Sex tra

fficking

Full Text

Listen

Sex

trafficking

is a form of slavery in which a person is forced into

prostitution

for

little or no money. Victims can

be of either sex, but young women mostly comprise the industry. Many times victims know their traffickers, who

lure them into the industry through various deceptions. They then are held captive. Most are threatened with

viol

ence, so they do not leave. Some are force

–

fed drugs to keep them in the industry. Sex trafficking is tied

to

human

trafficking

, which is the act of trading people illegally and forcing them to work in the labor or sex

industries. Reliable statistics are difficult to come by because of the hidden nature of the industry,

but the

International Labour Organization estimated that in 2016, 4.8 million people around the world were caught in forced

sexual exploitation, the overwhelming majority of them women and girls.

Prostitutes in front of a gogo bar in Pattaya, Thailand. Kay

Chernush for the U.S. State Departme

nt [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons

NGO RealStars’ model for addressing the trafficking issue By

Eran9010 (Own work) [CC BY

–

SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by

–

sa/3.0)], via

Wikimedia Commons

Overview

Sex trafficking has existed in one form or another since ancient times. Both children and adults were sold and traded

as sex slaves. The term, however, has been in use since the 1980s when feminists used it to protest the sexual

exploitation of women and g

irls in the commercial sex industry, which includes prostitution and pornography.

The United States addressed this worldwide problem in 2000 when Congress passed the Trafficking Victims

Protection Act (TVPA), which defined sex trafficking as the recruitmen

t of an adult or a minor (person under the

age of eighteen) and forcing, tricking, or coercing the person to perform sex acts against their will. Also in 2000, the

United Nations drafted the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,

Especially Women and

Children, which includes provisions against both human and sex trafficking.

For an incident to be considered a sex trafficking crime, it has to involve a commercial sex act, which means it must

be related to the sex industry. For example, a person who is kidnapped and forced to work as a prostitute and

perform sexual acts for mone

y is a victim of sex trafficking. A person who is kidnapped and forced to perform a

sexual act on their perpetrator is a victim of

kidnapping

and rape, not sex trafficking. Sex trafficking does not only

include prostitution, however. Victims can be forced to perform at strip clubs or in pornographic films. They can be

sold as

mail

–

order

brides

or forced into the

sex

tourism

industry, in which people travel to engage in sexual acts.

Perpetrators, or traffickers, t

ypically use several tactics to coerce their victims. First, they need to gain the victims’

trust. Usually they look for vulnerable victims, such as runaways or young people with few friends, poor family

lives, low self

–

esteem, or drug problems. They befri

end them and court them, for as long as it takes. This phase,

sometimes called “seasoning” or “grooming,” can take months. The traffickers shower potential victims with gifts

Sex trafficking

Full Text

Listen

Sex trafficking is a form of slavery in which a person is forced into prostitution for little or no money. Victims can

be of either sex, but young women mostly comprise the industry. Many times victims know their traffickers, who

lure them into the industry through various deceptions. They then are held captive. Most are threatened with

violence, so they do not leave. Some are force-fed drugs to keep them in the industry. Sex trafficking is tied

to human trafficking, which is the act of trading people illegally and forcing them to work in the labor or sex

industries. Reliable statistics are difficult to come by because of the hidden nature of the industry, but the

International Labour Organization estimated that in 2016, 4.8 million people around the world were caught in forced

sexual exploitation, the overwhelming majority of them women and girls.

Prostitutes in front of a gogo bar in Pattaya, Thailand. Kay

Chernush for the U.S. State Department [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons

NGO RealStars’ model for addressing the trafficking issue By

Eran9010 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via

Wikimedia Commons

Overview

Sex trafficking has existed in one form or another since ancient times. Both children and adults were sold and traded

as sex slaves. The term, however, has been in use since the 1980s when feminists used it to protest the sexual

exploitation of women and girls in the commercial sex industry, which includes prostitution and pornography.

The United States addressed this worldwide problem in 2000 when Congress passed the Trafficking Victims

Protection Act (TVPA), which defined sex trafficking as the recruitment of an adult or a minor (person under the

age of eighteen) and forcing, tricking, or coercing the person to perform sex acts against their will. Also in 2000, the

United Nations drafted the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and

Children, which includes provisions against both human and sex trafficking.

For an incident to be considered a sex trafficking crime, it has to involve a commercial sex act, which means it must

be related to the sex industry. For example, a person who is kidnapped and forced to work as a prostitute and

perform sexual acts for money is a victim of sex trafficking. A person who is kidnapped and forced to perform a

sexual act on their perpetrator is a victim of kidnapping and rape, not sex trafficking. Sex trafficking does not only

include prostitution, however. Victims can be forced to perform at strip clubs or in pornographic films. They can be

sold as mail-order brides or forced into the sex tourism industry, in which people travel to engage in sexual acts.

Perpetrators, or traffickers, typically use several tactics to coerce their victims. First, they need to gain the victims’

trust. Usually they look for vulnerable victims, such as runaways or young people with few friends, poor family

lives, low self-esteem, or drug problems. They befriend them and court them, for as long as it takes. This phase,

sometimes called “seasoning” or “grooming,” can take months. The traffickers shower potential victims with gifts

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION:
SETTING THE SCENE

“With this picture, I reverse the voodoo onto my trafficker. I am not afraid
anymore.”

Trafficking stories

This book is about women’s stories of agency in lived trafficking
experience. According to the United Nations “Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and
Children”,1 the definition and benchmarks of trafficking

“shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt
of persons; by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of
coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a
position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or
benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another
person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a
minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of
sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar
to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs (UN, 2000a: 3a)”.2

The Protocol’s multi-barrelled definition and legal benchmarks provide
the framework for exploring women’s narratives as trafficking stories
within the book. They also serve to ensure integrity between UK domestic
research and scholarship conducted at an international level. In line with
the Protocol’s criteria, women’s narratives are researched on the act of
their recruitment and movement using a benchmark of consent. The means
or force deployed is addressed under a benchmark of coercion, and
exploitation is examined for women’s experiences across sexual, labour,
and slavery-like practices as in forced marriage. This recognised process
supplies a defensible framework against which trafficking stories can be
included, understood, and analysed in order to reveal women’s own

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EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) – printed on 2/15/2022 9:14 PM via COLORADO COMMUNITY COLLEGE ONLINE
AN: 1155153 ; De Angelis, Maria.; Human Trafficking : Women’s Stories of Agency
Account: ns215574.main.eds

Chapter One 2

perspectives on their experiences of victimisation and agency.
Given the breadth and depth of complexities embraced in the Protocol,

women’s stories are the conduit best placed for reaching the experiences
of persons who have lived through some form of social trauma.3 Within
feminist enterprise, an additional value of the story is one of a naturalistic
means of researching women’s lives. Stories exist to be told and lived
wisdom relays more than just chronicles or tradition. It conveys what
women think, feel, mean and achieve through being experts in their own
experiences (Oakley, 1979; 1989; 1992; Sered, 1992). Consequently, the
ability of “story” to collect experience without causing undue harm to
women is ideal for a social research enterprise with trafficked women.

Agency

Given the unscrupulous acts and exploitative practices which define
trafficking, the idea of agency is a difficult concept to fathom. Widely
understood as a person’s individual or collective capacity for self-directed
and purposeful action (Williams and Popay, 1999; Morash, 2006), the
exercise of agency is mediated by environmental and social structures
which can limit or de-limit the degree of agency a person may realise
(Archer, 1995; Lister, 2004). Set against the inherently abusive practices
defining Human Trafficking, the idea of ascribing agency to a trafficked
person seems almost inconceivable. Consequently, it comes as little
surprise that the imagery of a Victim of Trafficking (the VoT) is most
easily understood as the involuntary and un-consenting victim of a
trafficking crime. In this popular construction of the VoT, agency exists in
a linear and timeless discourse of disempowerment where all agency is
removed whatever a woman’s economic, cultural, sexual, or social
context. This is exampled in media reporting of sex trafficking as sexual
slavery (MacShane, 2010; Butler-Sloss, 2011; Skrivankova, 2011;
Townsend, 2011). It also informs awareness-raising, as exampled in the
Blue Blindfold campaign against modern day slavery. Launched by the
UK Human Trafficking Centre in December, 2007, and rolled out under a
“Crimestoppers” mantle, the campaign asks the public to protect victims
by alerting the appropriate authorities to the crime of trafficking. In such
popular constructions depicting the victim as totally enslaved for
economic exploitation and totally controlled for criminal gain, any actions
displayed by women are positioned in opposition to their victimhood,
generating an artificial binary between victimhood and agency. This
binary has been heavily critiqued for dividing the involuntary and un-
consenting person – the innocent and deserving “Madonna” in trafficking

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Introduction: Setting the Scene 3

from the willing and consenting – guilty and undeserving “whore”
(typically migrant sex workers), who may have been proactive in (and
profited from) their illegal movement (Doezema, 1998: 47). Under such
oppositional construction, any autonomy granted to women is understood
in negative properties of criminality (Hales and Gelsthorpe, 2012) and / or
threats to border security (Bosworth, 2007).

