Human Sex Trafficking

Frances Bernat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317986904
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Human sex trafficking is believed to the most common form of modern day slavery. The victims of domestic and international sex trafficking are estimated to be in the millions. Most of these victims are female and children. They are enslaved in the commercial sex industry for little or no money.

This book will explore human sex trafficking in several nations of origin and destination. This book will explore sex trafficking from the perspective that understanding its causes requires attention to global conditions while responding to it requires attention to local laws, policies and practices. Social service workers will need to understand how and why trafficking victims find it difficult to break free and why many victims will not cooperate with those persons who are attempting to assist them.

This book will be useful to anti-trafficking agencies and personnel who wish to further understand the nature and extent of human sex trafficking in the U.S. and in countries of destination for sex trafficking. In addition, this book will be of use to students of human rights and social justice who want to join the effort to abolish human sex trafficking in our lifetime.

This book was published as a special issue of Women & Criminal Justice.

Sex Trafficking Around the World

Victims of Sex Trafficking in Turkey: Characteristics, Motivations, and Dynamics

OGUZHAN OMER DEMIR

Turkish National Police Academy, Anittepe-Ankara, Turkey

JAMES O. FINCKENAUER

School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, USA

An emerging transnational crime problem, human trafficking occurs in almost every part of the world. But as a transit, source, and destination nexus for immigration, Turkey is particularly vulnerable in this regard. Turkey attracts many foreigners who choose to come there for geographical, historical, economic, and political reasons; some of these persons are victims of human trafficking. This article examines the problem of trafficking for sexual exploitation in Turkey and specifically examines victims' characteristics and their decision-making processes. Two primary data sources were used: police-recorded victim interviews (N=430) and formal interviews with key personnel working for the prevention of human trafficking in Turkey (N=18). The majority of victims come to Turkey from countries of the former Soviet Union. Most of the victims interviewed here were single, and the majority had only a primary or secondary school education. These victims reported that they had jobs at home, but most were low-level jobs. The victims were thus attracted to Turkey by job opportunities in the domestic and entertainment sectors. They preferred Turkey instead of the even more developed countries of the West because of the availability and ease of transportation from their countries of origin. The large sex industry in Turkey is able to absorb women who are brought there through the use of various means of deception. It is interesting that despite experiencing previous exploitation and victimization, almost one fifth of the victims reported looking for further opportunities to reenter and to work again in the sex business in Turkey.

INTRODUCTION

Increasing human movements in the new globalized environment have both positive and negative consequences. Trafficking in human beings is one of these negative effects. An emerging transnational crime problem, human trafficking occurs in almost every part of the world. As a transit, source, and destination nexus for immigration, Turkey is particularly vulnerable in this regard. Turkey attracts many foreigners who choose to come there for geographical, historical, economic, and political reasons; some of these are “victims” of human trafficking. As we discuss here, the term victim is not a clear-cut characterization or label. Different degrees of victimization are represented in our study sample, ranging from some cases in which exploitation and victimization is very obvious to others in which it is much less so. Who is and is not a victim is not a simple question to answer, as we will see.

Studies have explored the various dimensions of human trafficking in different parts of the world. These include the Ukraine (Hughes 2002), the United States (Raymond, Hughes, and Gomez 2001; Richard 1999), the United Kingdom (Kelly and Regan 2000), Asia (Brown 2000), Moldova (International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour [IPEC] 2003b), Kosovo (UNICEF 2004), and Norway (Brunovskis and Tyldum 2004). The research varies in its approach to the trafficking problem, the trafficking processes, and the individuals and groups involved in trafficking. In addition, since human trafficking to Europe, the United States, Canada, and the Middle East that originates from the former Soviet Union has become a growing problem, scholars have also focused on those source countries and the starting points of human trafficking routes (Finckenauer 2001; Hughes 2002). However, human trafficking in Turkey, particularly with respect to victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, has not received much attention.

This research is important and essential for several reasons. First, we strongly believe that studying human trafficking in Turkey will make a valuable contribution to the literature. Second, the present study examines victims from the former Soviet Union and presents a new perspective in the body of knowledge about human trafficking originating there. Finally, this study makes use of a large collection of victim interview data (430 interviews). It is rare in the literature to find a study that analyzes such a large data set. By synthesizing information that has heretofore been inaccessible to researchers, we hope to open up new avenues for exploration and study.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Many researchers have studied the characteristics of victims of trafficking (Brown 2000; Hughes 2002; Kelly and Regan 2000; Richard 1999). In addition, many international organizations have demonstrated the importance of the issue of sexual exploitation of women and children (International Organization for Migration [IOM] 2006; IPEC 2003a, c; UNICEF 2002). These studies have explored various aspects of sex trafficking: who the victims are, why they travel to places they know nothing about, what triggers their decisions to become involved, and so on.

