to bid for them. All proceeds from the Auction will go to the Native Women's Resource Centre of Toronto (NWRCT) and First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada (The Caring Society)! 

A “promise” can be any thing, activity, skill or passion you may have that you would like to offer and share with others. Popular promises in the past have included offers of photography services/headshots, a homemade meal or baked goods, though the possibility for promises is as varied and unique as your own skills or interests. Above all else, participating as a donor at the Auction is an opportunity to support two amazing organizations and give back to your community.

Donate a promise by filling out the Promise Auction donor form: https://forms.gle/zJ7YXfakPwoCLbf98.

Immigration, Iris-Scanning, and iBorderCtrl: The Human Rights Impacts of Technological Experiments in Migration

Mandatory detention of migrants at the US-Mexico border. The wrongful deportation of 7,000 foreign students accused of cheating on a language test. Racist or sexist discrimination based on social media profiles. What do these examples have in common? In every case, an algorithm made a decision with serious consequences for people’s lives.

This presentation explores the human rights impacts of experimental and unregulated technologies that are used to manage migration. Nearly 70 million people are currently on the move due to conflict, instability, environmental factors, and economic reasons. As a result, states and international organizations involved in migration management are exploring various automated decision-making experiments to increase efficiency and support border security. These experiments range from big data predictions about population movements in the Mediterranean, to Canada’s use of automated decision-making in immigration and refugee applications, to AI lie detectors deployed at European borders. However, these technologies are developed with little oversight, transparency, and accountability and often fail to account for the far-reaching impacts on human lives and human rights, resulting in potentially serious breaches of human rights and civil liberties.

☛ please register here

Petra Molnar
International Human Rights Program
Faculty of Law
University of Toronto

04:00 PM - 05:30 PM
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
200 Larkin 

November Hours at the Law Bookstore:

Open Mon-Thurs 11:30 am - 2:30 pm, Friday 3 pm - 7 pm.

Note: The Law Bookstore will be closed during Reading Week, Nov 4-8, 2019.

Lecture Series: Ethics and Governance of AI for Health

by University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics

Date and Time

Location

Women's College Hospital

76 Grenville Street

Conference Centre Auditorium, 2nd Floor

Toronto, ON M5S 1B2