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Social justice constitutes one of the defining principles of social work and is often used as a point of reference when social workers wish to anchor their work ethically, be it practice or scholarly work. Frequently, however, social work theorists and practitioners assume a level of clarity and consensus within the profession regarding the concept of social justice that does not necessarily exist. In order words, there is a need to interrogate the concept of social justice regarding its evolving meaning, scope, and inherent tensions in relation to the diverse theory and practice contexts of social work. This chapter explores possible directions for a conceptualization of social justice for international social work. A review of some of the key discourses and debates to date reveals that social justice for social workers includes questions of just distribution and recognition, requiring our critical engagement with exclusionary and unjust structures and processes in contemporary societies. Where critical engagement may have been lacking so far is the question of the scope and boundaries of social justice. However, the increasingly felt impact of globalization in general and cross-border migration in particular have made the need to close this conceptual gap more apparent.

This chapter examines cross-border oscillations of Lao sex workers and some of their implications for how anti-trafficking programs envisage trafficking and mobility to take place. It begins with an overview of migration patterns between Laos and Thailand and how the anti-trafficking sector has participated in articulating meanings of cross-border migration. It then considers income and price stratification in Laos and in Nong Kai, along with the role of customer frequency in sex workers' migratory trajectories. It also discusses the spatial dimension of trafficking and concludes by analyzing the ways that the imagery of socioeconomic differentiations across the Thai-Lao border has distorted understandings of actual migration practices within the arena of sex commerce.

This chapter provides an overview of the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (UNIAP). In its first phase, UNIAP had implemented several anti-trafficking programs, such as income generation and awareness raising in rural areas of Laos. An important part of the UNIAP strategy in the Mekong region was called Program 1 in its project document: building the knowledge base on trafficking. This chapter first discusses the politics of cross-border migration in Laos and the importance of knowledge production in attempts to secure particular interpretations of anti-trafficking work within the broader field of development. It then considers how human trafficking intersects with development and government practices and goes on to examine the results of two trafficking studies and a report commissioned by UNICEF. It also explains how to distinguish between a trafficker, a trafficked victim, and a “migrant.” Finally, it describes how victim identification is addressed in training programs delivered by aid organizations in Laos and Thailand.