Limitations in Research on Human Trafficking*

In this article I point to some common pitfalls and particular challenges in research on human trafficking. I start out by presenting some of the challenges in identifying observable populations and behaviours, arguing that primary data collection in the trafficking field should focus on former victims, and not current victims or persons at risk. Thereafter I discuss some of the factors that have inhibited the development and use of explicit operational definitions of trafficking. Third, I present some of the challenges in identification of trafficking victims, when the victims themselves do not want to identify with the trafficking label. Finally, the usefulness of different research strategies in the trafficking fields for the current knowledge‐needs is discussed. The article concludes that there will always be some limitations and biases in empirical research in the trafficking field. However, as long as we acknowledge these limitations and make them explicit in our research, sound empirical research that enhances our knowledge in this field is possible. The best potential for good quality research lies in small‐scale, thematically focused empirical studies, while attempts to describe worldwide trafficking across regions and arenas is less likely to be successful.     

Trafficking and Human Smuggling: A European Perspective

The article reviews the empirical evidence for trafficking and human smuggling in Europe. It argues that a market for irregular migration services has emerged, in which the mechanisms and forms of organization are still relatively unknown. Irregular migrants using these services are exposed both to unscrupulous service providers and to the immigration and policing authorities, thereby generating a dependence on safeguards provided by the trafficking networks. Thus a symbiosis has developed between trafficker and trafficked. The enormous interest and concern for trafficking and human smuggling in governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, in the media and popular opinion, is running ahead of theoretical understanding and factual evidence. This has implications for policy measures designed to combat trafficking and human smuggling, which may not work and also have unintended side effects. The article begins with a discussion of the main conceptual and definitional issues confronting researchers and politicians. This is followed by an assessment of the main theoretical approaches that have been developed and an evaluation of current statistical knowledge. Information on the organizational structure of trafficking organizations is then reviewed, followed by a summary of the characteristics of migrants involved, based on empirical studies that have been carried out. The article concludes by indicating some of the main research priorities.     

Prevent,Protect, and Prosecute Human Trafficking in Mexico: Policy and Practical Recommendations

This article presents original research findings on the state of anti‐trafficking efforts in Mexico. Based on quantitative and qualitative interviews with stakeholders from government, civil society, and United Nations organizations, this article provides data on the challenges these actors face, especially regarding corruption and violence. It argues for eight actions to improve prevention, protection, and prosecution: 1. Collect more and better data; 2. Retain officials; 3. Support shelters; 4. Employ better evaluation measures and use multipliers; 5. Provide technical help to NGOs; 6. Design a coordination platform; 7. Increase the rule of law, and 8. Promote high‐level interest to push the topic of human trafficking on the political agenda in Mexico. In sum, these eight actions address the deficiencies this research found, and outlines concrete steps each actor can take to improve the current anti‐trafficking regime in Mexico.     

Survivors’ conceptualizations of human trafficking prevention; An exploratory study

The purpose of this study was to explicate a conceptual framework for the prevention of human trafficking from the perspective of those most impacted: human trafficking survivors. In doing so establishing an empirical foundation for human trafficking prevention research. To achieve this aim, researchers employed Group Concept Mapping (GCM). GCM is an integrated, mixed-method, research design that analyzes qualitative data via quantitative approaches, namely multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analyses. All participants (N = 35) identified as human trafficking survivors from one of four states in the United States. Results indicate that survivors in this sample conceptualize prevention via a 10-cluster solution. Furthermore survivors rated the cluster on Education and Awareness (9) as the most Important (4.60), as well as the most Feasible (4.28). This paper will review extant literature related to human trafficking, explicate results from this study, and discuss pragmatic prevention implications related to findings.     

Victim or Whore: The Similarities and Differences between Victim's Experiences of Domestic Violence and Sex Trafficking

This research review addresses the similarities and differences between domestic violence and sex trafficking victimization. While there is evidence that domestic violence and sex trafficking often co-occur, there is a large disparity in the understanding and interventions utilized by law enforcement as well as the services available for victims of each crime despite the considerable overlap of victimization. This article explores current research regarding domestic violence and sex trafficking with a focus towards identifying areas of overlap and areas distinct to sex trafficking.     

Contributing Factors in Trafficking from South Asia

This pioneering research in the field of human trafficking from South Asia is an important study as the subject population has not been studied in social work literature. Victims of trafficking who were working as exotic dancers in South Asian bars in the United States were studied qualitatively. The method of recruiting, transporting, putting to work, and maintaining victims within the trafficking system is explored through interaction and observation revealing victims' personal accounts. Data analysis was conducted using NVivo and experts' analysis. The study results support a dynamic theoretical framework in which social exchanges and choice of migration networks increase South Asian women's vulnerability to trafficking.     

