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Canada has engaged in a range of efforts to stop human trafficking within and across it borders. Federal and provincial governments have spent considerable funds in this regard, and have studied the issue to come up with perceived solutions. In this article, we explore Canada’s two national House of Commons standing committee consultations on trafficking, in 2006 and 2018. Using critical discourse analysis to examine the consultation transcripts and written briefs, we identified several significant shifts in both the language used and the areas of focus advanced by witnesses, in particular: the modified emphasis from international to domestic trafficking; the changing nature of vulnerability and victimhood; and an increased focus on youth sexual exploitation. We propose that what is being expressed is an iteration of Canadian sexualized nationalism and national sexual morality. These results have policy implications, especially with respect to promoting just, peaceful, and inclusive societies at a time when there are mounting pressures to restrict migration that often dovetail with concerns over human trafficking. Indeed, the way concerns over trafficking are expressed in Canada appears as a fear over women’s sexual agency and vulnerability as well as a need protect “our” boundaries from incursion, whether territorial or moral.

Human trafficking, also known as modern-day slavery, is a public health crisis and a growing worldwide crime exploiting approximately 40.3 million victims. A decade ago approximately 79% of human trafficking crimes were related to sexual exploitation and 18% were related to forced labor, but more recent reports show approximately 50% and 38%, respectively. Although sexual exploitation continues to make up the majority of human trafficking crimes, forced labor continues to grow at an alarming rate. The purpose of this paper is 2-fold. First, to empower healthcare providers and community volunteers serving potential victims of human trafficking in traditional and nontraditional settings with human trafficking identification training. This education should include the use of a validated human trafficking screening tool and the timely provision of resources. Second, to guide professional nurses in the holistic approach to caring for potential victims of human trafficking. The core values of holistic nursing practice and Watson's Theory of Human Caring are the pillars guiding mindful and authentic nursing care. Merging evidence-based practice with holistic care will boost victim identification and rescue.

The need to educate youth on sex trafficking in the United States has received considerable attention; however, limited research is available to guide development of educational programming for youth. Perspectives from 32 experts in fields connected to sex trafficking and violence prevention were obtained through focus groups and interviews. Questions focused on goals/purposes of educating youth about sex trafficking, content to include in a school-based sex trafficking curriculum for middle and high school students, methods to deliver such a curriculum, and challenges to implementing a sex trafficking curriculum in schools and associated strategies. Experts recommended content on healthy and unhealthy relationships, general information about sex trafficking, factors related to sex trafficking, and identification of safe people and needed resources. Program delivery recommendations focused on delivery approach, format, facilitation, manualization, and integration throughout the school’s curriculum. Lastly, experts noted implementation challenges and associated strategies relating to time and space in school curriculum, parents’ discomfort with educating their children about sex trafficking, and buy-in from school administrators. Results build on existing literature by providing greater depth and context on educating youth about sex trafficking. Empowering youth with information and resources regarding sex trafficking is important for promoting just, peaceful, and inclusive societies.

The domestic sex trafficking of minors is occurring across Canada and the United States. Understanding the routes into sex trafficking, including the way traffickers target, recruit and enmesh youth in the sex trade is invaluable information for service providers and law makers developing prevention and intervention initiatives. This review synthesized research on the exploitation processes and tactics employed by traffickers in the sex trafficking of domestic minors in Canada and the US. The authors comprehensively and systematically searched five electronic databases and obtained additional publications and grey literature through a backward search of the references cited in articles reviewed for inclusion. Inclusionary criteria included: Studies published in the English language between January 1990 and June 2020 containing original research with quantitative or qualitative data on the recruitment or pathways into sex trafficking for minors trafficked within the US and Canada. The search yielded 23 eligible studies. The synthesis of the studies in the review converged on the notion of sexual exploitation occurring on a continuum comprising of three components; the recruitment context, entrapment strategies utilized by traffickers, and enmeshment tactics used to prolong exploitation. Findings highlight the significant physical, psychological and emotional hurdles faced by youth victims of sex trafficking and point to the importance of comprehensive and holistic approaches to prevention and intervention practices.