In order to explore the attribution of agency for trafficked women
(outside of total absence or wholly negative ascriptions), it is necessary to
adopt a theoretical framework allowing a relationship to exist between
these two opposites. In other words, agency in the context of trafficking
requires a framework capable of embracing victimhood and agency as
existing in tandem with one another. In this respect, Sen’s (1985; 1992:
57; 1999) political theorising of women’s agency provides a working
paradigm fit for meeting this challenge. As Sen observes, women’s agency
under patriarchal rules and systems is fundamentally constrained in ways
that male freedom is not. This constraint is twofold and affects what Sen
defines to be women’s “well-being freedom” (that is, their physical safety
and economic security), and also women’s “agency freedom” (that is, their
capacity to define choices and to construct the conditions affecting
choice). This theorisation of gendered constraints lends itself to the study
of agency for several reasons.

Firstly, an appreciation of agentic constraints brings with it an
opportunity to explore trafficking experience for signs of victimisation,
signs of agency, and the two as existing in relationship to one another. In
other words, it leads inquiry into subjective spaces where consent is
exacted from women, given by women, and positioned by them as
somewhere in-between a totally forced experience or a completely free
choice to leave their home and country of origin. This relational stance
across victimhood and agency enables consent to surface in less absolute
categories “for” or “against” its existence, allowing women to discuss
degrees of trickery, choice, involvement, and knowledge over their own
actions. Secondly, an acknowledgement of agentic constraints encourages
a more sophisticated examination of women’s global journeys – as
motivated by economic and political necessities, as prompted by new
opportunities for a better life and, equally, as precarious and risky
undertakings on their part – aspects more fully explored in Chapter 4. This
relational prism better reflects the dynamic, fluid and at times intersecting
nature of gendered global movements, enabling aspects of control and
choice to surface at different times in a trafficking experience. For
example, studies have researched experience at the intersection of sex
trafficking and migrations for sex work (Andrijasevic, 2003; 2010;

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Chapter One 4

Agustin, 2005), at the nexus of economic migration and trafficking for
forced labour (Bastia, 2005;4 Skrivankova, 2006), and on transnational
marriage in the context of trafficking (Stepnitz, 2009; Tyldum, 2013; De
Angelis, 2014). Thirdly, a woman’s requirement for physical safety and
economic security (her well-being freedom) resonates with well-being for
trafficked persons, as set out in the Council of Europe’s (2005)
Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings5. Under Article
12.1, well-being is described as a package of measures and protections to
subsistence standards of living (accommodation, psychological and
material assistance), emergency medical treatment, any necessary
translation and interpretation services, counselling and rights based
information, legal help, and access to education for children. (CoE, 2005:
Article 12). Since implementing the Convention on 1st April, 2009, any
victim presumed to have been trafficked into the UK is entitled to claim
this well-being assistance. By viewing women’s stories through a
relational prism of trafficking agency and victimisation, women are free to
reflect on both positive and negative experiences of trafficking support
(affecting their well-being freedom), and also to express their own
autonomy, resourcefulness, and actions in overcoming trauma and
rebuilding their lives post trafficking (their agency freedom).

Lived trafficking experience

The term lived trafficking experience is used extensively throughout
the book. It replaces a trafficking context since it better reflects the
diversity and complexity of women’s gendered global movements. It is
now well established that global movements follow socio-economic and
political drivers which both push and pull a woman’s movement from
home. Within trafficking, these push factors typically include political
instability and civil wars (Aiko, 2002; Kligman and Limoncelli, 2005),
unemployment (Kelly and Regan, 2000; Kligman and Limoncelli, 2005),
poverty and debt (Ejalu, 2006; Viuhko, 2010), patriarchal oppression and
gendered violence (Demleitner, 2001; Bales, 2003; Parmentier, 2010), and
inequalities between developed and developing countries (Bales, 2005).
Common amongst the pull factors attracting women to leave home are
excitement and adventure (Salt, 2000), marriage and independence
(Kabeer, 2007), funding a project through migrant working (Berman,
2010), and aspirations of a better life-style for women and their children
(Skilbrei and Polyakova, 2006). Under these push/pull conditions
reflecting women’s needs and desires for movement, migratory flows
often intersect with one another (Salt and Stein, 1997; Salt, 2000; Bastia,

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Introduction: Setting the Scene 5

2005). Well established migratory networks are reported to attract
traffickers who prey on vulnerable migrations for criminal gain and,
conversely, economic migrants are known to use the services of trafficking
groups to facilitate the movement of regular migrants (Kempadoo, 1998;
Andrijasevic, 2003). These intersections provide valuable explanation for
the growing presence of trafficked women within population flows of
smuggling, asylum, and economic migration (IOM, 2008a: TIP, 2013).
Intersections also add weight for adopting trafficking experience over a
trafficking context, since they better encompass the fluidity, precarity, and
reality accompanying many women’s movements into and out of an initial
migratory situation. As Berman (2010: 94) observes for her own migrant
research with sex workers in Eastern Europe and that of colleagues in her
field:

“My own fieldwork and that of a number of others suggest that a
significant portion of the foreign women who work in European sex
industries enter the EU with the assistance of smugglers in order to pursue
a specific economic goal – to earn money to escape stagnant economies,
start a business, supplement existing incomes, or support children of
elderly parents back home (Minder, 2004). Migrants often ‘have some
agency in arranging an often long and highly expensive journey’ through
smugglers; while the smugglers may turn out to be traffickers and thus
deceive and harm these migrants, their situations equally involve decisions
they themselves have made (Black, 2003: 40)”.

This intersectionality – present in women’s lived experience – is by no
means problem free. Crossovers in population flows can and do make it
difficult to distinguish trafficked persons from exploited migrants and to
accurately determine where a free migration ends and a forced migration
begins. In spite of separate Protocols delineating trafficking and
smuggling, movements legally conflate where the smuggled person (a
voluntary and consenting adult) becomes exploited during the process of
recruitment, transit and arrival at their end destination. Legally, an
experience of exploitation at any stage from recruitment through to final
destination entitles the smuggled person to claim a victim of trafficking
(VoT) status (Goodey, 2008). In lived reality, the legal rights and
protections associated with trafficking come secondary to the political
agendas of organised crime and border security framing illegal entry and
work in the UK. Encapsulated in a “migration-crime-security” nexus
(Lindstrom, 2007), women’s movements and actions come in for criminal
and immigration scrutiny over missing, expired, and fake documentation,
bringing sanctions of detention and deportation according to the

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6

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Introduction: Setting the Scene 7

Persons trafficked, not unlike asylum seekers and smuggled individuals,
are hard to access. As Brennan (2005: 43) observes for victims in the
United States:

“…they have been voiceless for different reasons: because of fear of
reprisals from their traffickers, their stage in the recovery process, and
concern that their community of co-ethnics will stigmatize them. Given
these obstacles, it is possible that few ex-captives will ever step out from
the anonymity of their case managers’ offices, to give interviews to
researchers, let alone public presentations or press conferences as part of
anti-trafficking movement activities”6.

In terms of clarifying empirical research with trafficked persons,
helpful distinctions exist based upon three possible research positions –
persons at risk from trafficking, current victims of trafficking, and former
victims of trafficking (Tyldum and Brunovskis, 2005: 21). The majority of
empirically-led research tends to be conducted with former victims. As
Brennan (2005: 38) explains, survivors of trafficking source researchers
with subjects and “ex-captives” with researchers, since formerly trafficked
victims exist in a “golden middle”7 between Police rescue and assimilation
within the host community. Former victims tend to display less immediate
and acute need for sanctuary and respite care compared with recently
rescued women and, in contrast to fully resettled women, remain
identifiable through their ongoing contact with a statutory organisation
(typically Health, Education, Social Services, Police) or an anti-trafficking
project or network (Kelly, 2002). In spite of a golden status, if researching
persons exploited or in pain is seen as secondary exploitation (Glesne and
Peshkin, 1992; ATMG, 2012), why is researching women’s story so
critical in trafficking?

One explanation is that it enables a degree of movement beyond what
is typically known and claimed for trafficking victims in the trafficking
discourse. Women possess knowledge which remains hidden precisely
because it is not sought after by the Police and Border Agencies.
Reflecting on her counter-trafficking research with women supported by a
housing association8 Dickson (2004: 1) observes:

“Many of these experiences will not have been raised by women in any
other setting because these are not the experiences that are useful to
statutory services in terms of prosecution”.

Where personal accounts are sought, women have built knowledge on
specific aspects in trafficking experience. For example, women have

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Chapter One 8

developed understanding of their physical and psychological health needs
(Zimmerman et al, 2003; 2006), between trafficking and bonded labour
(Kalayaan and Oxfam, 2008; Wittenburg, 2008), across trafficking and
migrant domestic work (Lalani, 2011) and, more recently, on the
experiences of trafficked women who end up in custody (Hales and
Gelsthorpe, 2012).

