Anti-trafficking Efforts Research Articles

Low Hanging Fruit: How Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Erased Foreign-born Victims of Child Trafficking from Anti-trafficking Efforts in the United States

I have been conducting empirical research on child trafficking in the United States ever since the passage of the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000. I began by “studying up”:1 ...

On the affective governmentality of anti-trafficking efforts: an ethnographic exploration

ABSTRACTThe state cannot be conceived as an apparatus of purely rational decision-making, as we argue in this paper using the case of governing human trafficking. We used a state ethnographic approach to reveal the three functions borne by affects in the governing of trafficking prevention projects. First, in affective displays used by police officers to regulate and govern the clients they encounter in their everyday practices. Second, the role of affective displays in boundary-making. And third, we will illuminate the epistemological function of affects in assessing the behaviour and the features of potential victims of trafficking.

How many trafficked people are there in Greater New Orleans? Lessons in measurement

ABSTRACT In an effort to develop a model for estimating prevalence in a city or region of the United States, this study employed Multiple Systems Estimation, a statistical approach that uses data on known cases collected from individual agencies to estimate the number not known, with the ultimate aim of estimating the prevalence of trafficking in a region. Utilizing de-identified data provided by local non-profits and law enforcement agencies, the researchers estimated the prevalence of trafficking in the New Orleans-Metairie metropolitan statistical area. This represents one of the first attempts to use Multiple Systems Estimation to quantify human trafficking in a United States context. The article provides an account of the impediments to and limitations of conducting such an estimate, given the definitional variance and political dynamics that are endemic to anti-trafficking efforts in the United States. The authors provide recommendations for data collection and prevalence analysis that could be applied in other cities or regions of the United States as well as in other similarly-resourced environments.

The Trafficking in Persons Report: Recommendations for Uganda

The United States Department of State's Annual Trafficking in Persons Report has revolutionized the fight against the scourge of human trafficking. Nations around the globe continue to make significant strides in prosecuting traffickers, protecting victims, and preventing human trafficking. Uganda is one of those nations. Currently ranked 2, Uganda is poised to become the next tier 1 nation and the only African nation to achieve that honor. With the development of a partnership with the Human Trafficking Institute, a well-functioning justice system, and key personnel in various offices, Uganda is just a a few key changes away from breaking into Tier 1 status. While the 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report praised Uganda for various efforts it is taking to combat human trafficking, more needs to be done. This Paper identifies the Report's key recommendations and then elaborates on how Uganda can implement them. Most pressingly, Uganda must increase prosecution efforts, particularly against government officials; create a formal mechanism to identify victims and provide funding for their care; authorize an official entity to lead anti-trafficking efforts; increase training for embassy staff and all front-line officials; increase and improve regulation of recruitment agencies; and accede to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

Sex Trafficking at the Border: An Exploration of Anti-Trafficking Efforts in the Pacific Northwest

The prevalence of human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour in the Pacific Northwest has been well documented in recent years. This paper focuses specifically on trafficking for sex work across the British Columbia and Washington State border and seeks to determine whether the border is an effective instrument or tool for the identification and intervention of human trafficking for sex work. We provide an exploration of the legal frameworks and policies on either side of the border and offer an analysis of the cross-border anti-trafficking efforts carried out at the borderlands. The paper concludes that current mechanisms fail to appropriately address and combat the issue of cross-border sex trafficking for several reasons, including the following: a lack of uniform definitions of sex trafficking; the conflation of migrant sex work and sex trafficking, leading to misidentification at the border; and an emphasis on border security measures over victim support. Recommendations for enhanced responses are provided.

Anti-immigration sentiment and public opinion on human trafficking

Prior research shows that anti-immigration sentiment affects public opinion about criminal justice problems and solutions. However, we know little about how these sentiments affect public opinion about human trafficking. This paper attempts to fill this gap by examining the role of anti-immigration sentiment in shaping public support for anti-trafficking efforts in the United States. Specifically, this research examines the effect of anti-immigration sentiment on the public’s understanding about vulnerabilities for human trafficking among migrant populations and corresponding support for policies directed at the protection of migrant trafficked persons. This is particularly important because public policies that safeguard migrant trafficked persons have been among the most difficult to pass despite strong support for the governmental prioritization of anti-trafficking efforts overall. Utilizing public opinion data from an original, nationally representative survey experiment of 2000 Americans, this study finds that anti-immigration sentiment (1) is associated with greater recognition of the vulnerability of immigrants to human trafficking victimization; (2) does not impact public support for a general governmental prioritization of human trafficking policies; yet (3) creates less public support for victim services for non-citizen trafficked persons; and (4) stems from differences in political views impacting support for services for immigrant victims. These findings contribute to an understanding of the role of anti-immigration sentiment in public opinion about crime and have implications for policies aimed at improving the identification of and outcomes for migrant trafficked persons.