Growing interest in preventing and addressing sex trafficking has led to an increase in the development and implementation of sex trafficking educational programing for youth. We conducted a nationwide scoping scan survey of U.S. programs focused on educating youth about sex trafficking to learn more about existing programs. Staff at 37 programs completed the survey and provided information on program development, content, structure, delivery, and evaluation. The majority of programs included youth and survivors in program development. Programs aimed to prevent and increase awareness of sex trafficking with trauma-informed content focused on trafficking dynamics, grooming, warning signs, and actions to take if trafficking is suspected. Slightly over half of the programs also addressed labor trafficking and other forms of violence. Programs targeted youth and teachers, but varied in terms of delivery setting, format, and duration. About two thirds of the programs had undergone some form of evaluation, most by program developers, implementers, or staff. Study findings highlight the current landscape of sex trafficking education programming in the U.S. Recommendations are provided for advancing practice and research, including determining the most efficacious program content and delivery. Empowering youth through education and prevention are key steps to creating safe and inclusive communities.

Purpose This cutting-edge short commentary is intended to raise awareness of sex trafficking in the tourism and hospitality industry. The purpose of this paper is to also advocate for further research to identify and hopefully prevent sex trafficking in related settings. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a descriptive overview of the current knowledge base on sex trafficking in tourism and hospitality. Based on gaps in the literature, future research agendas and directions are suggested. Findings Academic research on sex trafficking in tourism and hospitality remains limited. More scholarly attention is needed to this matter. The tourism industry is directly and indirectly associated with sex trafficking (e.g. hotel accommodations and direct consumption of sexual services, such as through sex tourism). Despite legislative efforts by international government agencies to eradicate sex trafficking, the problem remains pervasive. Broader practice- and research-based intervention efforts are needed. Originality/value This short commentary advocates for tourism and hospitality researchers to make practical and theoretical industry contributions that may help prevent sex trafficking.

This paper examines how COVID-19 has impacted the lives of sex workers and how changing circumstances may make them and others even more vulnerable to exploitation into sex trafficking. It explores the perceptions and policies that keep sex workers from receiving the financial support needed to keep them safe at this time. It considers how sex work may be driven further underground, and the implications of this on the security of the workers involved. It also considers how the behaviour of clients may change as a result of the virus, examining the supply and demand drivers of online sexual exploitation of adults and children. This paper also outlines the fluidity of criminal nature, how criminals are adapting to changing circumstances and finding new ways to identify, groom, and exploit victims into sexual slavery. Finally, it analyses the implications that COVID-19 has had on the nature of money laundering and the related effects on the ability of financial institutions to operate as the ‘eyes and ears’ in the fight against global sex trafficking. It concludes with recommendations that can be made to financial institutions and related agencies, to respond rapidly to emerging risks and new trends in sexual exploitation and money laundering.

The measure promoted as England's first law against sex trafficking, the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, journeyed through Parliament in 1912. Amid mounting extra-parliamentary protest over votes for women, workers' rights, and Home Rule for Ireland, the country's suffrage and socialist groups chose to engage with the somewhat ancillary Bill and the issue of trafficking (or ‘white slavery' as it was popularly known) through the powerful medium of their periodicals. They did so largely because they saw the value to their wider campaigns of using trafficking - a phenomenon often cast by reformers as involving the sexual exploitation of working-class women - to forge connections (or highlight disjunctures) between the suffragist and socialist movements. Ideas of race, national identity, and empire attached to configurations of ‘slavery' were central to their rhetoric, and to the links the groups made between trafficking and the political emancipation they sought. These ideas give a valuable insight into influential representations of trafficking in 1912 and the campaign against ‘white slavery' during what was a fundamental, transnational moment in the history of trafficking. They also illuminate suffragist and socialist rhetoric of the day, and the conflicting ideas of ‘Englishness’ therein. This article strives to unlock some of these insights.

During the last decade, over 160,000 people were forcibly displaced internally because of narco-violence in Mexico. Displaced families suffer social and economic vulnerabilities that make them easy...

The recent Anti-Trafficking Bill in India (2018) has received considerable criticism for perpetuating a paternalistic attitude towards victims of sex trafficking. Scholars, activists and legal experts have pointed out the failure of the Act to recognise the agency of trafficked girls and women. In thinking about victimhood and agency, we draw attention to the need for thinking of ‘vulnerability’ in terms of complex intersectional processes and situations that render certain persons more vulnerable to trafficking. This article delves into contexts and vulnerabilities in the process of trafficking by drawing on women’s narratives about the lived experiences of sex trafficking. It is based on a qualitative field study through in-depth interviews of 51 survivors of sex trafficking who were sheltered in government and non-government organisations in the cities of Chennai and Hyderabad.

