Trafficking For Sexual Exploitation Research Articles

Gender Differences in Rates of Criminal Victimization and Police Response Practices: Basis for Enhanced Crime Solution Efficiency

The study used a quantitative research design employing a self-made survey questionnaire distributed to the three groups of 315 resident-respondents in Caraga Region, Philippines to assess gender differences in rates of criminal victimization in terms of gender-based sexual harassment (GBSH), rape, sexual touching (Acts of Lasciviousness), trafficking for sexual exploitation, Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV), and domestic violence, and police response practices in terms of prevention, investigation, arrest, and assistance to prosecution with the end view of providing basis for an enhanced crime solution efficiency. The researcher used a purposive sampling method in gathering the data. The basic statistical tools were used in interpreting and analyzing the gathered data. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypothesis of no significant difference in the assessment of the three groups of respondents. For the significant relationship between the gender differences in the rates of criminal victimization and the police response practices on the assessment of the three groups of respondents, Pearson’s r was utilized. Recommendations were proposed based on the findings and conclusion of this study.

‘It’s About Survival’: Court constructions of socio-economic constraints on women offenders in Australian human trafficking for sexual exploitation cases

Women make up more than half of the offenders convicted for human trafficking for sexual exploitation in Australia since 2005. This article explores how courts construct the financial motivations for women’s offending to examine how gendered structural constraints are considered in Australian trafficking cases. We explore data from the sentencing remarks and appeal transcripts from the ten cases of women convicted for human trafficking and analyse the two most recent cases to explore how women’s financial considerations are underpinned by the gendered socio-economic pressure of supporting family members. Using data from interviews with Australian judges and anti-trafficking experts, we examine the relationship between structural constraints and women’s agency and the relative weight each of these factors are given in sentencing women trafficking offenders. In doing this, we explore the overlap between victimisation and offending and the tensions between structural constraints and agency, arguing that the former must be taken into consideration when sentencing women trafficking offenders.

Social Work Education that Addresses Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation: An intersectional, anti-oppressive practice framework

Practice, policy, and research focused on trafficking for sexual exploitation and commercial sex involvement occur in the United States within a white, heteronormative social environment that must be addressed pedagogically in the classroom. Social work education increasingly includes the topic of trafficking for sexual exploitation as a stand-alone course or as sessions embedded within other courses. Yet, very little scholarship critically examines how instruction in social work on this topic can apply intersectional, anti-oppressive frameworks across micro, mezzo, and macro levels. Furthermore, current literature suggests that some social workers use exclusionary practices when addressing trafficking and commercial sex involvement, further exemplifying the need for anti-oppressive curricula. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse how key anti-oppressive theoretical and practice frameworks should influence education on trafficking for sexual exploitation and commercial sex involvement in social work. Written by two scholars and social work instructors, we describe how we apply these frameworks to pedagogical exercises in social work courses. Finally, we argue that intersectional, anti-oppressive social work education is critical to training social work students and, ultimately, addressing the needs of people experiencing or at risk of trafficking.

Police Implementation of the Partial Sex Purchase Ban in England and Wales

A main point of contention in the policy areas of prostitution and sex trafficking is whether the purchase of sex should be criminalised, whether fully (in all circumstances) or partly (only under specific circumstances). Particularly, Europe has seen several countries either fully criminalise buying sex or insofar as the person in prostitution is subject to exploitation or coercion. An example of the latter, since 2010, it is an offence in England and Wales (UK) to buy sex with a person in prostitution who has been coerced or exploited by a third party. While the offence was heavily debated before it was adopted, there has been little empirical research on its implementation, particularly by police who are on the front line of implementation. While police statistics on the offence are of questionable reliability, indications are that there has been little application of the offence. This paper explores several potential reasons for this in the context of interviews with 10 police representatives in four areas of England. Factors such as police’s knowledge and awareness of the offence, difficulties with its application, and to what extent and in what way policing of prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation are taking place, may all be playing a role, but do not explain lack of use in all of the areas examined in this research. The notions that there are not enough victims for the law to be applied or that police may be resisting applying the offence because they find the strict liability element of the offence unfair were not supported by these interviews. This research is unique in finding that there may be an issue with police misunderstanding fundamental elements of the offence and what seems to be a lack of awareness of the offence. These findings have implications for the assessment of the enforceability of this and similar offences and policy discussions around such offences.