Another compelling reason for accessing experiential stories is that
women – as the largest consumers of trafficking services both globally
(UNODC, 2012) and locally (SOCA, 2012; NCA, 2015a; 2015b) – better
connect policy development with victim-related needs. How one conducts
interviews with women may be contested (Oakley, 1981; 2005), but
interviewing women is long recognised for reaching subjective experience
valuable for socio-political improvement of one kind or another (Reinharz,
1983; 1992; Mies, 1983; Oakley, 1989; 1992; Kelly, Burton and Regan,
1994). As Gozdziak (2008: 153 – 155) observes for policy development in
the United States:

“The US Government’s resources for combating human trafficking have
been earmarked almost exclusively for provision of services to trafficked
persons and technical assistance to service providers assisting
them…However…assistance to victims has been provided without the
benefit of empirical research aimed to identify their service needs or to
evaluate rehabilitation programmes implemented to integrate survivors of
human trafficking into the wider society and prevent repeat
victimization…Limited knowledge impedes identification of trafficked
victims, obstructs provision of culturally appropriate and effective services,
and limits prevention of repeat victimization”.

Beyond this, and more critically, Morris (1997: 29) outlines a far
greater harm in denying a voice to survivors of suffering compared with
harms caused by giving survivors a voice. As Morris explains:

“Voice is what gets silenced, repressed, pre-empted, denied, or at best
translated into an alien dialect, much as clinicians translate a patient’s pain
onto a series of units on a grid of audio-visual descriptors. Indeed, voice
ranks among the most precious human endowments that suffering normally
deprives us of, removing far more than a hope that others will understand
or assist us. Silence and the loss of voice may eventually constitute or
represent for some who suffer a complete shattering of the self”.

All of the narratives in this book belong to women situated in-between
immediate rescue and long-term resettlement, and the majority were
known either to a statutory organisation or to an anti-trafficking network

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Introduction: Setting the Scene 9

or charity during the fieldwork. In presenting their narratives of trafficking
exploitation and agency, this book can be read as adding some absent
voices to the discursive gap in empirical trafficking scholarship (Brennan,
2005; Kelly, 2005; Davies, 2009; De Angelis, 2014).

Limitations and strengths of the collection

In the pursuit of adding women’s voices to trafficking scholarship, this
enterprise carries clear limitations as well as significant strengths. Starting
with focus, this collection of stories is gathered solely from female former
victims, who have been moved across international borders with an
element of coercion, into an exploitative situation here in the UK. The
collection hails from a qualitative and small-scale doctoral project
(completed in 2012) which explored agency through the stories of former
victims. It features the stories of twenty-six women whose journeys to the
UK include trafficking, a mixture of smuggling and trafficking, or a forced
migration. Women with a forced migration are economic migrants whose
journeys cross other forms of movement ending in slavery-like practices.
For example, one woman sought help from a smuggler to escape
persecution in her home country and arrived in the UK without
documentation and in debt bondage. Within this participant group,
trafficking exploitations fall into three categories – sexual exploitation,
forced marriage,9 and forced labour – though, as with movement, some
women experience more than one form of exploitation. For example, one
participant was trafficked into a forced marriage at home and for labour
exploitation in a factory. Another woman was trafficked for forced
marriage and sold into sexual exploitation amongst her husband’s
acquaintances. Given the homogeneity contained within a “golden middle”
status and the heterogeneity evidenced in a personal story, it is not
possible to generalise the findings on well-being freedom and agency
freedom to women outside of this collection. Nor is it possible to make
meaningful comparisons between participants’ experiences of agency and
the experiences of women on either side of this golden middle. In contrast
to participant women, current victims of trafficking may well exhibit signs
of far greater trafficking trauma, while resettled survivors may well
display a far greater degree of post-trafficking independence.

Additionally, as most of these former victims were known either to a
statutory body or a non-statutory project, the benefit and bias affiliated
with gatekeepers should also be acknowledged. As Watts (2006) suggests,
researchers with insider knowledge of the community or subjects of their
research may find it easier to access and recruit research participants.

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Chapter One 10

Without insider status, researchers are reliant upon the services of
gatekeepers. Within this enterprise, anti-trafficking professionals from
several organisations and networks were the insiders, often sharing an
aspect of socio-cultural or trafficking experience in common with survivors
of trafficking. These gatekeepers created the conditions conducive for
naturalistic story collection by harnessing their own relationship with
clients to foster trust towards me – the outsider lacking any lived
experience or professional role in trafficking. These gatekeepers fielded
women’s initial doubts over trust and went through the research contract
with them, checking participants’ rights to anonymity, confidentiality,
privacy and withdrawal of consent. Several unexpected offers to use the
in-house services of counsellors and bi-lingual interpreters provided
participants with quality support and post-interview care beyond my
expertise and personal capacity to gift. A full discussion of feminist ethics
and methods are provided in Chapter 2, along with vignettes of
participating women and anti-trafficking professionals.

Gatekeepers’ generous support of story collecting, however, creates its
own bias. Women rescued and supported by particular programmes reflect
the profiles of their supporting projects (Tyldum and Brunovskis, 2005).
This explains the sample biases in sexual exploitation and forced marriage
since participating projects target these facets of trafficking. As such the
over-representation in sexual exploitation cannot be generalised out, for
example, to inform a discourse on gendered UK trends in trafficking over
the course of the fieldwork. As Bosworth et al (2011: 776) suggest,
exploring alternate ways of accessing trafficked women – for example
through direct correspondence and phone calls – opens an alternate
gateway into trafficking experience which could alleviate this aspect of
gatekeeper-related bias10.

Before closing this snapshot of limitations and strengths, a significant
success factor in accessing women’s stories was a shared goal of feminist
praxis. Feminist praxis is an approach which connects research and lived
practices, generating knowledge which mediates public policy.11 As
Tyldum (2008: 36) observes, the trafficking concept is blurred by political
difference on how to treat politicized issues (such as prostitution,
immigration, security and crime) which directly influence how trafficking
is governed. Given that these political agendas drive the funding released
for trafficking research, the relationship between funding and new
knowledge production is a volatile one:

“…the very sensitive issues, and the risk of reactions from various
agencies and funders if politically unwanted definitions are used, seem to
discourage even some knowledge producers from describing how they see

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Introduction: Setting the Scene 11

relationships – for instance, between prostitution and trafficking – as they
fear this may have impact on their possibilities for future funding”.

As an independent and self-funded researcher, this collection of stories
escapes such institutional and financial expectations for a particular and
disembodied representation of the trafficking experience. Women who
came forward volunteer a breadth of experience in trafficking spanning a
range of exploitations and intersecting a number of migratory flows. Many
amongst them voice a hope that their stories will improve the social milieu
for other trafficked women who follow them. By engaging in the research
process and sharing their subjectively rich experiences with an empirical
researcher, women enter praxis – as their perspectives on safety, health
care, economic security, legal and rights based information, social
integration and community belonging, build experiential social and policy
understanding of well-being freedom. Moreover, as women exercise
agency and adapt to life in the community, their actions create socio-
political understanding of the structural barriers and opportunities open to
former victims (their agency freedom).

The legal and policy context

The decade which frames the study – 2000-2010 – is widely regarded as
“golden” in terms of international-UK cooperation in human trafficking.
The Protocol (UN, 2000a: Article 2) introduced a “3-P” anti-trafficking
paradigm in the form of “prevention”, “protection” and “promotion” of
cooperation among state parties, as well as providing an internationally
accepted definition and set of legal benchmarks for discerning trafficking.
The Council of Europe (2005) Convention went on to supply the
machinery needed to protect human rights and support the victims of
trafficking crime by, simultaneously, investigating its commission and
prosecuting the perpetrators (CoE, 2005: Article 1). In compliance with
international obligations, the UK Government launched two human
trafficking initiatives following the Protocol’s ratification on …

CHAPTER TWO

A REFLEXIVE ACCOUNT OF THE RESEARCH
PROCESS1 AND AN INTRODUCTION

TO PARTICIPANTS

Introduction

This chapter2 explains the feminist design and methods which are used
to research women’s stories of trafficking agency and introduces the
women and professionals featured within the book. The decision to
research from a feminist perspective derives from the research aim of
understanding trafficked women’s experiences of victimisation and agency
(Duelli Klein, 1983; Weston, 1988; Reinharz and Chase, 2003) and
making it visible in order to improve the situation of women (Reinharz,
1983; Kelly, Burton and Regan, 1994; Hill, 2003; Allen, 2011). These two
feminist principles of visibility and liberation are at the heart of feminist
standpoint – a position privileging research from the position and
perspective of women for their amelioration and emancipation.

