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Human Trafficking Between Profit and Survival

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Crime and Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the trafficking of human beings in Central and East European transition countries from a criminological perspective. The chapter explores the general characteristics of human trafficking as well as socio-demographic, criminal and penal characteristics of traffickers. In addition, it explores some criminogenic factors that contribute to trafficking in human beings, including the interconnection between various factors and their influence on the motivation and rationalisation of criminal behaviour. Finally, criminal policy on traffickers is analysed and assessed in relation to the larger context of human rights, social inclusion and democratisation. The chapter starts with comparative analyses of trafficking in human beings in Central and Eastern Europe, and then takes Serbia as a case study.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The U.S. Department of State Report is chosen since it contains highly comparable information about both the phenomenon of human trafficking and the social responses to it, as obtained from both governmental and non-governmental sources in individual countries.

  2. 2.

    Such a criminal enterprise may comprise a smaller or bigger group of people, can be of national, regional or international character, but it can also take the form of a ‘family business’ (Luptakova et al. 2004; Nikolić-Ristanović et al. 2004). Very often, these organisations, apart from trafficking in people, deal in other criminal activities as well, particularly drug trafficking. In addition, some associates may act as independent individuals who perform individual tasks ad hoc or, less often, on a permanent basis. Schloenhardt calls these individuals ‘amateur traffickers’. They usually operate in the vicinity of borders, using their own boats, taxis and lorries (Schloenhardt 1999, p. 215).

  3. 3.

    This was the name of the country at that time. In 2006 the state was divided into two countries, Serbia and Montenegro.

  4. 4.

    Unfortunately, those from the highest level were not in prison, i.e. available for interview, at the time the survey was conducted.

  5. 5.

    This part of the chapter is largely based on my analyses in Nikolić-Ristanović (2009b). For more detailed analyses see also Nikolić-Ristanović (2009a).

  6. 6.

    For similar see Logonder (2008).

  7. 7.

    This part of the chapter is based on the analysis presented in Nikolic-Ristanovic (2011).

  8. 8.

    Ruggiero, for example, stresses that the social panic connected to the international war against drugs in the 1980s led to an increase in the incarceration rate of users and small dealers, who became part of a ‘carceral social zone’ and similarly with respect to other marginalised, poor and underemployed sections of society, the economic activities of which both link and blur legality and illegality. ‘Prison discipline lowered their social expectations, turning the majority of them into routine criminal workers’, with drug users being treated as a ‘criminal reserve army’ in much the same way as the poor of the era of forced industrialisation were redefined as the ‘reserve army of labour’ (Ruggiero 2001, p. 24).

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Elisa Domeniconi who, as an intern at the Victimology Society of Serbia at the time of writing of this chapter, assisted with research on the relevant literature. In writing this chapter the author was supported by project 179044 Developing methodology for recording crime as the basis for efficient measures for fighting and preventing it, implemented by the Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation, Belgrade University, and funded by the Serbian Ministry of Education and Science. The author is the principal researcher in this project.

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  1. Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović

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  1. Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović
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Correspondence to Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović .

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  1. , Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Alenka Å elih

  2. University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Aleš Završnik

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Nikolić-Ristanović, V. (2012). Human Trafficking Between Profit and Survival. In: Šelih, A., Završnik, A. (eds) Crime and Transition in Central and Eastern Europe. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3517-4_8

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