Sex trafficking involving children is a human rights issue of growing concern, with immediate and lasting impacts on victims. Although victimization is consistently associated with prior maltreatme...

Knowledge about labor trafficking (LT) lags behind extant understanding about sex trafficking due to the ability of LT to exist within legal frameworks, and it impacts some of the most oppressed an...

Human trafficking research has drawn increasing attention since the early 1980s. As the volume of human trafficking literature continues to expand, it is essential to examine the scope and challenges of this research area through a systematic review. Our review is based on a scientometric analysis of 2830 research articles (1982–2019) using VOSviewer. The Scopus database was utilised to retrieve bibliographic records as the core dataset to systematically review the literature on human trafficking. The overall structure of the scientometric landscape is illustrated through a three-stage process (planning/outlining a review protocol, executing the protocol, and reporting) to ensure a granular, transparent, and reliable systematic review. Our results reveal three clusters: (1) sex commercialisation, migration, and modern slavery; (2) child exploitation, sexual abuse, and health; and (3) human trafficking and institutional environments. Practical implications and future research directions are also discussed.

In his 2017 documentary The Impure Daniel Najenson straddles the notions of past and present to denounce the horrors and the injustice of sex trafficking in Argentina. Following a family tale of a great-aunt who migrated from Eastern Europe to South America at the beginning of the twentieth century, he digs deep into Israeli and Argentine archives to tell the story of the Zwi Migdal and the way Jewish women were forced into prostitution. To give voice to these women, he brings in Sonia Sánchez, originally from northern Argentina, and forced into prostitution in Buenos Aires when she was seventeen years old. Sánchez tells her own story, but also reads letters from the now deceased victims of sex trade a century ago. This self-professed feminist and activist is also shown in demonstrations and interviews fueling the NiUnaMenos movement in Argentina, while the #MeToo and TimesUp movements explode in the U.S. En su documental del 2017, Los impuros, Daniel Najenson se mueve entre las nociones del pasado y el presente para denunciar los horrores y las injusticias de la trata de personas en la Argentina. Siguiendo una historia de su familia sobre una tía abuela que emigró de Europa del Este a Sudamérica al comienzo del siglo 20, busca en archivos de Israel y Argentina documentos que cuenten la historia de la Zwi Migdal y la manera en que las mujeres judías fueron forzadas a prostituirse. Para darle voz a estas mujeres, el director incorpora a Sonia Sánchez, originalmente del norte de la Argentina, y forzada a prostituirse en Buenos Aires cuando tenía diecisiete años. Sánchez cuenta su propia historia, pero también lee cartas de las ya fallecidas mujeres forzadas a la prostitución hace un siglo. Tambien se la ve a Sánchez, feminista y activista, em manifestaciones y entrevistas que forman parte del movimiento NiUnaMenos en la Argentina, mientras los movimientos #MeToo y TimesUp explotan en los Estados Unidos. In his 2017 documentary The Impure Daniel Najenson straddles the notions of past and present to denounce the horrors and the injustice of sex trafficking in Argentina. Following a family tale of a great-aunt who migrated from Eastern Europe to South America at the beginning of the twentieth century, he digs deep into Israeli and Argentine archives to tell the story of the Zwi Migdal and the way Jewish women were forced into prostitution. To give voice to these women, he brings in Sonia Sánchez, originally from northern Argentina, and forced into prostitution in Buenos Aires when she was seventeen years old. Sánchez tells her own story, but also reads letters from the now deceased victims of sex trade a century ago. This self-professed feminist and activist is also shown in demonstrations and interviews fueling the NiUnaMenos movement in Argentina, while the #MeToo and TimesUp movements explode in the U.S.

Since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act nearly 20 years ago, there have been relatively few human trafficking (labor or sex) arrests, charges, and convictions, which casts doubt...

