Human Trafficking

Exploring the International Nature, Concerns, and Complexities

John Winterdyk, Benjamin Perrin, Philip Reichel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781439884522
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Cyber Security
• Index: Computer Science

Human trafficking is a crime that undermines fundamental human rights and a broader sense of global order. It is an atrocity that transcends borders with some regions known as exporters of trafficking victims and others recognized as destination countries. Edited by three global experts and composed of the work of an esteemed panel of contributors,

1

Introduction

JOHN WINTERDYK
BENJAMIN PERRIN
PHILIP REICHEL

Contents

Trafficking versus Migrant Smuggling: What’s the Difference?

A Checkered Past

Overview of TIP: A Form of “Modern Day Slavery”

An Enduring Presence

Extent of Human Trafficking

Formal Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking

Overview of the Book

Conclusion

References

It has only been a little more than a decade since the international community committed to confront what Kevin Bales (2007), and Kara (2009), among others, have referred to as modern-day slavery (the “oldest oppression”), with the landmark adoption of the United Nations’ Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons on November 15, 2000. In response to this milestone international treaty, a growing number of countries have enacted, or amended, their laws and policies to prosecute human traffickers, provide assistance and protection to trafficked persons, and to prevent this criminal activity that undermines fundamental human rights and a broader sense of global order. Meanwhile, 2010 marked the 10th anniversary of the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report compiled by the U.S. Department of State, a key document in the fight against modern day slavery.

Alongside this international community response, numerous countries have taken important steps to make important contributions to intervene on behalf of trafficked persons and advocate for enhanced measures to provide its victims with various types of support (e.g., rehabilitation and reintegration services) (see Chapter 12). At the same time, academic researchers and scholars have sought to enhance the understanding of both the nature and extent of trafficking in persons involved in sexual exploitation and forced labor at a national, regional, and global levels as well as providing evidence-based research to support more effective public policy responses. While both pure research and action-based research continue to be of ongoing importance, interest has grown, in recent years, in how to improve our assessment of the laws, policies and programs, as well as the pedagogical perspectives of human trafficking that have been implemented to combat/understand trafficking in persons. This evaluative goal is an important one, both to ensure that responses are indeed achieving their objectives as well as for the identification of promising practices.

This handbook represents another contribution to a recently burgeoning body of (academic) literature on the complex problem of human trafficking.

In addition to the growing list of scholarly publications on the subject (e.g., Bales 2007; Lee 2007, 2011; Perrin 2010a; Scarpa 2008; Segrave et al. 2009; Zhang 2007), there has also been a proliferation of journal articles and even Special Issues produced by some peer reviewed criminology/criminal justice journals with a focus on human trafficking. Most notable was the International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice [2007, 31(2)], edited by Shoham^* and Knepper, and the European Journal of Criminology [2010, 7(1)], edited by Winterdyk and Reichel. Shoham and Knepper’s Special Issue included six articles which covered such themes as the exploitation of women and children within a European context, to “interest groups and the development of the U.S. Congress’s response to human trafficking,” to systematic aspects and tendencies of the criminal sex trade. In their Introduction, the editors point out that “the discussion focuses on policies taken to combat human trafficking” (p. 119). Meanwhile, Winterdyk and Reichel also assembled six peer-reviewed articles that focused largely on trafficking in persons in Europe. Among the countries included are Finland, Scotland, Serbia, as well as a contribution from Brazil, which focuses on the impact and effect of government corruption in relation to trafficking in persons.

In addition to academic researchers, governmental and international organizations have made important global contributions to assess both the extent of trafficking in persons (TIP) and evaluate the response of various governments around the world. The U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report has, despite some criticism (see, e.g., Friedrich et al. 2006), evolved from a cursory discussion to more comprehensive narratives with statistical data for many of the countries of the world in its effort to monitor and evaluate global strategies to combat TIP since 2001. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (UNODC 2009) has also provided a further perspective on national responses by highlighting gaps in the prosecution of TIP at the national level as well as challenged views about who are the traffickers in many cases. Finally, the International Organization for Migration (IOM 2008) has built upon the foundation of the obligations in the Palermo Protocol to identify a detailed set of measurable counter-trafficking performance indicators to facilitate both comparative analyses across jurisdictions as well as trends over time within a given jurisdiction.

Although our synopsis is not exhaustive (see Laczko and Gozdziak 2005 for a slightly dated, yet comprehensive listing of work on TIP up to 2004), it appears evident that the issue of human trafficking is garnering the attention of academics as well as researchers in governmental, NGOs, and international organizations.

To-date most of these efforts have tended, despite their rich content, to have either a comparatively narrow focus or, as in the case of the special journal issues (see above), be limited in depth and scope (due to practical constraints). Given the complex transnational nature of TIP, there is a need for a collected work to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic covering the diverse scope and impact of TIP, while recognizing the diversity of views about the characterization of this phenomenon and approaches to addressing it. This book represents the one of the first attempts to provide a cross-sectional and internationally representative examination of various broad themes and issues as they relate to a contemporary understanding of TIP. More specifically, this book will cover, within a comparative and/or international context, key topics ranging from a detailed review of the meaning and various explanations of human trafficking (Chapter 4), to articulating some of the different types of human trafficking (Chapter 5), to how the criminal justice system tries to respond to (i.e., prosecute and prevent—see Chapters 6 through 9), the challenges of assessing the merits of programs and policies designed to protect victims of human trafficking (Chapter 12), as well as the difficulties for national and international capacity building (Chapter 10).