The research intent was to build an experiential understanding of
trafficking in areas influencing how women are perceived and treated:
namely around identification and identity (Chapter 3), subjective choices
and the socio-economic-cultural dynamics behind movement (Chapter 4),
and opportunities and constraints in rebuilding lives post-trafficking
(Chapter 5). Since feminist researchers privilege the women subjects of
oppression and struggle as best placed for giving their identities and
experiences meaning (Fonow and Cook, 1986; Davis, 1986; Reinharz,
1992), the research aim drives the research methods of a women’s focus
group and semi-structured interviews with women and participating
professionals. This is not to suggest that these research methods are
intrinsically feminist but rather that they are adaptable for qualitative
feminist inquiry. The focus group is picked for its capacity to generate
naturalistic knowledge of women’s meanings (Wilkinson 1998a; 1998b;
1999; Madriz, 2000) and the semi-structured interview (SSI) for its co-
creative qualities in knowledge building (Fontana and Frey, 2000). As

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AN: 1155153 ; De Angelis, Maria.; Human Trafficking : Women’s Stories of Agency
Account: ns215574.main.eds

A Reflexive Account of the Research Process 19

Mies (1983:124) observes for feminist inquiry:

“The ‘truth’ of a theory is not dependent on the application of certain
methodologies and rules but on its potential to orient the processes of
praxis towards progressive emancipation and humanisation”.

In this study, both participant women and anti-trafficking professionals
express the hope that their involvement will improve the future reception
and treatment of women trafficked into the UK (Chapters 5 and 6). In this
way, participants can be seen as actively building praxis – influencing
public policy through research into lived experience (O’Neill and
Harindranath, 2006).

Producing knowledge

Although the book is referred to throughout as a collection of women’s
stories, the term “collection” describes the end product of a book which
houses their lived experience and perspectives on trafficking. The methods
used are picked for their ability to generate new and vibrant knowledge, as
opposed to simply gathering up information waiting to be collected (Dey,
1993). Within feminist enterprise, the production of knowledge has been
and remains a deeply contested issue. The paradigm war between
quantitative and qualitative knowledge production may have gendered
these approaches into a male and a female way of knowing about the
social world (Mies, 1983; Graham, 1983; Hammersley, 1992; Oakley,
1997; 1998). However, as feminism has moved on from suffrage (equal
rights to vote and own property), through a “second wave” of sociological
inquiry (concerned with family, sex rights and work) into a “third wave”
fixed on the body (pornography and sexuality), feminist enterprise has met
with competing truth claims for knowledge of, on, and about women
(Smith, 1974; Haraway, 1991; Reinharz, 1992; Oakley, 1981; 2000)3.
According to Olesen (2000: 217), the descriptor which best captures
qualitative feminist research since the second wave is one of
“complexity”, adding:

“And, indeed, if there is a dominant theme in this growing complexity, it is
the question of knowledges. Whose knowledges? Where and how obtained
and by whom, from whom, and for what purposes”?

These central questions are addressed in the sections below.

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Chapter Two 20

“Where obtained”: gaining access and finding
participants

This study commenced in a decade when asylum and refugee agencies
were experiencing high levels of fatigue over researcher requests to access
displaced, exiled, and trafficked persons known to them (Robinson, 2002;
Poppy Personal Communication, 2007; Clark, 2008). The study also
followed the widely publicised opening of the UK Human Trafficking
Centre (UKHTC) in Sheffield (England) in 2006: a Police-led multi-
agency initiative tasked with prosecuting traffickers and co-ordinating the
European Convention agenda on protecting and assisting the victims of
trafficking crime (CoE, 2005). Given the demands for researcher access
and attendant levels of intrusion to projects and their clients, snowball
sampling was chosen based on its success in finding other invisible and
displaced persons (Bloch, 1999; Atkinson and Flint, 2001). This snowball
search reached 76 agencies supporting trafficked women, asylum seekers,
victims of gendered crime (rape, forced marriage and domestic violence)
and female sex workers, generating sufficient numbers for a focus group
and semi-structured interviews (SSIs). Out of twenty four women who
came forward, two expressly stated from the start that they had no
trafficking experience and their qualitative stories do not feature in this
collection. In contrast, all other narratives are told, since to deny these
women a voice on trafficking is tantamount to denying them their lived
experience. For the qualitative feminist researcher, a fundamental goal of
researching women is precisely one of making her experiences visible
(Harvey, 1990; Reinharz and Chase, 2003).

Two women without the formal support of a project corresponded
directly with me on hearing about it through their networks. As Bosworth
et al. (2011: 776) suggest, a correspondence approach to researching “the
direct experience of those we wish to understand” provides researchers
with another means of sourcing participants. Both these women agreed to
an SSI – one following two months of email exchange and the other after
numerous mobile-phone conversations. This brought the total of women
participants back up to twenty four. Both the focus group composition and
the pen portraits of SSI women are provided in the “from whom” section
at the end of this chapter.

In contrast to the snowball strategy with women, purposive sampling is
better suited for finding participants of relevance to the research topic
(Bryman, 2004). The fieldwork stretched from December, 2008, through
to the end of February, 2010, by which time the National Referral
Mechanism (NRM) for identifying and supporting victims of trafficking

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A Reflexive Account of the Research Process 21

had been operational for ten months. Purposive sampling secured fifteen
interviews with anti-trafficking professionals who, for research purposes,
are divided into three categories.

The first category – Government Enforcement Organisations (GEOs) –
includes interviews with staff in the UKHTC, Border Agency, NRM,
Police, Social Services and a policy advisor. These professionals carry
responsibility for an aspect of service development within trafficking. The
second category – Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) – includes
interviews with six staff working for churches and charities or employed
by specialist projects supporting trafficked women. These professionals
are involved in the day to day running of services for trafficked women
and all, but one, had been in formal case discussions with either the
Police-led UKHTC or the immigration-led UKBA. The three remaining
professionals have been categorised under Partnership Organisations since
all are tasked by their employer with a specific remit in community
building. Partner A liaises with the Police and Criminal Justice
representatives, Partner B with migration, asylum and refugee agencies,
and Partner C with local politicians, civic dignitaries and faith leaders. The
categorisation of professionals can be found in the “from whom” section at
the end of this chapter.

The extent of the two searches was such that, by the end of the
fieldwork, the research had acquired enough legitimacy to open doors to
stakeholder meetings. Had I been conferred this “insider” credential
sooner, I may have gained access to women rescued and hidden within the
NRM process. Towards the end, I was granted access to two case studies
of trafficked women in custody and, though not ideal, was able to unravel
issues of identity, journeys, opportunities and constraints from their Police
statements, Probation Service interviews, Pre-sentence Reports, Court
transcripts, and face-to-face interviews with their case manager. The
stories of these women are also in the “from whom” section at the end of
this chapter4, producing a total of 26 lived accounts of trafficking.

“How obtained and by whom”

Methods for producing knowledge

The challenge for methodology was to find a way of researching
agency as subjective, experiential, and visible in trafficking without
producing “partial” and “distorted accounts” of women’s experiences
(Harding, 1993: 56). Fieldwork is partial and situated both in terms of the
women it reaches and their individual socio-cultural locations. It is also

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Chapter Two 22

partial and distorted according to the agencies reached. Women rescued
and supported by particular programmes reflect the profiles of their
supporting projects (Tyldum & Brunovskis, 2005). This helps to explain
the high rates of trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced marriage in
this collection which, in turn, make these exploitations appear more
representative of trafficking experience than might be the case had projects
with other remits taken part. The production of knowledge is further and
additionally influenced by the researcher’s own subjectivity. Whilst social
scientists agree on a link between social location and personal subjectivity
– in other words, that factors of gender, class and race inform individual
identity, values and experience – there is disagreement on whether
sameness or difference aids the exchange of information between
researchers and researched. Framed in feminist inquiry terms of “insider”
for sameness and “outsider” for difference, I have no real idea of the
extent to which participants’ stories might have been different were I a sex
worker, a migrant to the UK, or had my own marriage been transnational
or forced. My interest was that of an outsider, with a modicum of
professional insider knowledge into the disadvantage posed to these
women from legislative and social policy shortfalls. If, as feminists argue,
all research is in some way subjective, then one way of addressing this
methodological dilemma is for the researcher to provide analysis of the
interview as a social relation (Oakley, 1981), and of herself as a subject in
her own research (Olesen, 2000). Fontana and Frey (2000; 664) refer to
this process of knowledge generation as a “practical production”. These
three concepts are followed through into the methods of data collection
presented below.

Focus Group

Seventeen women in this collection volunteered for a focus group,
reputed to be a naturalistic approach to data collection (Wilkinson, 1998b).
This focus group was situationally generated, as opposed to researcher
constructed, since focus group volunteers were also members of an
existing Black Minority Ethnic (BME) women’s group. These women
knew one another well and many shared bonds as women trafficked for
forced marriage, or as spouses made illegal by the subsequent break-down
of their marriage5. The fact that these women had informed opinions based
on subjective experience significantly enriched the co-production of
knowledge. Their breadth of knowledge created a freer climate of
exchange (beyond anything I could have planned for) across difficult and
contested issues of agency and victimhood. These women felt less obliged

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A Reflexive Account of the Research Process 23

to agree with myself as the group leader, and less pressured to agree with
the three most outspoken women within the group (Carey, 1994). Such a
demonstrable show of power is, in itself, a testimony to the women’s
agentic capacities and of their considerable expertise in trafficking matters.
For my part, their comfort and enthusiasm instilled confidence in the focus
group as a feminist qualitative method suited to researching women’s
imposition of meaning on gendered experience (Wilkinson 1998a; 1999;
Madriz, 2000).