Modern slavery is gradually becoming one of the most widespread crimes in the world. A conscious understanding of the issue is an extremely important part of the process of tackling this problem. The aim of this work is to introduce the reader to the issue of human trafficking and its most common forms. The phenomenon splits in to the following main branches: sex trafficking, forced labour, debt bondage, domestic servitude, forced marriage, forced criminality and organ harvesting. Modern-day slavery happens all around us and at a surprisingly high rate.

This study aimed to further understand typologies of trafficking that occur in the home, by an individual’s intimate partner (IP) or family members and this overlap with extant knowledge on perpetrator manipulation via the Power and Control Wheel. Inductive and deductive techniques were used to analyze secondary data from a federally funded anti-trafficking program in a Midwest metropolitan area recorded between 2008 and 2017. Cases were included if there was indication of sex or labor exploitation initiated by an IP, family member, or other in the domestic setting via elements of abuse; 59 cases of 213 met this criteria. Most cases included the IP as the trafficker, followed by family members, then others in the domestic setting. Abuse was more commonly used than the threat of abuse. From the Power and Control Wheel, the most frequent types of abuse were using privilege, physical abuse, economic abuse, isolation, and sexual abuse. Case typologies included: those with elements of sex trafficking, specifically forced commercial sex by an IP or family member; those with elements of labor trafficking such as domestic servitude (with or without childcare provision abuse), exploitation in a family business by an IP or family member, or work environments by family and non-family; those with elements of sex and labor trafficking included servile partnerships and forced marriage. Trafficking exploitation by an IP, family member, or in the domestic setting is not uncommon. Intimate relationships with a trafficker, psychological coercion, and threats may reduce reporting of abuse, subsequent provision of services, and result in misclassification as victims of IP violence. This study sheds light on various typologies of trafficking and exploitation in the domestic setting, further expanding the anti-trafficking movement’s evidence base for intervention and prevention and adding complexity and nuance to the pathways to trafficking exploitation.

In spring 2018 the U.S. federal government forced Craigslist's sex forums closed. A new anti-sex trafficking law, FOSTA-SESTA, made exceptions to the Communications Decency Act, holding websites accountable for online "prostitution." This study used critical discourse analysis to trace how U.S. newspaper articles reported on Craigslist sex forums (

The movement of human populations across the planet has characterized human societies throughout history. However, the increasing rate of such movements across National borders has been in such a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country, put trafficked persons at risk and has given birth to modern day slavery. This study was therefore designed to ascertain the perception of illegal migration and sex trafficking in Europe among young women in Oredo, Benin City, Nigeria. The study used a multi stage random sample of 90 women aged 18-40 years whom were interviewed using in-depth interviews (20) and Focus Group Discussions guides (7). The qualitative data generated were content analyzed and the results indicate that majority of the women perceive illegal migration and sex trafficking in Europe negatively. They however would not discourage anyone who wishes to engage in the act, partly due to the socio economic benefits derived therein. Given that illegal migration and sex trafficking in Europe is inimical to human and societal well-being, it therefore becomes necessary for social workers and ethical practitioners to advocate the formulation of policies and programmes focusing on ethical migration practice and women empowerment with aim to rehabilitate and reduce human sex exploitation.

International cooperation can be understood as competent bodies of the Social Republic of Vietnam and other countries coordinating, supporting each other in investigation, prosecution, adjudication and execution of criminal cases. International cooperation in criminal procedure includes mutual legal assistance in criminal, extradition, receipt and transfer of prisoners and other activities as stipulated in Criminal Procedure Code 2015, international laws on mutual legal assistance and conventions of which the Social Republic of Vietnam is a member. Child sexual abuse cases in Vietnam and other countries in the world, especially in ASEAN region, have become increasingly complicated. Many Vietnamese children were and have been victims of sex trafficking to foreign countries, a lot of them were fooled by job opportunities and then were sold into prostitution near the border of China, Cambodia, Laos and other Asian countries, namely Malaysia, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand... Therefore, prevention of child sexual abuse is an integral task and a top priority of Vietnam currently. Solving child sexual abuse cases consisting of international factors requires Vietnam to have close international cooperation with other countries. This article focuses on the analysis of the provisions of criminal procedure law and the practical implementation of mutual legal assistance in the process of solving child sexual abuse cases. In addition, the article provides solutions to improve the effectiveness of mutual legal assistance in solving child sexual abuse cases.