Police failure in identifying victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation: an empirical study in Vietnam

ABSTRACT Police officers are considered as key actors in responding to the illicit trade in people in Vietnam. Based on 150 surveys and 25 in-depth interviews with these officers in five provinces/cities and one ministerial agency, this study explores challenges in identifying victims of sex trafficking. This research determined some police-related obstacles to identification, including lack of priority for identification of victims, stigmatization of sex workers, ignorance of ethnic minorities’ immigration for work, low quality of training courses, weaknesses in foreign and ethnic minorities’ languages, and ineffectiveness of interagency cooperation. The purpose of underlining such problems is to confirm that police weakness may contribute to lowered number of identified victims of sex trafficking.

Just trust me and you’ll make a fortune – relationships between offenders and victims of human trafficking

ABSTRACTDespite the increasing amount of research on human trafficking, certain aspects of the phenomenon have remained less studied. For many years, research had focused on trafficking for sexual exploitation and men-exploiting-women cases. Recently, the body of literature has become more diverse, and different forms of trafficking have been recognised. However, the trafficking research has largely ignored the notion of intersectionality, although intersectionality has been applied in several studies, for example, on domestic violence. This article deals with the relationships between offenders and trafficked persons. The study asks what is the nature of the relationships between them. Furthermore, the intersectional approach is applied to analyse what factors make trafficked persons prone to exploitation and, on the other hand, keep them in the exploitative situation. The study also focuses on the power relations between the parties involved. The data consists of trafficking in human beings court judgments from the Finnish courts. The intersectional analysis focuses particularly on the close reading of two cases. The analysis shows that many intersecting factors are linked to the victimisation of trafficked persons. Furthermore, the exploitative relationships between offenders and trafficked persons display many features of unequal distribution of power.

To What Extent Do Laws throughout England and Wales Protect Women against Sex Trafficking?

Despite somewhat extensive legislation that reduce the number of offences connected to human trafficking for sexual exploitation throughout England and Wales, all circumstances are not fully elaborated upon. Sex trafficking, according to the Shared Hope International Group, is when ‘someone uses force, fraud or compulsion to cause a profitable sex act with an adult which includes prostitution, pornography and sexual performance done in exchange for items of value, all including, money, drugs, shelter, food and clothes.’ Whilst undertaking this research report to consider the chosen topic, sex trafficking is closely allied to human trafficking and slavery, as they link together under the same legislation guidelines. We believe that it is best to address this matter in the opening of our report as sex trafficking has only recently converted into an issue within England and Wales as it was previously perceived solely as human trafficking and slavery. Human trafficking is the action of illegally transporting people from one country or area to another and this action is usually forced. Section 1 of the Modern Slavery Act then defines slavery to be ‘If a person requires another to perform forced or compulsory labour and the circumstances are such that the person knows or ought to know that the other person is being required to perform forced or compulsory labour’.

Can Clients Who Pay for Sexual Services Help Victims of Sex Trafficking?

This article explores the possibility that clients of prostitution could help victims of trafficking. In Spain, prostitution is not prohibited and the men who pay for sex are the first people who make contact with victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation. Ninety-seven interviews concerning the possible detection and reporting by clients of trafficking for prostitution were analysed, (48 of them with key informants “NGO members, prosecutors and police officers “17 interviews with clients of prostitution and 22 with women who were victims of sex trafficking). The findings presented here show two types of clients, Personalisers and Thingers, with the former being the most likely to collaborate in the detection and rescue of victims of trafficking. However greater awareness in clients of prostitution is needed to enable them to collaborate.

Decriminalization of Prostitution: The Soros Effect

This article explores the activities of George Soros and his charitable organization, Open Society Foundations (OSF), in advocating for the full decriminalization of the sex trade industry. Research finds that OSF spends only a small amount of money on grass roots “sex worker” groups around the world advocating for full decriminalization, but the foundation awards larger amounts of funds to large human rights groups whose reports and policies have a wider reach. OSF’s rationale for full decriminalization fails to consider violence and coercion in the sex trade industry, misreads research, and does not include research from venues where full decriminalization of prostitution has occurred. Thus OSF and its grantees have created a partial view on prostitution that they advocate to the public. Those concerned with trafficking for sexual exploitation, violence, coercion, and abuse in prostitution should be cognizant of these strategies used by decriminalization advocates funded by OSF and be prepared to point out the unsupported assumptions and meet OSF’s allegations with proven facts.

Policies for migrant women trafficking for sexual exploitation - Migrant women with E6 visa

Policies for migrant women trafficking for sexual exploitation - Migrant women with E6 visa

På spaning efter det offer som ej flytt: Bemästrande av människohandelsoffer och viljans inverkan på lagföringen

Despite the relatively high number of police complaints filed in Sweden for human trafficking, few offenders are prosecuted and convicted. While a third of human trafficking complaints are made for other forms of exploitation, e.g., forced labour, convictions primarily concern trafficking for sexual exploitation plus a few cases of forced begging. The current article examines the absence of prosecutionsand convictions in light of the discussion about the character of the crime and its regulation in the Swedish Criminal Code as a crime against peace and freedom. The author concludes that the limited number of convictions, and their restriction to only two forms of trafficking, are not primarily due to resource constraints.Instead they are due to the perceptions of trafficking held by the Swedish criminal courts and to the courts’ notions of what it means to ‘master’ a victim and the types of evidence required to prove such ‘mastery’.