A number of researchers extol the focus group as empowering of
groups further marginalised through their ethnicity (Chiu and Knight,
1999; Madriz, 2000). In spite of all my preparatory correspondence and
planning to create the optimal conditions for success [Barbour and
Kitzinger (1999) advise having ten to twelve participants], seventeen
women from ten different nationalities, and requiring the services of three
multi-lingual interpreters, turned up for the focus group. Chairs were lined
up against three of the four walls, providing extra seats to the oblong table
seating ten, with a trestle table of food and drinks along one side. The
buffet table formed a focal point where women congregated and chatted
informally about the food, the weather, their children, and their week.
Such social interactions – begun at the buffet table – can be seen as
transforming the focus group into a “social moment” (Jowett and O’Toole,
2006: 458), where hearing someone’s story can trigger a shared
appreciation in another’s experience and encourage more women to share
their thoughts and experiences in a naturalistic way.

Reflecting on my inexperience with this particular research method,
my unfamiliarity with focus groups may have worked to my advantage in
two ways. In complete contrast to my fears of over-regulating the group
and producing researcher-led findings, I found myself in Jowett’s (2006)
position when interviewing young women on feminism, of running to keep
pace with them. I, too, frequently found myself chasing the tail ends of
discussion, rather than influencing its threads. One example where control
gave way to process regards an outbreak of mirth, following a long pause
and then rapid admissions that no one, inclusive of interpreters, had
understood what two members speaking in a local dialect had said! The
other advantage relates to the issue of a white researcher interviewing an
all BME group. Pollack’s experience of this within a focus group on race
and power in black women’s experience of prison demonstrates the space
this dynamic creates for different and alternate narratives – which she
terms “counter-narratives” – to emerge.

“With marginalised and oppressed groups, particularly when the researcher
is a member of the dominant group, focus group methodology may be most

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Chapter Two 24

appropriate for countering dominant myths and discourses that construct
marginalized people as deviant and deficient” (Pollack, 2003: 471).

Unlike Pollack, my own approach to this power imbalance was to
actively model sensitivity to the victim discourse by dressing down (to
neutralise power) and purposely removing items of jewellery (suggestive
of affluence, success or status). In stark contrast, most of the focus group
women dressed up (many in ethnic dress or westernised clothing
accessorised with ethnic jewellery) to meet and greet me – displaying a
powerful degree of autonomy and individuality. This visible composition
of a lone white researcher and a commanding Black and Asian participant
group served to re-position power in unforeseen ways. From a position of
strength in numbers, women identified their own barriers to well-being
and agency freedoms citing, for example, unequal access to work via EU
membership. Similarly, women also felt empowered to share personal
examples of risk-taking, hoped-for profits, and end gains in leaving home
– the “counter-narratives” to a prevailing victimhood discourse.

Women’s semi-structured interviews

A total of seven women volunteered for an SSI. Creating the
conditions for truth-telling within a semi-structured interview poses a
different set of challenges from the focus group. If as Fontana and Frey
(2000; 664) suggest – the semi-structured interview is a “practical
production” of meanings resulting from the interactions of researcher and
researched – then, creating the right research relationship seemed a
productive place to start. As a woman interviewing other women, Oakley
(1981) advocates replacing the masculine text book approach with a social
and personal relationship supporting dialogue. In looking to facilitate a
dialogue on a difficult trafficking story, I tried Socratic or open style
questioning (Hollway and Jefferson, 2000) to unpack and explore issues of
choice, autonomy, agency, power, control, exploitation and pain.
Examples of these are: Can you tell me why you came to this country?
Can you tell me about the way in which this was arranged? What were
your thoughts and feelings during this journey? What happened to you
when you arrived in the UK? Can you describe what your living-working
conditions or marriage ceremony was like? How would you describe your
situation to me now? What would make life better for yourself and your
family? Can you tell me what I should have asked you? The latitude in this
line of questioning allows women to ascribe their own meanings to
experiences and stay in control of their personal stories, whilst allowing

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A Reflexive Account of the Research Process 25

the interviewer to probe for dynamics and processes beyond the common-
place.

In creating the best conditions for qualitative responses, feminists
openly urge researchers to invest something of themselves in the process,
either through self-disclosure (Oakley, 1981; Reinharz, 1992) or via the
provision of much needed information to women (Oakley, 1979). This can
balance power particularly when research is conducted with vulnerable
persons (Bergen, 1993; Dickson-Swift et al, 2007; 2008). Often – when
women were closest to breaking down – they would ask me questions like:
“Did I ever feel that helpless”? “Did my husband treat me bad”? Whilst I
could not share insider examples of trafficking, I was able to make myself
“vulnerable” (Stanley and Wise, 1983: 181) by disclosing some outsider
examples. For instance: a personal story of labour exploitation, an
experience of bullying in the workplace, and a marital mix of funny and
embarrassing anecdotes. Such disclosure, albeit outside of trafficking,
builds trust and rapport which encourages a rich and forthright exchange
(Maynard, 1994). This “social relation” dynamic increased as I answered
women’s questions on “no recourse” (NRPF, 2006)6 and (though no
expert) did my best to advise them on domestic violence rules in
immigration cases (Home Office, 2014a).

In this collection, interviews held with and recorded for the two case
study women were similarly perceived as practically produced through the
interactions of the interviewer and the interviewee. Although the
similarities and differences in case analysis have produced their own set of
complimentary and competing discourses (Ragin and Becker, 1992), case
interviews and transcripts contain first-person accounts of an individual’s
actions, experiences and beliefs, which can be interpreted and given voice
by the qualitative researcher. This qualitative interpretation of their stories
was triangulated with case holder interviews for insights into possible
researcher bias over meanings. Viewed as the product of interplay between
insider and outsider knowledge, case study materials can usefully be
explored for an additional perspective on lived identity, movement,
exploitation and agency.

Professional semi-structured interviews

A rounded appreciation of how agency and victimhood is experienced
by women calls for interviews with anti-trafficking professionals. As Hunt
(2008) observes for the asylum process, all professional actors have some
impact on agency both independently and through their job roles. Some
individuals employed in a sector also cut across sector boundaries. For

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Chapter Two 26

example, some senior Police and Immigration personnel have an active
presence within the CAs, provide training jointly with NGO staff, and
chair community fora. Similarly, one NGO with charitable status was a
recipient of government funding during the fieldwork. In spite of such
overlap, staff allocations to a particular sector are defensible since they are
based upon primary roles.

In faithfulness with the feminist goal of revealing women’s meaning
(Du Bois, 1983; Duelli Klein, 1983) for social improvement (Kelly,
Burton and Regan, 1994) and praxis (Maynard and Purvis, 1994),
professional perspectives provide a complimentary as opposed to a
validatory lens on women’s standpoint. Questions posed to staff focussed
on what they look for in a victim of trafficking; how they assess the signs
of trafficking; what needs do survivors present; what happens to women
whose experience differs from official guidelines; what aspects of their
role do they find most challenging and most rewarding? As with women
survivors, care is taken to minimise the portrayal of anti-trafficking
professionals as a reified group. A conscious decision was made to learn
something about each of them as individual workers, along the lines of
what motivates and what most upsets them in their line of work. In
keeping with feminist concerns over representation and meaning, each was
asked what their “one anti-trafficking wish” might be.

“Whose knowledges and for what purpose”

Ethics

Gatekeepers were vigilant in protecting trafficked women from
research-related harms7. Prior to face-to-face meetings with participants,
gatekeepers relayed women’s anxieties over consent, confidentiality and
anonymity. Gatekeepers went through the research contract with women,
which they signed in advance of interviews. The contract gave women
permission to withdraw at any point or to refuse to answer a particular
question, and all without need for explanation. It allowed SSI women to
choose an alias and / or be classified as SSIs, and preserved the anonymity
of focus group women through their identification as focus group
members. The contract provided a further guarantee that women’s case
histories would not be disclosed to any other agency. A page-long
questionnaire gathered demographic information on age, gender, ethnicity,
class, marital status, number of children, qualifications and employment,
pertinent for context.

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A Reflexive Account of the Research Process 27

Whilst interpreters and after-care support were central to the granting
of ethics approval by the University of Hull, Watts (2006) theorises the
research interview as a therapeutic opportunity making counselling skills a
pre-requisite in good ethical practice. In light of my lack in counselling
skills, unforeseen offers from gatekeepers to refer women to in-house
counsellors and use their bilingual interpreters (Thomson et al, 1999),
raised the quality of communication and post-interview care beyond my
single capacity to gift. Knowing that women had access to these
professional services eased my “ethical hangover” with using exploited
people for research (Lofland & Lofland, 1995:28). Both of the women
who corresponded directly with me – one following two months of email
exchange and the other after numerous mobile phone conversations – had a
good command of spoken English. Neither requested a formal interpreter
or brought a friend along to interpret for them. In terms of their after-care,
the first had access to support through her volunteering work and the
second to pastoral care from her college, although all participants were
offered an after-care phone call from me. All SSI women exercised choice
over interview venues, choosing a project room or a coffee house where
they felt safe and in control of the research process. The focus group took
place in premises housing numerous social and charitable projects, where
women could also feel safe.