Sex trafficking is recognized as a national problem that inflicts serious harm on its victims, yet, legislative responses to trafficking vary depending on jurisdiction. Federal legislation considers youths who engage in commercial sex acts as trafficking victims. States, however, vary in the evidence required to prove a juvenile is a victim of sex trafficking, as opposed to an offender of prostitution. Using four years of data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, we compared details of commercial sex incidents involving youths who were identified as trafficking victims or arrested as prostitutes. Beyond legislative differences, comparisons between cases are discussed to illuminate how state law enforcement officials legally classify these events involving adolescents (i.e., as victims or prostitutes). Further, we consider the policy implications of the findings.

The current discourses on human trafficking in Canada do not take into account domestic trafficking, especially of Aboriginal girls. Notwithstanding the alarmingly high number of missing, murdered and sexually exploited Aboriginal girls, the issue continues to be portrayed more as a problem of prostitution than of sexual exploitation or domestic trafficking. The focus of this study is to examine the issues in sexual exploitation of Aboriginal girls, as identified by the grass root agencies, and to contextualize them within the trafficking framework with the purpose of distinguishing sexual exploitation from sex work. In doing so, the paper will outline root causes that make Aboriginal girls vulnerable to domestic trafficking as well as draw implications for policy analysis.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s 2003 decriminalisation of sex work has reduced the exploitation of sex workers, as well as the health and safety risks in the industry. Nevertheless, United States-driven criminalising policies still influence sex workers abroad. The Fight Online Sex Trafficking and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Acts (FOSTA-SESTA) effectively criminalised websites where sex workers advertise. Shortly before that, the FBI shut down the internationally used Backpage.com, leading many sex workers in both countries to return to the streets or brothels. These events contributed to the rising dominance of one advertising website, NewZealandGirls.com. Drawing on twenty semi-structured interviews and four observation cases with sex workers in Auckland, in this paper, I explore the international consequences of FOSTA-SESTA and the closure of Backpage on my participants. I show that this punitive approach to segments of the online sex industry has not only placed sex workers in greater financial insecurity, but has reduced their ability to control their working conditions. These outcomes, I conclude, have undermined the positive impacts of decriminalisation, while exacerbating socioeconomic, racial, gender, and legal inequalities in Auckland’s sex industry.

Domestic sex trafficking has yet to appear on the policy agenda in Aotearoa New Zealand, and yet to be met with a law enforcement response. Accordingly, we have minimal knowledge about the contexts in which sex trafficking is perpetrated and what victims’ experiences involve. This article focuses specifically on the attainment and negotiation of social capital by victims whose access to traditional capital is at least partially restricted by their social and familial contexts. Sixteen victims of domestic sex trafficking participated in semistructured interviews. The data were analyzed using an adapted version of Clanindin and Connelly’s (2000) three-dimensional structure of narrative analysis. Three of the themes emerging from this are discussed here; namely abuse and mistreatment in early life, the negotiation of survival within the trafficking context, and sexuality as a bargaining tool. We argue that victims’ access to traditional mechanisms of social capital accrual may be precluded by the multiple sites of gendered disadvantage that collude to entrap victims in a subordinate and exploited position. However, to negotiate their continued survival despite the constraints to their agency, they appear to access both vicarious physical capital and feminized (and usually sexualised) capital by instrumentalizing their sexual appeal or prowess and the protection of the subjectively more powerful male “partner.”

In Canada, there are persistent allegations and some empirical evidence suggesting racialized police bias; certain (non-White) groups appear to face over-enforcement as criminal suspects and under-enforcement as victims. Yet, it is challenging to prove or disprove these claims. Unlike other countries, where governments routinely publish police-reported crime and criminal court data identifying the race/ethnicity of criminal suspects and victims, Canada maintains a ban on the publication of such data. In this article, using an intersectional and critical analysis, we examine 127 prosecuted (predominantly domestic sex) trafficking cases and explore related claims of racial and gender bias together with sensationalism in the enforcement of Canadian anti-trafficking in persons laws. Our findings align with other empirical research observing the racially selective identification and prosecution of sex trafficking cases through a heteronormative and gender binary lens. Whether real or perceived, racial—alongside gender, sexuality, economic, citizenship, and occupational—bias has significant adverse consequences for the equality, liberty, security, mobility, labour, and access to justice rights of the Indigenous, Black, Arab/Muslim and other racialized communities being policed. Our data reveal a clear and pressing need to publish race-disaggregated crime and criminal court data and to challenge deeply ingrained stereotypes using various means.