What Counts as Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation? How Legal Methods Can Improve Empirical Research

ABSTRACTThis article, a contribution to a special issue of the Journal of Human Trafficking examining “data wars” amongst empirical researchers who purport to study the prevalence of human trafficking, explores how closer attention to legal methods may improve the validity and reliability of research regarding the prevalence of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The author hopes to illuminate and motivate two conclusions. First, some researchers have failed to accurately analyze the legal definitions of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and instead have used inaccurately narrow definitions in their research. By so doing, they have undercounted the prevalence of trafficking and have produced scholarship that is of limited relevance to legal and policy debates regarding the regulation of prostitution. Second, some researchers have provided inadequate application of the facts in particular cases to the legal definitions of trafficking for sexual exploitation. As a result, their scholarship suffers from a lack of clarity regarding why they fail to count some cases as trafficking—and this lack of clarity contributes to a lack of reliability, since the reader is unable to discern their method for determining which cases count as trafficking and which do not. As a result of these problems, the empirical research critiqued in this article is of limited value in guiding law and policy debates regarding the regulation of prostitution.

The Concept of Sexual Exploitation in International Law

Human sexual exploitation is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon, which is regulated by a number of enactments in international law The scale of organized criminal activity, which is more and more of transnational nature, has led to the signing and ratifying international conventions and agreements against sexual exploitation by most of the countries. This article provides an overview of the main international instruments of the United Nations, Council of Europe and the CIS, using the concept of sexual exploitation and regulating the features of its counteraction. Analyzing the concept of sexual exploitation, trafficking, prostitution, forms of sexual exploitation, as the principal international instruments, the author finds that the international legislator is equated with sexual exploitation trafficking in human beings, while the traffic can be not only a violation of the right to freedom of man to use his sexuality Critical evaluation is used for the controversial conceptual apparatus, the absence of a unified approach to the definition of key terms and a list of other forms of sexual exploitation, prostitution and pornography, which in the case of the implementation of international criminal law regulations may violate the uniformity in national law.

Human trafficking and the new legal framework in South Africa: Intervention needed for the law to reach vulnerable girls and women

abstractThe upsurge in human trafficking within South Africa's borders has garnered extensive public attention in recent years. Much of the attention has been centred on the absence of comprehensive legislation to adequately address and counter the increased trading of persons occurring within the country's borders. The supporting legal framework has been limited in that offenders could only be prosecuted for crimes associated with human trafficking (a few examples being the common law crimes of rape, assault, kidnapping, murder or attempted murder). There was considerable progress when “child trafficking” and “trafficking for sexual exploitation” was criminalised in the Children's Act, no 38 of 2005, and Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act, no 32 of 2007 respectively. However, these have proved insufficient in defining human trafficking in all its various components. Consequently the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act, no 7 of 2013, hereafter referred to as the ‘TIP Act’, was signed into law in 2013 but is not yet operational. This article presents a review of this new legislation to bring awareness of its scope and provisions and analyses the extent to which it attempts to address all the elements of human trafficking.

Trade in Human Beings: Evidence of Money Laundering From Sex Trafficking in India and the UK

The lack of data on the economic value-added of sex trafficking is largely explained by the fact that trafficking for sexual exploitation is usually part of the non-observed economy. In fact, the very notion of economic “value-added” may seem inappropriate when applied to sex trafficking and is sometimes rejected by anti-prostitution groups. The legality or illegality of sex trafficking is irrelevant, as both legal and illegal production should be included in the systems of national accounts. By excluding illegal or underground activities, national accounts would simply exclude monetary transactions that actually take place and hence would provide a distorted picture of reality. In view of these facts, the basic structure of criminal organizations involved in cross-border trafficking business and principles of distributing the proceeds between the various levels in these organizations based on the empirical data obtained through the field survey in India and the UK was revealed. The survey comprised 124 respondents from India and the UK, using multi-stage stratified sampling technique. The study also showed the various investment practices, typical money-laundering schemes for proceeds generated from sex trafficking in India and the UK.