As with the focus group and SSI women, professionals were asked to
choose the location of their interviews and some also chose external venues
serving teas and coffees. As with women participants, no professional is
identifiable to safeguard anonymity, respect confidentiality and protect
staff from organisational repercussions. These privacy measures also serve
to differentiate individual opinions from organisational stances on
trafficking. In this way, the research adopts a morally responsible position
towards agencies and their staff within social policy research (Clifford,
2010).

Handling data

Given feminist concern for researching the social world from the
position and perspective of women (Weston, 1988), feminist researchers
face a complex challenge in representing the views of others as research
data. Accuracy may be the goal of transcription (Sandelowski, 1994) but
transcribing is an interpretive as opposed to a neutral exercise (Bailey,
2008). Under this lens, typing transcripts verbatim is a valuable strategy
for monitoring the integrity of representations, since verbatim transcripts
maintain the data “fresh” for the researcher to review time and again

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Chapter Two 28

(Bertrand et al, 1992: 201). Another stratagem is to transcribe all
recordings oneself, especially when handling sensitive transcripts. Warr
(2004) strongly discourages employing transcribers from outside of the
study. Her argument is that hearing a recorded voice can be traumatising
for the outside listener, as well as subjecting the voice to the dangers of an
emotive and different interpretation outside of the interview. Being the
sole transcriber of recordings in this study placed me in an enviable
position of knowing each woman’s story “by heart”, and this familiarity
informed the choice of a grounded theory approach to data handling.

Grounded theory researchers often rely on concepts shaped by their
respective disciplines (Clarke, 2005; Dunne, 2011; Tummers and Karsten,
2012) to inform both their study and the subsequent coding process. In this
study, four trafficking concepts (identity, journey, exploitations, and
independent actions) shaped the interview schedules whilst open codes –
based on the four concepts – proved helpful in organising the data. A
subsequent selective coding on responses brought commonalities,
differences, and intersections – as present in women’s narratives – to the
fore. Adopting an analytical strategy of re-coding and retrieving enabled
concepts to be refined and regrouped (for example, identity into trafficking
identity, pre …

CHAPTER THREE

TRAFFICKING IDENTITY

Introduction and outline

This chapter explores trafficked women’s lived experiences of identity.
It is the first of three practical applications – applying what is known in the
trafficking discourse to women’s experience and harnessing lived
experience to challenge existing knowledge of trafficking. The chapter
opens with the dominant imagery of a victim of trafficking as portrayed
through media and awareness raising campaigns, before looking at what
trafficked women say both about their trafficking selves and as survivors
with a pre-trafficking persona. The chapter centrally explores the gains
and losses contained within the victim imagery and the “trauma story” for
women’s agency and, in so doing, also considers how professionals assist
and resist women’s right to express agency within trafficking.

The imagery of a victim of trafficking (VoT)

Human Trafficking is unequivocally defined and legislated for as a
criminal activity. The United Nations “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and
Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children” provides
the internationally recognised definition under the criminal frame of the
Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (2000). According to
this definition, human trafficking is a criminal process involving

“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons;
by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of
abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of
vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to
achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the
purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the
exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual
exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to
slavery, servitude or the removal of organs” (UN, 2000a: 3a)

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AN: 1155153 ; De Angelis, Maria.; Human Trafficking : Women’s Stories of Agency
Account: ns215574.main.eds

Chapter Three 44

This overarching legislative frame conceptualises trafficking as the
illegal trade in persons (reframed as modern-day slavery – Slavery
Working Group, 2013) and the perpetrators as involved in serious and
organised criminal activity. Set against this frame, the claim to a VoT
status by the presumed victim of trafficking becomes susceptible to
properties and characteristics ascribed to a victim of crime. The closer a
woman’s fit to established victim of crime norms, the easier she is to
identify and accept as a genuine victim of trafficking crime. The crime
norms of an ideal victim and the right sort of victim are now considered
for their effects on women’s agency.

The ideal crime victim

Aradau (2004:262) observes that the distinguishing mark of a
trafficked woman is her “raw physical suffering”. This is fixed in physical
imagery depicting the trafficked woman as the “body in pain: pierced,
bleeding and defenceless”. This imagery is widely perpetuated via the
media in films such as “Lilya 4-ever” (2002), “Taken” (2008), “Cargo”
(2011), “Eden” (2012) and through television movies, for example, “Sex
Traffic” (2004), “Human Trafficking” (2005), and “I Am Slave” (2010).
Figure 3-1 below serves as a pictorial example of this.

This visual imagery in trafficking victimhood is also utilised in other
fora of media and public information exchange. A London march led by
Emma Thompson on 19th September, 2007, involved “mourners” filing
behind a horse drawn hearse, imaging Human Trafficking in pain,
suffering, victimhood and death1. A walk in art installation “Journey” –
which toured capital cities between 2007 and 2008 – invited members of
the public to walk through seven transport containers deploying sensory
stimuli to recreate the violence in sex trafficking. Containers labelled
“Uniform”, “Bedroom” and “Customer” used puppets and props to
graphically portray the brutal abuse of women trafficked for sexual
exploitation. For example, a stained bed alongside one container wall was
piled high with bodies enacting acts of rough sex2. This descriptor of
physical injury resulting from assault or other controlling measures tops
the list of trafficking indicators rolled out to front-line staff by the Home
Office (2013a).

The popularity and power of such VoT descriptions can be both
understood and explained as residing in their ability to connect with
unconditional public sympathy. These victims of human trafficking are
Christie’s (1986) “ideal” crime victims – women so vulnerable, blameless,
unambiguous and uncomplicated as to embody their victim status. This

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ideal and ab
and readily
trafficking.

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Chapter Three 46

with other trafficked (but not physically broken) women and with other
criminally and ethically exploited migrants alike. As Aradau (2004: 262)
explains

“Where their trajectory might have coincided with that of a migrant or
prostitute, suffering is redeeming. Trafficked women are disidentified from
categories of migrants, criminals or prostitutes by the emphasis on raw
physical suffering”.

This powerless, broken and defeated portrayal of the VoT is instrumental
in segregating women who eschew any consent to prostitution from those
choosing to work and remain in the entertainment and sex industries
(Doezema, 1998; 2000; Chapkis, 2005). Diametrically positioned in the
trafficking discourse as the pure “Madonnas” deserving of protection, as
opposed to the guilty “whores” (complicit in sex work and undeserving of
help: Doezema, 1998: 47), these constructs cloud professional judgements
(O’Connell Davidson, 2006) and impact both on VoT identifications
(Kelly, 2002; 2005) and immigration assessments (Chapkis, 2003)3. For
Skeldon (2000), this gendered and powerless embodiment carries an
unintended consequence for men. The emphasis on passivity and
deservability serves to deny a place for men in the trafficking discourse,
since men are typically imagined as agentic beings within global
movements and as less susceptible than women and children to sexual
victimisation and prostitution. This gendered perception of a male absence
in trafficking, particularly for sexual exploitation, is unconsciously
reinforced by men’s reluctance to disclose instances of sexual assault
within sex work (Connell and Hart, 2003) or to express their vulnerability
in forced marriages (Samad, 2010).

This dominant and populist victim imagery is also harnessed by anti-
trafficking campaigns targeting trafficking as modern-day slavery. In line
with the Protocol’s aims of prevention, protection, and promotion of
cooperation among state parties (Article 2) – the “3-P”s for combatting
trafficking crime – awareness campaigns engage the eyes and ears of
actors in civil society to curb the international and domestic trade in
human beings. These campaigns hold merit for disseminating information
regarding the dynamic and fluid nature of human trafficking activity (ILO,
2012). For example, the latest awareness raising campaign (rolled out by
the Home Office in August, 2014, via the media) shows perpetrators
emerging into an everyday situation following their respective roles in
scenes of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and forced rural
labour4. These scenes reflect evidential concerns for the presence of
trafficking victims in these areas both internationally and within the UK

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Trafficking Identity 47

(Skrivankova, 2006; UNODC, 2009; 2012; UKHTC, 2011; GRETA,
2012; SOCA, 2012). Although it is imperative to recognise that forced
labour and human trafficking are not the same, they overlap when labour
exploitation is the purpose in human trafficking (Skrivankova, 2014: 4).
Under the rhetoric of modern slavery, the exploitations in forced labour
have arguably gained a new lease in public consciousness and social
disapprobation.