I have been conducting empirical research on child trafficking in the United States ever since the passage of the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000. I began by “studying up”:1 ...

Domestic minor sex trafficking is often thought of as a crime that happens somewhere else (outside of Australia), with most conceptualizations involving a child who is internationally trafficked. T...

The “Poquianchi affair” shook 1960s’ Mexico with its subject of sex trafficking, woman-on-woman violence, and mass murder. It generated a visceral public response and a gamut of narratives on crime, punishment, and the social values of the modern age. The Mexican press, in particular the tabloids, conflated socially stigmatized behaviors and gender tensions embedded in the patriarchal order, labeling the Poquianchi brothel madams a direct public threat. This essay examines how the Poquianchi scandal became a focal point for discussing the Mexican national project. Felipe Cazals’ 1979 film Las Poquianchis and Jorge Ibarguengoitia’s 1970 novel Las muertas departed from the media hype to shed light on deeply rooted hypocrisies governing society as a whole, such as the symbiotic relation between the brothel madams, the authorities, and the community at large. Refraining from moralistic dichotomies, they ponder upon the evolving discourse of criminality in modern Mexican society, where the positivist rhetoric of progress, social justice, and integration only camouflaged the inequality pervading the nation’s social fabric.

This thesis explores to what extent prostitution policy can influence human trafficking for sexual purposes. It questions if criminalization of prostitution and legalization of prostitution can result in different outcomes, interfering with sex trafficking. This research is conducted as a comparative case study where Sweden illustrates the criminalization of prostitution and the Netherlands legalization of prostitution. This study will focus on three main theories to understand the complexity behind the issue and the background of the different policy designs. First, the three-pronged approach commonly used in trafficking legislation will be implemented as a framework to analyze the national action plans to combat human trafficking. Moreover, the prostitution policies will be explored from a sexual liberal and radical feminist perspective. The main findings are that both criminalization and legalization of prostitution affect the establishment of sex trafficking within the country. Sweden and the Netherlands share the aim of combatting human trafficking by implementing their prostitution policy. However, they disagree on how to do so effectively. The conclusion will suggest that both approaches can succeed if enough resources and funding are put towards the issue.

Over the past decade, the majority of states in the United States have enacted laws that include legal protection and/or rehabilitative services for juvenile victims of human trafficking. This mixe...

Most of the literature on modern-day slavery focuses on women and children as victims of the sex industry. This disproportionate emphasis on sexual exploitation has resulted in conflation of the term trafficking with prostitution, which has led to an understanding of human trafficking issues as separate from other workplace abuses that amount to slavery. By exploring modern-day slavery in the Southeast Asian fishing industry, this paper may fill a research gap within the study of human trafficking as well as sharpen our awareness of slavery practices, not only in the sex industry, but also in workplaces like fishing vessels and seafood processing factories. This paper will argue that the proximity of modern slavery to sexual exploitation and the lack of differentiation between smuggling and trafficking crime has led to the ignorance of contemporary slavery practices in other sectors.

