Abstract
This chapter analyses the changing construction of trafficking as a global issue. It considers amongst other factors the first international conferences and conventions which introduced a new perspective to trafficking compared with the early twentieth century idea of ‘White trade’, which linked it strictly to prostitution. It looks at the definitions of trafficking, their core assumptions as well as how these inform the guidelines for legislation and social intervention. This chapter also examines some crucial features of the debate on trafficking, both academic and political, and policy measures produced. This chapter draws on biographical interviews undertaken with women in a number of European countries who either can be categorised as ‘trafficked’, according to the existing definitions, or have lived experiences of exploitation which are similar in limiting their autonomy. Finally, it looks at good practices and argues for a new ‘holistic’ approach, considering that the focus on the criminal dimensions of trafficking and a rigid dichotomy between criminals and victims, traffickers and prostitutes, cannot explain either the causes and the dynamics of the phenomenon or the multiple collective and individual trajectories of those trafficked.
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Notes
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1 See http://www.e-notes-observatory.org/wp-content/uploads/E-notes-report_Adobe-61.pdf. Accessed 15 January 2012.
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2 IOM, International Organization for Migrations founded in 1951, is the main intergovernmental organisation for migrations.
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3 The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) is an alliance of 105 non-governmental organisations from Africa (9), Asia (46), Europe (20), LAC (23) and North America. The GAATW International Secretariat is based in Bangkok, Thailand and co-ordinates the activities of the Alliance, collects and disseminates information and advocates on behalf of the Alliance at regional and international levels.
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4 United Nations – General Assembly (2000c) UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, A/RES/55/25, Palermo, Italy.
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5 Consequently, exploitation can concern different sectors of informal economy – more or less illegal (prostitution market, domestic work, begging, forced labour).
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6 The first international agreement against trafficking dated back to May 1904, the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, which was followed by the International Convention of 4 May 1910 for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic and by the International Convention of 30 September 1921 for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, as amended by the protocol approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 20 October 1947.
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7 This term refers, among other things, to ‘white’ women taken to Muslim harems, a topic that caused considerable concern in Europe and the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century. More generally, the term ‘White Slavery’ variably described licensed prostitution, all forms of prostitution (licensed and unlicensed) and prostitution based on coercion and fraud.
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8 http://eurlex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2002:203:0001:0004:EN:PDF Accessed 15 January 2012.
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9 The ILO estimates that ‘at least 12.3 million people around the world are trapped in forced labour. Forced labour takes different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery’.
(http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Feature_stories/lang--en/WCMS. Accessed 15 January 2012).
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10 Published in the Council of Europe Treaty Series (ETS) No. 197, http://www.e-notes-observatory.org/wp-content/uploads/E-notes-report_Adobe-61.pdf . Accessed 15 January 2012.
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11 http://www.coe.int/t/DG2/TRAFFICKING/campaign/default_en.asp. Accessed 15 January 2012. The Convention has been signed by 21 Council of Europe member states: Andorra, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, FYROM, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Until now, only 16 states have ratified the ‘Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings’, namely, Armenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Georgia, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Norway, Portugal, Romania and Slovakia.
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12 http://www.e-notes-observatory.org/wp-content/uploads/E-notes-report_Adobe-61.pdf. Accessed 15 January 2012.
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13 In 2008, according to the data from 11 states, 207 persons were presumed to have been trafficked; in 2008, the number was 1150 from 18 states. But reliable data are not available because victim witnesses involved in court hearings are sometimes under programmes of protection. Countries have different proceedings.
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14 ‘Immigration enforcement, developed and implemented without taking into account anti-trafficking standards and victim care responsibilities, is an aggressive response that ignores basic tenets of victim protection. …, harsh anti-migration responses can contribute to new cases of human trafficking. Migrants who were not yet in trafficking situations become more vulnerable to forced labor and forced prostitution when exploiters can effectively use the threat of their detention and deportation – without the opportunity to seek legal redress for human trafficking complaints – to obtain or maintain the migrants’ forced labor or service. They also become vulnerable to trafficking when expelled to third countries with no protections for undocumented foreigners’ (TIP Report 2: 24).
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15 See, for example, Victor Malarek (2004), The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade that focus on the fact that crimes and the criminal/victim dichotomy have played an important role to denounce the problem, but have not sufficiently taken take into account the complexity of the phenomenon.
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16 It must be stressed that migration with consent does not mean ‘trafficking with consent’. ‘Trafficking with consent’ is a contradiction in terms because no one ever consents to slavery-like, servitude or forced-labour conditions.
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17 http://sociologias-com.blogspot.com/2/01/les-femmes-migrantes-dans-letau-des.html. Accessed 15 January 2012.
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18 The six women come from Brazil, Nigeria, Latvia and Guinea and live in four EU member states, Italy, France, Germany and the UK.
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19 Italian Legislation Art. 18 (D. Lgs. 286/98) Stay permit for social protection reasons.
Art. 18 Stay permit for social protection reasons states that ‘When, in the course of police operations, investigations or proceedings related to prostitution legislation violations and in cases of arrest in the act, or during assistance interventions carried out by social services or NGOs, a situation of violence and serious exploitation towards a foreign person is discovered and concrete dangers for his/her safety emerge, as a consequence of attempts to escape the constrictions exercised by a criminal organization or of testimonies given during preliminary investigations or the trial, the head of police administration, also on a judge’s proposal or with his/her favorable opinion, will provide the foreigner with a special residence permit to allow him/her to escape the violence and constrictions exercised by the organized criminal group and to participate in a social integration and assistance programme’.
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Campani, G., Chiappelli, T. (2013). Trafficking and Women’s Migration in the Global Context. In: Anthias, F., Kontos, M., Morokvasic-Müller, M. (eds) Paradoxes of Integration: Female Migrants in Europe. International Perspectives on Migration, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4842-2_10
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