The problem with being asked to recognise the signs in contemporary
slavery, however, is that they also rely on indicators describing how we
should perceive this victim in human trafficking. Aside from physical
injury, some of the other indicators in trafficking are:

a woman’s appearance – does she look fearful, depressed or under-

nourished?
her papers – does she have hold of her own passport or work or

marriage visa?
is she able to speak for herself?
is she in contact with friends and family? and
is she escorted to and from her place of work? (HO, 2013a; HO,

2013b; Salvation Army, 2013).

By promoting such official indicators, awareness campaigns reinforce

a subjugated and unagentic view of a trafficked woman, one who is
homogenised in victimhood. As Hitchcox (1993: 157) observes for official
perceptions of asylum seekers, naturalising any diverse social grouping to
a category of persons with identical circumstances, problems and needs
serves as a “process of reification that is inclined to equate the individual
with the state of being a refugee”, or in this instance – a trafficking victim.
Scholars raise particular critiques of this rescue campaign in sex
trafficking precisely because it homogenises trafficked women with
migrant sex workers and conflates sex work with involuntary prostitution
(Kempadoo and Doezema, 1998; Outshoorn, 2005; Doezema, 2005). For
Agustin (2003), not all movements involving sex are related to trafficking
and need to be explored as a combination of demand for sexual services
and women’s supply of services. A woman’s involvement and response
towards sex services is, in some measure, dependent upon her personal
and sexual identity. Without this subjectivity, anti-trafficking campaigns
run the risk of homogenising and stigmatising women’s diverse
experiences – as an individual, a migrant, or as a worker – in trafficking
victimhood5.

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48

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Trafficking Identity 49

surfacing solely in the criminal actions of the traffickers – the “doers” of
crime. The “Blue Blindfold” anti-trafficking campaign – launched in 2007
under a Crime Stoppers agenda by the Home Office and Police-led Human
Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) – illustrates this passive victim / criminally
agentic trafficker to good effect. The “Don’t Close Your Eyes to Human
Trafficking” awareness campaign deploys a series of posters, each
featuring members of the public wearing a blue blindfold – symbolising
their obliviousness to the crime of human trafficking taking place in their
communities. The posters deliver a message that the Police require
members of the public to work with them in rescuing victims, who may be
reluctant or too frightened to come forward themselves6. In light of
populist constructions depicting the VoT as totally passive, naive and
enslaved, any knowledge or participation on the part of women in the
trafficking process runs the risk of attracting criminal justice or
immigration sanctions. As Mai (2009: np) suggests:

“Tackling demand as solely criminal and reducing women’s varied
trajectories within global movements (especially for sex work) to a
singular victim narrative, effectively drives women’s agency underground,
creating a hostile environment for the trafficked as well as for the
traffickers”.

This hostile environment for agency carries real consequences for
women seeking a VoT status. In order to gain this status, women have to
enter the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and pass two tests. The
first “reasonable grounds” test triggers a low level threshold to credibility,
along the lines of “Is this trafficking claim likely to be true”? The second
and conclusive decision rests on a “balance of probabilities” test,
indicating “reasonable likelihood” that trafficking has taken place.
Officially rolled out in the UK on 1st April, 2009, the NRM relies on
caseworkers in two Competent Authorities (CAs) to administer these tests,
in accordance with Article 10 of the Convention on Action Against
Trafficking in Human Beings (CoE, 2005). The Police-led Competent
Authority (the UKHTC) gatekeeps presumed VoTs referred by any agency
other than the UK Border Agency (UKBA), and the UKBA7 acts as the
gatekeeper to presumed trafficked persons appearing in the Immigration
and Asylum systems. A positive reasonable grounds finding, from either
Competent Authority, creates eligibility to state funded support and a 45
day recovery and reflection period, and a positive conclusive decision may
result in an initial one year residence permit (Home Office, 2008: 3). A
negative trafficking decision, again from either CA, results in a person’s
re-referral to their original project for support and could open the

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Chapter Three 50

floodgates to detention and eventual deportation of the unsuccessful
applicant, based on assessments of culpability, criminality and illegality
surrounding entry and activity in the UK (GRETA, 2012).

According to the nearest NRM data for this period of story collection,
referrals received between 1st April, 2009, and 30th June, 2011, totalled
1,664. Of these, 1192 (72%) were female, although it is not stated how
many females were minors. Within this category, 692 females (58.1%) are
recorded as gaining a reasonable grounds decision and 375 (31.5%) as
gaining conclusive grounds. A negative reasonable grounds decision is
recorded against 399 females (33.5%) and a negative conclusive decision
against 180 females (15.1%) referred for protection and help. The
remainder are accounted for as suspensions or withdrawals, or as
undecided or negative outcomes (SOCA, 2011). This dual function of
prosecuting the perpetrators (the doers in trafficking) and rescuing the
sufferers (the done to in trafficking), embedded within some trafficking
awareness campaigns, reaffirms the unagentic victim demeanour contained
in the “doer-sufferer” model of criminal interaction.

New campaign tools, old images?

The introduction of cartoon imagery in anti-trafficking work was
instigated by the Council of Europe to help promote awareness of the
Convention (2005) amongst member States8. Under the “You’re Not for
Sale” campaign, the cartoons depict four stories – Talina; two sisters
named Anna and Sofia (one of whom is a youth; all of whom are
trafficked for sexual exploitation); Fabia (trafficked into domestic
servitude); and Yvo (a male trafficked into rural exploitation). The cartoon
frames shown below portray this iconography in the stories of Talina and
the two sisters named Anna and Sofia9.

Introduced with the goal of extending identifications of trafficking
victims to newer and younger audiences, the use of “visual art” has
become a recognised and established tool for engaging with the hidden
and complex nature of “difficult to reach” and “difficult to tell” narratives
within the Social Sciences. For example, it has been successfully used in
participatory action research with sex workers10. Within asylum and
refugee contexts, art has conveyed the experiences of new asylum arrivals
in the UK (see O’ Neill et al, 2004), and remains instrumental in building
understanding of how refugee women recreate belonging in a new
country11. In comparison, the use of artistic visuals within human
trafficking (as in “Journey” and the Council of Europe cartoons) have been
more conventionally deployed to cascade prevailing messages in

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trafficking,
Amongst sc
and its usag
reproducing
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Identity

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51

afficking.
the genre
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f Europe

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52 Chapter TThree

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Trafficking

Identity 53

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54

Figure 3-4: In
Europe

nternet cartoon

Chapter T

“You’re Not fo

Three

or Sale” – Annaa and Sofia: ©CCouncil of

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Trafficking Identity 55

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56 Chapter TThree

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Trafficking Identity 57

An artistic theatre production “Fair Trade” – an Edinburgh Fringe
Festival show about two women tricked into sexual slavery in the UK – is
similarly critiqued for reinforcing, rather than challenging, prevailing
populist perceptions. According to Fringe Review (2010: np), the case in
sexual victimisation is convincingly made but, in doing so, “Fair Trade”
reduces Elena from Albania and Samai from Darfur (the two central
characters) to “black-and-white caricatures” of the persons they represent.

An awareness raising tour in the state of Florida (2014) provides
further example of this trend and its ongoing popularity. “Walking in their
Footsteps” is designed as an interactive theatre experience in which
audience members are given an identity and taken through the indicative
processes of trafficking – starting with the recruiter and ending in a Border
Police interview. The intention is for ordinary members of the public
(albeit in a controlled way) to experience being trafficked and its negative
effects on their humanity. All of these innovative and creative art works
play a vital role in educating the public on trafficking harms. However, the
new tools are also in danger of re-energising the familiar and unagentic
VoT imagery despite theorisations of contemporary trafficking as a subset
of migration (Andrijasevic, 2003; Agustin, 2005; 2006; Berman, 2010).

Set against this media and campaign backdrop of the “ideal” and “right
sort” of trafficking victim, the next section explores how women in this
collection identify themselves.