Anti-trafficking Efforts and Colonial Violence in Canada

In Responding to Human Trafficking: Dispossession, Colonial Violence, and Resistance among Indigenous and Racialized Women, Julie Kaye offers a critical examination of how Canadian state and non-state actors understand human trafficking and implement anti-trafficking measures. Kaye examines Canada’s anti-trafficking policies and the efforts of non-government organisations (NGOs) through one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions. She demonstrates the way in which this politically charged issue has worked to conceal Canada’s violent colonial history and naturalise the inequalities and structural and material conditions in which trafficking and various forms of violence occur. Kaye argues that trafficking discourses position the colonial state as the saviour and therefore work to reinforce its power.

Social Service Provision to Adult Victims of Trafficking at Shelters in South Africa

Human trafficking affects numerous countries worldwide, including South Africa. Given the multiple consequences and human rights violations to victims, trafficking requires a collective multi-disciplinary response involving social workers. This was a qualitative study looking at social service provision to adult victims of human trafficking at shelters in two provinces in South Africa. The findings revealed that a range of services are offered by social workers at shelters and that rights-based intervention approaches must always inform anti-trafficking efforts.

Sex and Labor Trafficking in Paraguay: Risk Factors, Needs Assessment, and the Role of the Health Care System.

Trafficking of adults and children for both sex and labor is a human rights violation occurring with alarming frequency throughout the world, and resulting in profound harm to close-knit communities and severe health consequences for victims. Certain areas, such as the country of Paraguay, are at a higher risk for trafficking due to unique economic, cultural, and geographic factors. Thousands of people, especially children, are trafficked within Paraguay's borders, and many eventually are transported to neighboring countries and sometimes to Europe and elsewhere. Using case study methodology and "city" as the unit of study, researchers interviewed 18 key anti-trafficking stakeholders from government and nongovernmental organizations in two major metropolitan centers for trafficking in Paraguay, Asunción, and Encarnación. Through semistructured interviews, this qualitative study examines risk factors for trafficking, health outcomes, interventions needed within the health care sector, and programs needed to combat trafficking. We identified risk factors including poverty, marginalization of indigenous people, gender inequality, domestic servitude of children (criadazgo), and political hesitance to enact protective legislation. Victims of trafficking were reported to suffer from physical injuries, unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and mental health issues such as depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. These predispose victims to difficulties reintegrating into their communities and ultimately to retrafficking. A major gap was identified in the lack of sufficient lodging and rehabilitation services for rescued victims, affordable access to trauma-sensitive health care for victims, and scarce mental health services. Many of the findings are applicable across the world and may be of use to guide future anti-trafficking efforts in Paraguay and beyond.

A study of public establishment-based and private network commercial sexual exploitation in Kolkata and Mumbai, India

ABSTRACTThis article details the methodologies and results from studies on the commercial exploitation of children in known sex trade areas of Kolkata and Mumbai, India. The results include the number and attributes of sex workers and minors observed in public establishments and within a more private network. The study among public establishments entails the use of a conventional sampling design and sample calibration-based inference strategy for analyses. Based on a network/link-tracing sampling design, the private network study maps the social network of this side of the phenomenon, and inference is based on mark-recapture and weighted regression analyses. Minors are present in both public establishments and private networks. The study illuminating the private network highlights the intricacies of relationships between the key players and gives insight into this more hidden side of the sex trade. Both sampling procedures allow for observations and data collection of exploiters and victims in the midst of exploitation. This study is the first of its kind amongst those undertaken in the study region. The Governments of West Bengal and Maharashtra have worked towards improving anti-trafficking efforts, and the results provide invaluable insight and recommendations for policy purposes, training and mapping exercises for future studies.

Beyond Liberalism: Marxist Feminism, Migrant Sex Work, and Labour Unfreedom

In this article, I use a Marxist feminist methodology to map the organisation of migrant sex workers’ socially reproductive paid and unpaid labour in one city and country of arrival, London, UK. I argue that unfree and ‘free’ (sexual) labour exists on a continuum of capitalist relations of (re)production, which are gendered, racialised, and legal. It is within these relations that various actors implement, and migrant sex workers contest, unfree labour practices not limited to the most extreme forms. My analysis reveals that many migrant sex workers have very limited ‘freedom’. This is in stark contrast to the classical liberal claim of sex worker rights activists and academics that the vast majority of migrant sex workers are free, and therefore not coerced, exploited or trafficked. I then consider whether the emerging labour approach to trafficking could help achieve ‘freedom’ for migrant sex workers. Advocates argue that anti-trafficking efforts must, and can, be refocused on extending minimum labour and social protections to all vulnerable workers. I argue that this approach is disconnected from material interests and history. Rather, migrant sex workers, sex worker rights activists, and all migrant and citizen workers and activists globally must collectively organise against ‘labour unfreedom’ and hence for meaningful control over their labour and lives.