I'm Not for Sale: Teaching About Human Trafficking

Even though slavery is illegal in all countries, it is still practiced in the form of human trafficking. In fact, there are about twenty-five million men, women, and children who are victims of human trafficking, a 150-billion-dollar industry that affects every country across the globe. Modern communications, such as the Internet and cell phones, exacerbate the problem of human trafficking and law enforcement faces enormous challenges in detecting, arresting, and prosecuting human traffickers. Victims, fifty percent of whom are children, are sold into prostitution, forced marriages, and forced labor in sweatshops, agriculture, and mining. Additionally, some victims are forced into armed conflicts as children; others are killed and their organs are harvested and sold on the black market. It is estimated that 50,000 victims are brought into the United States annually. Human trafficking is a moral outrage, as well as a violation of American and international law. Social studies education must teach about this egregious human rights violation and encourage students to become involved in stopping this modern-day slavery. By incorporating lessons into their curricula, all teachers can help produce young citizens dedicated to protecting human rights for all people.     

Human smuggling in Austria: a comparative analysis of data on smuggled migrants from former Yugoslavia and the Russian Federation

This article provides a summary of the author’s research on human smuggling in Austria comparing migrants from Former Yugoslavia and the Russian Federation. The project’s primary intent was to collect more detailed information on migrants seeking asylum in Austria and their use of smuggling services to leave their home countries, including detailed information on demographics, force or threat of force by smugglers, routes and methods of transportation, costs of smuggling, payment methods, and deeper perceptual questions regarding the flight. Another central premise of the article discusses how current distinctions between human smuggling and human trafficking are arbitrary in many regards.     

Ethno-theatre: Exploring a narrative intervention for trafficking survivors

In the age of positivist research inquiry, evidence-based research is gaining momentum. Quantitative data supporting theoretical reasoning is allowing several advances in the Western social work curriculum and practice. However, with increasing emphasis on quantifiable significance of research outcomes, several issues and populations are being underrepresented in social work arena. Historically, the Eastern social work tradition has embraced multiple research approaches from various social science disciplines. Deriving from an anthropological approach, in this article ethno-theatre is used as a tool of narrative therapy for victims of human trafficking to assess its impact of witnessing lived experience narrated by trained actors. Results of this study reveal that staging victim narratives for girls who were sex-trafficked as minors create a cathartic environment of comfort where victims feel positive, important and empowered. This model hypothesizes that ethno-theatre operated within the framework of narrative therapy can expedite the process of recreating victim stories to build a positive social environment in the process of empowering survivors of human trafficking.     

Mafias,Markets, Mules: Gender Stereotypes in Discourses About Drug Trafficking

Popular and political discourses about drug trafficking are premised on a gender binary based on sexist stereotypes. Simply put, popular and political discourses about drug trafficking tend to describe men as the brains and women as mere bodies. Academic research on drug mules and drug trafficking tends to rely on, rather than problematise, this gender binary, limiting contemporary enquiry and knowledge about drug trafficking. Furthermore, this gendered binary informs anti‐drug trafficking policy international in harmful ways.     

Asylum Policies, Trafficking and Vulnerability

This article is located at the intersection of three recent debates on asylum in Europe: the efficacy of asylum policies; the trafficking of asylum seekers, and their growing vulnerability. Most commentators agree that there are relationships between these three debates, but the nature of those relationships remain unclear. Yet the need properly to understand the nature of these links has become especially pressing in the context of a raft of new policy initiatives on both asylum and trafficking, and concerns for their consequences for asylum seekers. At least part of the reason for this lack of clear understanding is significant gaps in empirical research. This article begins to fill some of these gaps, and in so doing to unpick some of the relationships between asylum policies, trafficking and vulnerability. It focuses on the experiences of asylum seekers in Europe, thus presenting a "bottom up" perspective on trafficking and asylum policies. The findings are derived from research among Iranian asylum seekers in the Netherlands, conducted between 1994 and 1996. The article discusses some of the reservations that surround this approach, including methodological issues such as trust, and the difficulties of applying more widely a narrow case study. Within the context of these reservations, it draws three main conclusions. First, empirical evidence to support the view that increasing proportions of asylum seekers are being forced to turn to traffickers in order to negotiate restrictive asylum policies. Second, the ways in which trafficking is exposing asylum seekers – including at least some "genuine" refugees – to new forms of vulnerability. Third, that direct links exist between asylum policies, trafficking and vulnerability, and that the blame for growing vulnerability lies more with asylum policies than with traffickers or with asylum seekers themselves. Finally, these empirical conclusions are targeted on a series of policy implications.     

How do Smuggling and Trafficking Operate via Irregular Border Crossings in the Middle East? Evidence from Fieldwork in Turkey

This article summarizes main trends, issues, actors, and activities regarding the operation and extension of human trafficking and smuggling via irregular border crossings in the Middle East. Its premise is that rather than the obvious involvement of hierarchical mafia-type organized crime groups, globally articulated networks of locally operating independent, individual groups comprise the essential foundation for human trafficking and smuggling in the region. The available empirical evidence first suggests that elaborating on various aspects of human trafficking and smuggling is a delicate task and any consideration of priorities for data collection and analysis on these activities must start with a clear idea of the information needed and how to obtain that information. Given the highly sensitive nature of trafficking and smuggling issues, there is no simple research practice that can satisfy all these concerns. It is within this context that our analysis here only offers some partial explanation of the complex nature of human trafficking and smuggling in the Middle East. The data used here provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first primary, reliable, and representative information on traffickers and smugglers as they come directly from the narratives of the traffickers and smugglers interviewed.     