Because women and children are more vulnerable and more easily exploitable, they tend to be more likely targets for traffickers. Younger women and boys and girls are especially likely to be targeted by sex traffickers. An IOM (2002) study suggested that women younger than 25 were most likely to become victims of trafficking. Children are also more likely than older women to become the victims of prostitution (Hughes 2002; Lazaroiu and Alexandru 2003; Montgomery 1998). In addition to prostitution, child pornography and pedophilia are problems associated with sex trafficking (IOM 2002).

A report on trafficking victims in Turkey indicated that 65 percent of the victims were younger than 25 (IOM 2006). A study of child trafficking in the Ukraine found that trafficked children were more likely to come from families with alcoholic parents, parents with health problems, or familieswith an authoritarian character (IPEC 2003a, c). Financial and educational inequalities also play a role. The latter study found that only half of the victims had even a middle school education, and three quarters came from poor families (IPEC 2003c).

Various theoretical perspectives as well as pragmatic economic issues have informed the discussions of migration as well as human trafficking. Why people migrate has been a fundamental question explored by many researchers (see, e.g., Lewis 1954; Light, Bhachu, and Karageorgis 1989; Piore 1979; Todaro 1969; Wallerstein 1976). The complex nature of international migration, Massey et al. (1993:432) claimed, “requires a sophisticated theory that incorporates a variety of perspectives, levels, and assumptions.” Indeed, over the past several decades the patterns of migration have changed dramatically. For example, several decades ago, countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Turkey were places to emigrate from; now, they have turned into havens for immigrants (Kirisci 2003).

Some researchers offer macrolevel economic explanations for migration trends, such as the effects of a surplus labor economy, whereas others focus on microlevel economic constructs, such as the individual choice to move. As far as the theoretical approaches explaining the reasons for migration are concerned, two are particularly relevant in explaining the migration of trafficking victims: economic development and migration networks.

The economic development theory, presented by Lewis (1954), is based on the belief that international migration is a result of the wage differentials between countries. Labor migration plays a key role in the developmental process of countries. Surplus labor exists in countries that are not well developed. In contrast, the demand for cheap labor in the developed world, where labor in general may be in short supply given the demands of economic development, encourages immigration in order to maintain an abundant labor force. The migrant laborers then have to rely on their wages to survive.

Harris and Todaro (1970) further claimed that an unbalanced distribution of capital and labor results in migration. The disparity between living standards and wages creates a “pull and push balance.” Lack of participation in the economy in less developed countries is as much a function of rural “supply push” as it is one of urban “demand pull.”

Thus as long as the real income differential continues to rise sufficiently fast to offset any sustained increase in the rate of job creation, the lure of relatively higher permanent incomes will continue to attract a steady stream of rural migrants into the ever more congested urban slums. (Todaro 1969:147)

The literature continues to explore the push factors in countries of origin and the pull factors in destination countries as being the main reasons for migration. This combination of factors may also give rise to human trafficking, a form of migration. “While trafficking patterns vary according to [the] global supply of and demand for trafficked women, trafficking generally arises in conditions of poverty and in locations that lack viable economic opportunities relative to other countries” (Chuang 1998:68). In relation to the sex industry specifically, the countries that feature large sex industries and are tolerant toward or have legalized prostitution create the demand, and the countries of origin meet this demand. The need for cheap labor in the industrialized countries (IOM 2002), liberal border policies, and corruption (Gulcur and Ilkkaracan 2002) further facilitate this situation.

Poverty and unemployment are two factors that compel potential trafficking victims to leave their countries (Hughes 2002; Hughes and Denisova 2002; Lazaroiu and Alexandru 2003). When the push factors are very strong, young women are ready to accept any job offer irrespective of the risks involved (Lazaroiu and Alexandru 2003). Other serious problems related to the economy and the social order may also result in mass migration. These special situations make people much more vulnerable to possible solutions, such as migration (Swedish Department for Global Development 2003).

Pull factors may also affect the desire to migrate. For example, the high levels of labor demand, higher wages, many job opportunities, and the perceived glamour of the lifestyle in Western countries are attractive to people from less economically advantaged contexts. For example, women from Eastern European countries have been targeting Western countries as destinations in which to find a husband and start a new “rich” life (Hughes and Denisova 2002). In most cases, the main motive of women who apply to marriage agencies is to better their living conditions and the economic future for themselves and their families (Hughes 2004). These views are nourished by media that portray the Western countries as prosperous societies in which everyone lives well (IOM 2002). A UNICEF (2002) study found that most women in developing nations would like to spend money and enjoy their lives as they perceive Western women as doing.

These examples are also consistent with the microeconomic model of individual choice, which emphasizes that migrants make individual rational choices based on a complex cost–benefit calculation rather than simply in response to a wage differential. This perspective concedes that there are obvious benefits in migration, such as higher wages and more job opportunities, especially if the individual migrant has specialized job skills. However, it also holds that there are costs, such as the price of learning a new language and culture; the outlay of funds for traveling; the difficulty of learning a new work environment; and the expenditures associated with adapting to new conditions and n...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface Human Sex Trafficking
• Introduction
• A Legal Response
• Sex Trafficking Around the World
• Solutions
• Conclusion
• Index