Human Trafficking and Exploitation in the Scottish Sex Industry: Clients’ Accounts

ABSTRACTThe need to address demand for human trafficking has been raised both in Scottish and in international anti-trafficking efforts. However, in Scotland, as in many other countries, the semi-legality of the sex industry means that methods for addressing demand for trafficked prostitution are rarely explored. This article presents findings from research about men who buy heterosexual sex as one aspect of demand for trafficked prostitution. In this study, I analyze clients’ reviews of women in prostitution, which are posted on sex-industry Web sites, and use them to explore the extent to which human trafficking and exploitation feature in clients’ reviews. This research found that, although concerns over trafficking and exploitation were largely absent in clients’ reviews, the reviews depicted a form of prostitution considered problematic amongst the online client community. This problematic form of prostitution was based on intersecting concerns over migration and freedom of movement in the European Union along with consumer expectations of a purchased service. I explore how antimigrant sentiment came to be prevalent among the online community and what this means for migrants operating under exploitative conditions in the Scottish sex industry.

Beyond Massage Parlors: Exposing the Korean Commercial Sex Market in the United States

This paper describes the Korean commercial sex market in the U.S. beyond massage parlors. Prior to this study, the U.S. anti-trafficking efforts have heavily focused on combating massage parlors to fight prostitution and sex trafficking of Korean women in the U.S. This paper introduces the shift of trends taking place within the Korean sex market as a result of changing culture and policies. It then introduces various brothel models exploiting Korean women in the U.S. It also brings a more holistic view of the Korean sex market in the U.S. by relying on primary and secondary sources available in both Korean and English languages. The sources include interviews with law enforcement, Korean and American news articles, Korean non-governmental organization (NGO) reports that included interviews with victims, and the U.S. federal cases involving Korean prostitution and sex trafficking. Lastly, this paper examines the current challenges for the U.S. anti-trafficking efforts because of their insufficient understanding of the U.S. Korean sex market.

Intensifying Insecurities: The impact of climate change on vulnerability to human trafficking in the Indian Sundarbans

Despite an enormous amount of attention paid to the factors that shape vulnerability to human trafficking, such as poverty and a lack of economic opportunity, the debate of evidence for what enables these factors to exist in the first place is relatively less explored. Presently, discussions of the relationship between climate change and human insecurity have been marginal to broader debates about vulnerability to trafficking. This paper argues that this signifies a gap in our understanding of the underlying drivers that push individuals and communities into situations where vulnerability to trafficking amplifies, but also that increase the pull of risky migration pathways and exploitative work situations. This paper proceeds by examining and problematising dominant conceptualisations of vulnerability in human trafficking and climate change discourses. Next, it presents a case study of the Sundarbans region of India to highlight how climate change impacts compound and exacerbate the same factors that shape vulnerability to human trafficking—including environmental degradation, loss of livelihood, destitution, and forced migration. Lastly, it argues for enhanced attention to climate change-related insecurity as evidence of vulnerability to trafficking and outlines what such insights can bring to anti-trafficking efforts.

Trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation in Europe

Tens of thousands of women and girls are trafficked from mainly poorer to richer regions of Europe and forced into prostitution. Traffickers abuse the poor socio-economic situation of young women in these poorer regions to exploit them into prostitution. Sex trafficking poses a huge impact on society. Besides the economical side – sanctions for not complying with certain anti-trafficking efforts or health care costs for victims – the political- and social impact is drastic. Social impact for victims is huge: during their trafficking they face extreme violence, coercion, and rape, which leave both psychological as physical marks after their return. Additionally, drug use by victims will eventually place another burden on society. In order to stop sex trafficking the pre-departure state, transit stage, exploitation stage and demand side need to be targeted. The pre-departure state is most important for source countries. The exploitation- and demand stages are tightly intertwined with legislation on prostitution. When prostitution is legalized and demand is high, exploitation is a natural result. Sweden has shown that demand can be strongly decreased by criminalizing the purchase of sex. By not criminalizing sales of sex, victims of sexual exploitation cannot be prosecuted. The European Commission has recently adopted a law prohibiting the purchase of sex, therewith copying this system. Country-specific adaptations might be necessary, as European countries are very different and deal with trafficking in very dissimilar ways. Adopting demand-tackling legislation might not have the desired effect in Eastern European source countries. Additionally, European countries must continue to work together. Sex trafficking seemingly follows basic economics: when there’s no demand, there’s no market, and therefore supplies will drop. Having looked at the different efforts countries make, it can be concluded that – although all stages of sex trafficking need to be targeted – eliminating the demand for sex workers seems to work as a best method.

Project NO REST: Addressing Human Trafficking in North Carolina.