Anti-Sex Trafficking Institutions

Many anti-sex trafficking analyses use the term institution in a narrow meaning, comprising mainly formal-legal political structures (public laws and governmental organizations). However, by bringing in the new institutionalism approach, it is argued that an anti-sex trafficking institution should refer to a relatively enduring collection of rules – including also informal rules such as norms and routines – and organized practices that prescribe appropriate behaviour for any actor, public or private, combating sex trafficking. Based on a review of current research it is concluded that anti-sex trafficking institutions in the early 21st century tend to focus on behaviour that aims at detection, prevention, protection, crisis management, consequence management, and response. Finally, reflecting different strands of the new institutionalism approach, it is argued that the design of anti-sex trafficking institutions depends on path-dependencies, social constructions, international institutions, and domestic politics.     

Migration as a business: the case of trafficking

"A case is made for treating international migration as a global business which has both legitimate and illegitimate sides.... The article focuses on migrant trafficking, the core of the illegitimate business.... Our model conceives of trafficking as an intermediary part of the global migration business facilitating movement of people between origin and destination countries.... The model also suggests how through the existence of common routes and networks of contacts, traffickers increasingly channel migrants, thus determining the geography of movement. We also demonstrate the model with available evidence on trafficking mainly in and across Europe and attempt thereby to show how trafficking operates both theoretically and in practice." (EXCERPT)     

Exploring the Rural-Agrarian Linkages of Human Trafficking: A Study of the Indian Punjab

This article explores the rural-agrarian linkages of human trafficking in the Indian Punjab. The study argues that ongoing agrarian crises, high risk-taking ability of some agrarian castes and low level of education in rural areas are fuelling the illicit business of human trafficking of Punjabis to foreign green pastures. Rural-agrarian communities are the main victims of the traffickers' exploitation. The study has wider policy implications as it suggests policy-makers should formulate a comprehensive policy framework for rural areas of Punjab to ensure the “3P” paradigm – prevention, protection and prosecution – of human trafficking.     

Turkey's Response to Sex Trafficking of Migrant Women: Is It Efficient Enough?

Human trafficking for sexual exploitation is a serious problem affecting especially women and children. Turkey has been particularly affected by sex trafficking because of the large numbers of female migrants that it receives. This article aims to critically assess the effectiveness of Turkey's current policies against sex trafficking using a feminist theoretical perspective with a particular focus on migrant women. To this end, the scope of the problem in Turkey, the supply and demand sides of sex trafficking, and the existing policies are discussed. Sex trafficking is examined at the intersection of Turkey's migration and prostitution regimes. It is argued that Turkey's response to sex trafficking has been inefficient because it currently focuses only on the economic supply side of the problem, ignoring the patriarchal demand side of it. The article concludes with a discussion of policy recommendations for Turkey that could help reduce sex trafficking in this country.     

Critical issues on informed consent in Africa

Biomedical research has made tremendous advances during the last decade in improving human health and well being. In spite of these advances, research has encountered serious emerging challenges as it moves across boarders and confronts different societies with different cultural practices, beliefs, moral thoughts and different values. A pervasive and perplexing issue affecting the current advances in research is the perception that research might end up exploiting populations unless it is conducted in the context of a strong ethical framework. Furthermore, informed consent has increasingly become a thorny area for researchers when considering what should be done when introducing the process into a community, especially if the process might destroy the traditional value system and customs of the community. In this paper, I argue that community consent is an unethical process which should be subverted for community dialogue and community education in research in Africa.     

Acquisition of Mands,Tacts, and Intraverbals Through Sign Exposure in an Individual With Autism

Many children with autism communicate through the use of alternative communication systems, such as sign language. Limited research has been conducted on the situations under which sign language will be acquired across verbal operants without direct teaching. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate exposure to sign language on the acquisition of signed mands, tacts, and intraverbals in a male child with autism. Results indicated fast acquisition of mands, tacts, and intraverbals without direct teaching. Results are discussed in the context of future research investigating exposure without direct teaching in individuals who communicate with alternative communication systems.     

RESEARCHING RELATIONSHIPS FROM AN ATTACHMENT PERSPECTIVE: THE USE OF BEHAVIOURAL,INTERVIEW, SELF‐REPORT AND PROJECTIVE MEASURES

Having demonstrated its credentials as one of the more elegant and robust conceptualisations of human relationships, attachment theory has considerable relevance to social work. Attachment‐based research has flourished over the past few years and it now includes an impressive array of studies across the lifespan. This article considers four different measures used in attachment‐based research, although more discussion is devoted to interview and projective measures because they specifically embrace a psychodynamic approach in their design and analytic focus. The aim of the article is to provide a brief overview of each measure and to offer some illustrative examples using practice‐related material.