Women’s sense of a trafficked self

The women in this study display an awareness of having been
trafficked. Most refer to themselves as “victims” and when asked if they
have been trafficked, the majority say “yes”. This process of self-
identification suggests women own a sense of their trafficked selves. For
many women, this self-awareness hails from a specific event and
corresponds with trafficking indicators within official guidelines and
toolkits. One of the top ways women describe a victim of trafficking
identity is through the loss of visas and passports. Laila – who was forcibly
taken out of the UK to Pakistan – communicates her sense of a trafficking
self in this way:

“I had to stay there [Pakistan] and was told after about 3 to 4 months that if
I didn’t get married, I wouldn’t be able to return to the UK. I had my
passport taken away from me so I couldn’t prove who I was… He knew
from day one I didn’t wanna marry him. Mmm, he knew that very well and
I even spoke to him before, without anyone knowing, I said I don’t want to
marry you, please, you know, if anyone can stop it, at least maybe the guy

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Chapter Three 58

has a say, the girl doesn’t, no! But he wanted to come to the UK, didn’t he,
and I was his passport”. (Laila)

Nina – who is deceived into a fake marriage within the home and
exploited for labour outside of the home – comes to a similar realisation of
her trafficked self through the removal of her papers:

“My mother-in-law just told me pack my luggage, go with them to the
airport and when I came to Heathrow, my British husband and his brother
and his sister came to met me and when I got my bags I just get in car. My
sister-in-law say where your passport? I was really shocked and I give it to
her – I was thinking what happen to my mum and dad. When I arrived, my
mother-in-law say same thing, where is your passport? You know, now I
know, this is really important. At that time, I didn’t realise how much,
what it means to give over your passport…to give away who you are”.
(Nina)

Another way women self-identify as trafficked is through one of the
three processes defining trafficking – “movement; by means of threat or
use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, or fraud, of
deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the
giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a
person; for exploitation” (UN, 2000a: Article 3). For Sofia, her sense of
being a victim of trafficking stems from the fraudulent transactions
marking her debt bondage:

“My friend had managed to get a passport and she introduced me to these
people. It was explained that I would go to Brussels and meet a Lithuanian
woman who would provide me with a passport. I had to pay so much up
front for the passport – about 500.00 euro. I arrived in Brussels and my
expectation was to have work in a hotel, where I would get a wage to send
money [remittances] to my family back home. This [working abroad] was
meant to be temporary… but from starting, travelling across Europe, to
arrival in the UK – it took almost a year! I hadn’t the money to pay for this
travel, my food, or accommodation”. (Sofia)

Cemile’s sense of a trafficked self is located in the deception and
abuses of power surrounding her vulnerability within transnational
marriage:

“I told him before marriage the kind of woman I am. I was honest and open
with him. I can do this, this and this, but I can’t do this, this and this. And I
got my visa after 3 months and travelled here [to the UK] with my box
[luggage]. I was worried at the time because I was alone. Your husband

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Trafficking Identity 59

knows everywhere and everything and you don’t know anything. It was
bad from the beginning. I tried to excuse and keep waiting…but I don’t
know what he was like in his first marriage. He married a British woman
and she left him for another man. I think I am paying the bill [the price] for
that. I had a shock”! (Cemile)

Another descriptor used by women to self-identify as a VoT is that of
slavery – “modern day” and “sex” slave. During interview, many women
apply the language of slavery to themselves. For example, Aarti refers to
herself as a “modern slave”, Tamara as “a victim of human slavery”, Laila
as having been “held in slavery”, Nina as having been “treated as a slave”
and Fatuma uses the term “prostitute slave”. Several women in the focus
group refer to living and working in conditions akin to a “slave”. In
describing their experiences, women use recognised “slavery-like
practices” of not being paid for their labour, having little say in decision
making, having their movements curtailed, and generally lacking control
over their own lives (Bales, 2005).

Such appropriation of a recognised benchmark – be it a trafficking
indicator, a process constitutive of trafficking, or a slavery descriptor –
poses an interpretational challenge for women’s agency. Their usage
suggests women are clearly aware of trafficking talk as configured by the
State and rehearsed through media and public campaigns, and of its capital
for accessing trafficking help. Slavery identifications in particular
highlight the power of victim constructions despite evidential challenges
to the contrary12. Significantly, the vast majority of women in this
collection do not apply known identifiers to demonstrate their fit with the
“ideal” victim (one who is physically broken); the “right sort” of victim
(one who is totally passive); or with slavery per se (defined as “total
control of one person by another for economic exploitation”: Bales, 1999:
6). Women’s usage can be traced to two specific dynamics considered
below.

Firstly, women’s deeply moving and disturbing identifications with
known trafficking indicators and descriptors proves helpful in conveying a
sense of their …

Module 2 Discussion 2: Source Evaluation

and Comparison

In research writing, your own credibility rests on the credibility of the

sources you consult. If you use unreliab

le research, your own writing

will be viewed as unreliable. In this discussion, you will evaluate sources

for your research.

You should spend

approximately 3 hours on this assignment.

Instructions

1.

Research the same topic you began researching in Discussion

1.

Access the

CCCOnline

Library

Databases

,

and search for two

sources with differing perspectives on your chosen

topic that you

believe will be useful to your research project. (You may use

sources from your Source Scavenger Hunt.)

I already

attached

them so

don’t

worry about findin

g them!

2.

Think

: Use the resources from the

Exploration

page to help you

ev

aluate each source.

Use

the

CRAAP

test

.

3.

Write

:

In

your

initial

post,

write

a

short

evaluation

paragraph

for

each

source.

Then,

write

an

additional

paragraph

where

you

compare

the

two

sources

based

on

your

evaluations

of

the

sources.

4.

Include a correctly formatted Works Cited entry for each source.

Need help with MLA? Please refer to the

CCCOnline

MLA

Citation

Toolkit

, or consult the Purdue OWL for how to create a

correctly formatted

MLA

Works

Cited

p

age

.

5.

Post one original post, and

reply to at least two of your

classmates. In your replies to peers, compare your evaluations on

your chosen sources. Discuss your findings and what elements

you consider most important in a source. Discuss why it is

importa

nt to pay attention to the credibility of your sources. Try

to further the discussion in your replies by asking thoughtful

Module 2 Discussion 2: Source Evaluation

and Comparison

In research writing, your own credibility rests on the credibility of the

sources you consult. If you use unreliable research, your own writing

will be viewed as unreliable. In this discussion, you will evaluate sources

for your research.

You should spend approximately 3 hours on this assignment.

Instructions

1. Research the same topic you began researching in Discussion 1.

Access the CCCOnline Library Databases, and search for two

sources with differing perspectives on your chosen topic that you

believe will be useful to your research project. (You may use

sources from your Source Scavenger Hunt.) I already attached

them so don’t worry about finding them!

2. Think: Use the resources from the Exploration page to help you

evaluate each source. Use the CRAAP test.

3. Write: In your initial post, write a short evaluation paragraph for

each source. Then, write an additional paragraph where you

compare the two sources based on your evaluations of the

sources.

4. Include a correctly formatted Works Cited entry for each source.

Need help with MLA? Please refer to the CCCOnline MLA

Citation Toolkit, or consult the Purdue OWL for how to create a

correctly formatted MLA Works Cited page.

5. Post one original post, and reply to at least two of your

classmates. In your replies to peers, compare your evaluations on

your chosen sources. Discuss your findings and what elements

you consider most important in a source. Discuss why it is

important to pay attention to the credibility of your sources. Try

to further the discussion in your replies by asking thoughtful

Respond to 2 peers en

gaging with the peer and asking questions.

Peer 1:

(

Nadia S

)

Konrad

Szocik,

a

certified

space

philosopher

at

Yale

University

released

this

article

in

2020

talkin

g

about

the

challenges

of

Space

Exploration,

one

of

them

being

space

colonization.

This

article

is

biased

but

backed

with

properly

sourced

research

and

experiments

from

previous

scientists.

The

majority

of

his

article

specifically

the

topic

of

space

coloni

zation

is

trying

to

create

a

new

opening

conversation

with

the

challenges

of

space

exploration

and

its

effect

on

humans.

Konrad

Szocik

also

opened

a

conversation

about

possible

solutions

and

other

questions

with

space

exploration

using

sources

that

clash

w

ith

previous

and

other

sources

in

perspective.

.Though

this

second

source,

a

book

from

2012

features

the

problems

of

space

exploration,

it

also

highlights

the

necessity

of

it

as

well,

especially

space

colonization.

It

contrasts

well

with

my

first

chosen

article.

S.V.

Krichevskiy

is

a

Doctor

philosopher,

a

professor

at

the

Institute

for

the

History

of

Science

and

Technology

in

Moscow,

Russia.

He

is

a

reliable

professor

with

credible

sources

to

his

name.

Within

his

research

article,

he

proved

many

credible

sources

from

his

own

research.

It

was

difficult

to

find

two

sources

that

contrast

each

other,

especially

finding

a

specific

subtopic

of

space

exploration.

These

two

articles

work

well

because

they

both

highlight

the

contrasting

perspective

of

space

exploration

that

many

of

us

don’t

crit

ically

think

about

Respond to 2 peers engaging with the peer and asking questions.

Peer 1:

(Nadia S)

Konrad Szocik, a certified space philosopher at Yale University released this article in

2020 talking about the challenges of Space Exploration, one of them being space

colonization. This article is biased but backed with properly sourced research and

experiments from previous scientists. The majority of his article specifically the topic of

space colonization is trying to create a new opening conversation with the challenges of

space exploration and its effect on humans. Konrad Szocik also opened a conversation

about possible solutions and other questions with space exploration using sources that

clash with previous and other sources in perspective.

.Though this second source, a book from 2012 features the problems of space

exploration, it also highlights the necessity of it as well, especially space colonization. It

contrasts well with my first chosen article. S.V. Krichevskiy is a Doctor philosopher, a

professor at the Institute for the History of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia.

He is a reliable professor with credible sources to his name. Within his research article,

he proved many credible sources from his own research.

It was difficult to find two sources that contrast each other, especially finding a specific

subtopic of space exploration. These two articles work well because they both highlight

the contrasting perspective of space exploration that many of us don’t critically think about