Project NO REST (North Carolina Organizing and Responding to the Exploitation and Sexual Trafficking of Children) is a 5-year effort funded by the US Children's Bureau to address the trafficking of individuals age 25 years and younger in North Carolina. The project aims to increase awareness of human trafficking affecting children and youth, especially those in the child welfare system; to reduce the number of these youth who are trafficked; and to improve outcomes for those who are trafficked. In the project's first year, nearly 100 stakeholders statewide developed a comprehensive plan to address trafficking. Later, 5 communities were recruited to implement the plan at the local level. Their experiences will be used to develop a toolkit for future anti-trafficking efforts.

Labour Trafficking in Canada: At the Margins of the Anti-Trafficking Efforts

As in many other countries, such as in Europe, Canada has increased its anti-trafficking efforts since this crime was included in the criminal code in 2005. However, trafficking for labour exploitation remains poorly addressed in the current anti-trafficking response. Concerns related to domestic sex trafficking have dominated the landscape and driven the bulk of government actions, leaving labour trafficking side way. This paper reviews the evolution the Canadian governance of trafficking and examines the key challenges in addressing trafficking for labour exploitation. The paper draws on a study conducted in Canada between 2011 and 2013, and which is based on 79 interviews with key stakeholders. One key argument of the analysis presented in this paper is that the Canadian policy has been shaped by national mobilisation around the issue of sexual exploitation of young women, especially adolescent girls as well as Aboriginal women. Further, this framing and conception of trafficking interact with the legal definition of trafficking in the criminal code and the ways in which it is applied. Indeed, the current trafficking offence is less easily understood as applying to situations of labour exploitation. However, labour trafficking is progressively emerging as a matter that deserves public and political interest. Migrants’ and refugees’ rights organisations, as well as civil society anti-trafficking initiatives, play a role in raising awareness about this issue and including this issue in the government actions.

Human Trafficking and Migration Management in the Global South

Turkey has recently transitioned from being largely a country of outmigration and transit migration to a country of destination for many of migrants seeking employment as well as refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Policy makers and advocates have stressed how vulnerable many of these irregular migrants and asylum seekers are to human trafficking. The Turkish government has increased its anti-trafficking efforts, but some of these efforts may be making migrants more vulnerability to trafficking, and limiting migrants’ rights and opportunities to receive protection. In this article, we analyze the changing legal terrain and shifting labor migration flows of migrants to Turkey. We argue that domestic and international policies designed to curb human trafficking may in fact be causing migrants to be more vulnerable to traffickers. Our findings inform the labor exploitation theoretical framework of human trafficking that we have proposed in earlier research.

Resisting the Carceral: The need to align anti-trafficking efforts with movements for criminal justice reform

Response to ATR Debate Proposition: ‘Prosecuting trafficking deflects attention from much more important responses and is anyway a waste of time and money’

Considering risk contexts in explaining the paradoxical HIV increase among female sex workers in Mumbai and Thane, India.

BackgroundThe period 2006–2009 saw intensive scale-up of HIV prevention efforts and an increase in reported safer sex among brothel and street-based sex workers in Mumbai and Thane (Maharashtra, India). Yet during the same period, the prevalence of HIV increased in these groups. A better understanding of sex workers’ risk environment is needed to explain this paradox.MethodsIn this qualitative study we conducted 36 individual interviews, 9 joint interviews, and 10 focus group discussions with people associated with HIV interventions between March and May 2012.ResultsDramatic changes in Mumbai’s urban landscape dominated participants’ accounts, with dwindling sex worker numbers in traditional brothel areas attributed to urban restructuring. Gentrification and anti-trafficking efforts explained an escalation in police raids. This contributed to dispersal of sex work with the sex-trade management adapting by becoming more hidden and mobile, leading to increased vulnerability. Affordable mobile phone technology enabled independent sex workers to trade in more hidden ways and there was an increased dependence on lovers for support. The risk context has become ever more challenging, with animosity against sex work amplified since the scale up of targeted interventions. Focus on condom use with sex workers inadvertently contributed to the diversification of the sex trade as clients seek out women who are less visible. Sex workers and other marginalised women who sell sex all strictly prioritise anonymity. Power structures in the sex trade continue to pose insurmountable barriers to reaching young and new sex workers. Economic vulnerability shaped women’s decisions to compromise on condom use. Surveys monitoring HIV prevalence among ‘visible’ street and brothel-bases sex workers are increasingly un-representative of all women selling sex and self-reported condom use is no longer a valid measure of risk reduction.ConclusionsTargeted harm reduction programmes with sex workers fail when implemented in complex urban environments that favour abolition. Increased stigmatisation and dispersal of risk can no longer be considered as unexpected. Reaching the increasing proportion of sex workers who intentionally avoid HIV prevention programmes has become the main challenge. Future evaluations need to incorporate building ‘dark logic’ models to predict potential harms.