Shaeny Cassim-Itibar
Rethinking justice with survivors: Justice perceptions and expectations for women experiencing sex trafficking in the gold-mining region of Kédougou, Senegal.
Biography
Criminal Justice from Wrexham Glyndwr University in 2019, where I focused on the experiences and perceptions of the Black Muslim community regarding hate crimes, I developed a deep interest in lived experiences and feminist qualitative research. I went on to complete a Master’s degree in International Criminal Justice at Liverpool John Moores University in 2020/2021, exploring the use of rape as a weapon of war and the key issues of post-conflict reconstruction for survivors.
I am currently in the final year of my PhD in the Politics department at the University of Liverpool PhD.
Research Interests
I am interested in survivor-centred approaches to confront human trafficking and improve justice. My fieldwork in the southeast Kédougou region of Senegal involved working with survivors of sex trafficking. By framing my empirical research through an anticolonial feminist lens, I critically examine justice-centred approaches as colonial and western constructs that fail to reflect the lived realities of the survivors.
The interviews with participants and fieldwork observations challenged the research’s objective in improving justice by questioning the absence of this word from participants’ lexicon and highlighting the gap between their experiences and institutional definitions of anti-trafficking success.
My analysis ultimately explores the “survival continuum” of women in ‘rescue’ shelters, shedding light on how anti-trafficking programs, rather than addressing the root causes and finding alternative pathways, often perpetuate cycles of abuse and violence. These programs frequently exclude people with lived experience from vital discussions, further undermining their effectiveness and relevance.