Public controversies are an analytical opportunity to study the emergence of issues, the creation and alliance of actors, as well as the articulation of public arenas (politics, society, activism, academia, etc.). This paper analyzes how two actors in Spanish academia emerged, and how they became an expression of the polarized conflict on prostitution, sex work, and sex trafficking. Through a case study, this work traces the emergence and consolidation in the public space of the #universidadsincensura initiative and the International Academic Network for the Study of Prostitution and Pornography (Red Académica Internacional de Estudios sobre Prostitución y Pornografía, Raiepp). Methodologically, the technique of controversy mapping is applied through an analysis of the first phase of the controversy on Twitter with the hashtags #universidadsincensura and #universidadsinprostitucion and the monitoring of the platform’s activities based on active participation in the #universidadsincensura initiative. The analysis shows that both actors emerge in line with the logics of the mediatized public space linked to a presence in media and networks. Endowed with different degrees of institutionalization, Raiepp and #universidadsincensura form the same public, that of those directly or indirectly affected by the public problem surrounding the status of prostitution, for which they seek a solution through a process of enquiry and experimentation that defines democratic participation. Resumen Las controversias públicas son una oportunidad analítica para estudiar la emergencia de asuntos, creación y alianza de actores, así como la articulación de arenas públicas (política, sociedad, activismo, academia, etc.). A través de un estudio de caso este artículo rastrea la aparición y consolidación en la Academia de dos actores que visibilizan el conflicto polarizado sobre prostitución, trabajo sexual y trata con fines de explotación sexual, y que se materializan en #universidadsincensura y la Red Académica Internacional de Estudios sobre Prostitución y Pornografía (Raiepp). Metodológicamente se aplica la técnica de mapeo de controversias, a través de un análisis de la primera fase de la polémica en Twitter –con los hashtags #universidadsincensura y #universidadsinprostitucion– y el seguimiento de las actividades de las plataformas, desde la participación activa en la iniciativa #universidadsincensura. El análisis muestra que ambos actores emergen en consonancia con las lógicas del espacio público mediatizado, vinculados a la presencia en medios y redes. Dotados de grados de institucionalización distintos, Raiepp y #universidadsincensura conforman un mismo público, el de los afectados directa o indirectamente por el problema público en torno al estatuto de la prostitución, al que buscan solución a través de un proceso de indagación y experimentación que define la participación democrática.

This research from the Butterfly Longitudinal Research Project focused on understanding the experiences and perceptions of justice and the justice system for 93 Cambodia participants (including 88 survivors of sex trafficking) as they navigated the legal system. Thirty-two of these survivors had experiences in court and provided details into their courtroom experiences, predominantly within Cambodia but also in the United States. The survivors’ experiences were diverse; however, the prevailing themes were: fear throughout their legal journeys; a low level of awareness and understanding of their legal experiences; and that NGO support was essential for these survivors to engage in the often complicated, lengthy and emotionally challenging legal processes. The recommendations generated from the results at the individual survivor level included: encouraging active participation to make informed decisions on their legal journey; survivors need compassionate support from all stakeholders throughout their legal journey; questioning needs to be appropriate, sensitive and age appropriate; and survivor safety needs to be central both in the courtroom and in the community, as perpetrators and their associates may be threatening. At a wider, societal level, the legal system should be accessible and encourage victim participation. Further, the outcomes of court should be adequate for survivors, in that they provide justice, restitution and deter future crimes; trust in the legal system needs to be developed; information and education about the legal system and legal rights should be promoted; and protection for survivors must be enhanced.

Purpose Although trafficking of persons for commercial sex has been increasingly recognized as a community level problem most estimates of the prevalence of sex trafficking in the USA are made by federal entities and vary depending on the data sources used. Little is known about how local police agencies assess and understand sex trafficking in their own communities. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach To help fill this gap, the current study using survey data from a sample of local police agencies across the USA (n=72) examines law enforcement agencies’ knowledge of and experience with addressing local sex trafficking problems in their jurisdiction. Findings The majority of police agencies reported that sex trafficking is a problem in their jurisdictions and that they have a special unit that has a primary responsibility for addressing sex trafficking issues. Agencies with a special unit tend to use multiple sources of information including official record, intelligence data and personal experience to estimate the community’s trafficking problems when compared to agencies without a unit; however, most of agencies primarily depend on their professional experience. Originality/value This is the first study to examine the data sources used by local police agencies to estimate the scope and nature of their community’s sex trafficking problem, and the findings have important policy implications for understanding the reliability and validity of these estimates, and for their potential use to develop and implement data driven responses to sex trafficking problems.

This article analyses the relationships between the colonial government in the Federated Malay States (FMS), international social movement organisations, the League of Nations and sex trafficking. ...

A large body of scholarship has described the narrow set of media narratives used to report trafficking for sexual exploitation to the public. This article examines US media coverage of human trafficking in relation to the Super Bowl, American football’s championship game. Available empirical evidence does not suggest that major sporting events cause trafficking for sexual exploitation. Yet, we find that 76 per cent of US print media from 2010 to 2016 propagated the ‘Super Bowl sex trafficking’ narrative. Local coverage of the 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was different, presenting a sceptical stance toward this narrative. The article describes how this substantial shift resulted from our research group and anti-trafficking stakeholders employing an action research approach to craft a Super Bowl communication strategy that aligned with empirical evidence. Although sensationalist narratives are difficult to dislodge, the Minnesota case shows that evidence on trafficking can be effectively used to inform media and impact public perceptions, when researchers work with stakeholders on the ground. Lessons learnt are shared to enable others to replicate these results.