Fitchelberg (2008) points out that the crime of human trafficking has been classified by the United Nations as the third most profitable crime in the world and one for which there are no easy solutions.^* Furthermore, as a fairly recent UNICEF report noted: “(t)here is a clear need for effective laws and plans of action, for the investigation and efficient prosecution of all cases, as well as for successful return and reintegration of victims” (Innocenti insight … 2005). Hence, this compilation is the result of efforts by a wide range of international contributors and experts who agreed to prepare a specific chapter that allows the book as a whole to address most of the key themes necessary for understanding and developing better responses to human trafficking.

The genesis for this handbook evolved out of a major project completed in 2007. The project was led by Philip Reichel in which he, and an international team, examined the Canadian and American practices of combating TIP. In addition, the project explored a range of initiatives used in Europe and proposed by the United Nations.^† Subsequent networking with others, engaged in the study of human trafficking, particularly at the 2008 meeting of the European Society of Criminology (ESC) and the 2009 meeting of the American Criminal Justice Academy (ACJS), led Winterdyk and Reichel to the idea of trying to prepare a special issue for a criminological journal. The efforts of this work can be found in the European Journal of Criminology [2010, 7(1)]. In addition, follow up with some related work and collaboration has been done with Benjamin Perrin, whose own work in the area has garnered both national and international attention. We welcomed his wealth of expertise and strong legal background to broaden our collective perspectives on the subject. In addition to publishing numerous academic articles on the subject of trafficking persons, his recent book, Invisible Chains: Canada’s Underground World of Human Trafficking (2010b), explores Canada’s connection to this global problem based on empirical research and evidence-based policy analysis.

To-date there has been no single body of work that has attempted to examine the nature, extent, and complexity of the main issues confronting TIP from an international/global perspective. More specifically, since human trafficking is a transnational crime—a crime that transcends borders—it is deemed valuable to explore varying perspectives which either directly or indirectly address the practices or issues for responding to concerns in those regions which are recognized as exporters of trafficking victims versus those regions which are recognized as destination countries (see, e.g., Chapters 11 and 12). However, while most research on trafficking tends to focus on international trafficking, there is also a need to examine the plight of internal trafficking and trafficking for forced labor (see Goodey 2008), which is frequently a more common occurrence in many countries but lacks the same attention as foreign trafficking responses. The general lack of research on domestic trafficking and trafficking for forced labor may in-part be due to the fact that, according to Laczko and Gozdziak (2005), scholarly work on human trafficking, in general, did not really begin to emerge until the late 1990s.

In their research, Laczko and Gozdiak found but one TIP reference dating back to 1993. The majority of the 260 titles they identified were published between the mid-1990s and 2003 followed by a precipitous drop-off in 2004. So, while there now exists a diverse body of literature on TIP given that a number of international agreements have been established (e.g., Palermo Protocol), it is timely to offer a consolidated look at some of the key presenting issues from a national, regional, and international perspective.

In addition to a general lack of scholarly work on internal trafficking, there is a need to examine the techniques used to protect/support victims of trafficking as well as the need to examine which strategies might work best to prosecute those found guilty of trafficking. This thematic volume attempts to explore some of these issues and move the discourse beyond simply reiterating that there is a problem and mapping the routes and relationships between countries, such as countries from which people are trafficked out of (i.e., source countries), countries to where trafficked persons end-up (i.e., a country of destination), or a country of transit. Transit involves countries through which trafficked persons are moved en-route to their final destination.^* Rather, we aim to provide a richer comparative-based understanding of the issues so as to forge evidence-based knowledge to better guide policy-makers.

While most of the key themes surrounding TIP will be addressed throughout this book, we thought it instructive to provide a synopsis of some of the fundamental issues involved in TIP. Our thinking is that a discussion of these more general, descriptive, theoretical, and practical issues, though brief, would provide readers’ unfamiliar with issues of TIP a common base from which to understand—and critically reflect upon—this handbook’s content. To begin, we first offer an overview on the controversial debate regarding the difference between human trafficking and migrant smuggling.

Trafficking versus Migrant Smuggling: What’s the Difference?

Given the heated debates and lobbying around the legal definition of trafficking, it is prudent to briefly discuss the difference between migrant smuggling and human trafficking as uncertainty over...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Editors
• Contributors
• 1: Introduction
• 2: Defining Human Trafficking and Its Nuances in a Cultural Context
• 3: Data on Human Trafficking: Challenges and Policy Context
• 4: Explaining Human Trafficking
• 5: Voices from Victims and Survivors of Human Trafficking
• 6: Crime Control versus Social Work Approaches in the Context of the “3P” Paradigm: Prevention, Protection, Prosecution
• 7: Human Trafficking and Police Investigations
• 8: Prosecution of Trafficking in Human Beings Cases
• 9: Improving Law Enforcement Identification and Response to Human Trafficking
• 10: International Cooperation
• 11: Evaluating Responses to Human Trafficking: A Review of International, Regional, and National Counter-Trafficking Mechanisms
• 12: Victims of Human Trafficking: Meeting Victims’ Needs?
• Epilogue
• Index