Trafficking in Human Beings in the European Union

In this article, the intersection of gender, trafficking for sexual exploitation, and use of digital communication technologies are analyzed based on data from the European Union (EU). Over the past two decades, an increase in trafficking in human beings in the EU has been accompanied by an increase in the development and availability of digital communication technologies. The first statistical analysis of trafficking in human beings (2008-2010) carried out by the European Commission found 23,632 victims of human trafficking in the reporting member states. Eighty percent of victims were women and girls; 20% were men and boys. The majority of the victims (62%) were trafficked for sexual exploitation. Digital communication technologies are widely used for trafficking for sexual exploitation, and more rarely for trafficking for forced labor. This article concludes that the combination of gender, trafficking for sexual exploitation, and use of digital communication technologies has created a nexus of victimiz...

Funding and Capacity Building Fuel Cooperation: A Case Study of Counter-Force Networks Fighting Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking in India

Historically, organizations combatting trafficking for sexual exploitation in India have struggled to cooperate. Due to the multifaceted demands of protecting vulnerable populations and confronting criminal networks, a lack of cooperation can lead to interventions that are ineffective or detrimental. Multiple case studies have indicated that there are three interrelated challenges that hinder cooperation: complex political landscapes, limited vision and funding dedicated to inter-organizational relationships, and a lack of expertise in particular disciplines. One case study indicated that coordinated funding and capacity building fueled sustainable cooperation to form a counter-force that can more effectively combat sexual exploitation and trafficking in India.

Trans-border sex trafficking: identifying cases and victims in the UK

There is evidence of a significant level of human trafficking for sexual exploitation in the UK. Trafficking victims have been found in cities and in small communities across the UK, and their experiences have included a level of brutality that is shocking. The UK is not complacent about the efforts required to stop people from being trafficked for exploitation or punishing the perpetrators and will continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders and key agencies as well as supporting source countries in tackling the issues that stimulate the demand for human trafficking. Attempts have been made by the UK government to crack down on trafficking gangs, and some victims have been offered a range of support services. Tackling human trafficking in all its forms is vital and the UK is committed to continually testing its response to lessen the threat. Although the UK has already attained significant progress to combat trafficking, it recognises that any response must be able to quickly adapt and extend to keep pace with the traffickers. Three key areas have been identified where further concerted effort is needed to improve and strengthen the UK’s approach – data capture and intelligence sharing, training and awareness raising for frontline professionals and coordinating prevention activities.

Prevalence and Risk of Violence and the Physical, Mental, and Sexual Health Problems Associated with Human Trafficking: Systematic Review

There is very limited evidence on the health consequences of human trafficking. This systematic review reports on studies investigating the prevalence and risk of violence while trafficked and the prevalence and risk of physical, mental, and sexual health problems, including HIV, among trafficked people. We conducted a systematic review comprising a search of Medline, PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and Web of Science, hand searches of reference lists of included articles, citation tracking, and expert recommendations. We included peer-reviewed papers reporting on the prevalence or risk of violence while trafficked and/or on the prevalence or risk of any measure of physical, mental, or sexual health among trafficked people. Two reviewers independently screened papers for eligibility and appraised the quality of included studies. The search identified 19 eligible studies, all of which reported on trafficked women and girls only and focused primarily on trafficking for sexual exploitation. The review suggests a high prevalence of violence and of mental distress among women and girls trafficked for sexual exploitation. The random effects pooled prevalence of diagnosed HIV was 31.9% (95% CI 21.3%-42.4%) in studies of women accessing post-trafficking support in India and Nepal, but the estimate was associated with high heterogeneity (I² = 83.7%). Infection prevalence may be related as much to prevalence rates in women's areas of origin or exploitation as to the characteristics of their experience. Findings are limited by the methodological weaknesses of primary studies and their poor comparability and generalisability. Although limited, existing evidence suggests that trafficking for sexual exploitation is associated with violence and a range of serious health problems. Further research is needed on the health of trafficked men, individuals trafficked for other forms of exploitation, and effective health intervention approaches.

The ‘Groundhog Day’ of the Human Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation Debate: New Directions in Criminological Understanding

This paper considers the intellectual framework that is used to understand human trafficking and the limitations that it imposes on the criminological study of this phenomenon. First, there is a brief historical perspective which allows for comparisons between current debates and the moral crusades of the Victorian/Edwardian social purists. The contemporary focus on trafficking for sexual exploitation, rooted in Victorian/Edwardian construction has, the authors argue, narrowed the policy remit and the criminological investigation into human trafficking. The paper then proceeds to address the interaction between these enduring (historical) myths, the role of trans-national organised crime and the constraining effects of the contemporary intellectual framework. It is argued that in order to challenge the cyclical nature of the debates, it is necessary to make redundant the use of the term human trafficking and to widen the criminological lens through which we consider the problem. In doing so, we hope to highlight those groups whose experiences are missing or marginalised in the current construction of the problem and urge a reconsideration of the way in which criminology approaches this issue.