Sex trafficking is one of the most profitable forms of transnational crimes (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2018). Sex traffickers prey on vulnerable populations to commission these crimes. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth are subject to adversity from an early age, which leaves them especially vulnerable to sex traffickers. Health care providers lack the resources, education, protocols, and policies required to protect these youth members of society. This literature review explores LGBT youth's risk factors for becoming a trafficked child, a provider's role in protecting and treating these youth, the legalities of a provider reporting sex trafficking, and research opportunities pertinent to these issues.

Domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) is the commercial sexual exploitation of a minor American citizen or permanent resident within the United States. It is a human rights abuse and carries significant consequences for victims’ psychological, physical, and social health. To interrupt DMST victimization patterns, it is important for researchers and advocates to fully understand how victims’ vulnerabilities are exploited by different people in their lives, but investigations of DMST victim–trafficker relationships are largely unexplored in the literature. The purpose of this cross-sectional path analysis of archival data, therefore, is to explore the influence of victims’ unmet basic needs on their victimization within specific types of DMST relationships. The results of this study suggest that unmet basic needs may play less of a role in influencing victim–trafficker relationship type than might be hypothesized based upon broader understandings of human trafficking vulnerability.

When the history of American abolitionist legislation is assessed—if it gets any consideration at all—the 1910 White Slave Act is often regarded as a flawed overreaction to a largely imagined, or at least exaggerated, problem. However, the law, usually known as the Mann Act, has arguably influenced US trafficking policy more than any other single law since the 13th Amendment. This article examines the career, ambitions and misfortunes of one of the leading figures behind the Act, the immigration investigator Marcus Braun, to show how the concept of slavery was manipulated. It also shows how the problem of trafficking evolved over the opening years of the twentieth century and how the legacy of the Mann Act has continued to affect American attitudes toward sex and morality and their ties to slavery ever since.

Introduction to special issue Crime, Law and Social Change on 'Innovations in empirical research into human trafficking'.

This research examines the securitization process and the effectiveness of multilateral cooperation against sex trafficking of women and children in the Mekong sub-region. It has been inspired by an open question of why the situation with sex trafficking has not improved despite the availability of a significant number of multilateral anti-trafficking mechanisms. The research analyses and evaluates anti-trafficking mechanisms of the ASEAN and COMMIT up to the mid of 2018 in the light of securitization theory and human security concept. The research concludes that anti-trafficking mechanisms within ASEAN and COMMIT have not yet adequately mitigated sex trafficking of women and children. Even though they have addressed trafficking in many different ways, some evidence shows that the ways in which they have proceeded with their anti-trafficking mechanisms have criminalized trafficked victims more than protected them. This practice is as a result of the state-centric policies instead of human-centric ones. Hence, regional mechanisms should prioritize human security and human rights when being employed to resolve security issues.

Despite new mandates to identify and respond to labor trafficking crimes, US law enforcement struggles to integrate labor trafficking enforcement with traditional policing routines and roles. As a result, human trafficking enforcement has primarily focused on sex trafficking and few labor trafficking cases have been identified and prosecuted. This study utilizes data from 86 qualitative interviews with municipal, state, county and federal law enforcement, victim service providers and labor trafficking victims in four US communities to inform our understanding of police responses to labor trafficking in local communities. Through the coding of these interviews across a series of themes, we identify three major challenges that impact police identification and response to labor trafficking crimes. These include lack of clarity about the definition of labor trafficking, lack of institutional readiness to address labor trafficking, and routines of police work that undermine police responsiveness to labor trafficking in local communities. Considering these challenges, we explore strategies law enforcement can take to improve identification, including developing non-traditional partnerships with labor inspection and local regulatory agencies. Additionally, interview data suggest a role for the police in ensuring labor trafficking victims are safe and their needs are met, regardless of the outcomes of the criminal justice process. This is the first study to examine police responses to labor trafficking from the perspective of police, service providers and victims.