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REVUE DE LA SÉCURITÉ HUMAINE
Human Trafficking
Guest Editorial: Trafficking, Modern Slavery and the
Human Security Agenda
Julia O'Connell Davidson
The Harvest: Human Organs and Human Security
Jeff Whitehead
Human Security, Sex Trafficking and
Deep Structural Explanations
Karen Dunlop
Itinéraire de Trafiquant:
Le Réseau Malais au Sud de Singapour
éric Frécon
Volume 6, Spring 2008
▪ 1CERI
▪ Program for Peace and Human Securtiy
HUMAN SECURITY JOURNAL
The Board
Bertrand Badie
Rony Brauman
J. Peter Burgess
Gullaume Devin
Edward Newman
Karoline Postel-Vinay
Simon Reich
Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, Editor-in-Chief
...
Student Team
Romain Malejacq, Senior Editor
Francesco Anesi
Rocco Bellanova
David Bosold
Sumathi Chandrashekaran
Nicolas Dasnois
Abdourahmane Diallo
Antonia Dürnsteiner
Francesca Galli
Charlotte Pereira
Michael Scott Robinson
Robert Schütte
Julia Sieger
" In the final analysis, human security
is a child who did not die, a disease
that did not spread, a job that was
not cut, an ethnic tension that
did not exlplode into violence, a
dissident who was not silenced.
Human security is not a concern
with weapons - it is a concern with
human life and dignity.
"
Human Development Report, 1994
La Revue de la Sécurité Humaine est une revue étudiante à but non-lucratif basée à l'Institut d'études Politiques de
Paris. Les opinions qui y sont exprimées n'engagent pas la responsabilité de Sciences Po ni du CERI Program for
Peace and Human Security.
The Human Security Journal is a non-profit student publication based at the Institut d'études Politiques de Paris. The
opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of Sciences Po nor the CERI Program for Peace and
Human Security.
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Table of Contents
Staff Editorial
en francais
in english
Guest Editorial by Julia O'Connell Davidson p. 4
p. 6
p. 8
Focus Point........................................
Jeff Whitehead, The Harvest: Human Organs and Human Security
p. 18
Maybritt Jill Alpes, The Traffic in Voices: Contrasting Experiences of Migrant Women
in Prostitution with the Paradigm of "Human Trafficking"
p. 34
Laura Kokko, People for Sale? Three Different Approaches to Human Trafficking
p. 46
Karen Dunlop, Human Security, Sex Trafficking and Deep Structural Explanations
p. 56
Patrizia Testaì, Debt as a Route to Modern Slavery in the Discourse on "Sex Trafficking:" p. 68
Myth or Reality? Karina Marczuk & George Popa, Trafficking in Human Beings in the Post-Communist p. 78
States of the Balkan Area
Global images......................................................................................
Anne-Claire Gayet, La Sécurité Humaine dans le Contexte Occidental: Un Concept
Relatif? Contrôles Migratoires et Criminalisation des étrangers Pauline Bandelier, Sex, Race and Globalization: African Prostitution and the Politics of
p. 92
p. 106
Exclusion in France
from the field.............................................................................................
éric Frécon, Itinéraire de Trafiquant: Le Réseau Malais au Sud de Singapour
HSJ Interview: Natalys Martin
p. 122
p. 130
between the lines.................................................................
Julia Sieger, Illicit Activity and Proliferation: North Korean Smuggling Networks
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p. 136
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Le trafic est un phénomène qui menace et affecte la sécurité de plusieurs
millions de personnes dans le monde. Le trafic de drogue est bien évidemment
celui qui a reçu le plus d’attention. Cependant, d’autres types de trafics
n’ont pas encore fait l’objet d’études approfondies. C’est notamment le cas
du trafic d’organes ou du trafic d'êtres humains, où enfants comme adultes
sont utilisés à des fins de prostitution ou d’esclavage. Cette édition de la
Revue de la Sécurité Humaine rassemble des études universitaires ainsi
que des expériences professionnelles relatives à ce sujet et conclut qu’il est
à présent urgent de prêter plus d’attention au trafic d'êtres humains.
Les conséquences du trafic d'êtres humains sont vastes et affectent, non
seulement les acteurs de ces trafics, mais également la société toute entière.
Il est vrai que certaines couches sociales et certaines régions du monde sont
plus vulnérables au trafic que d’autres, mais cela n’amoindrit pas l’ampleur
prise par ces pratiques, ni le fait que la responsabilité collective doit être
mobilisée afin de lutter contre ce phénomène global.
Notre éditorialiste invitée, Julia O'Connell Davidson, est Professeur de
sociologie à l'Université de Nottingham, et experte sur les questions de
trafic sexuel. Elle est l'auteur de "Prostitution, Power and Freedom" (1998)
et de "Children in the Global Sex Trade" (2005). Dans son éditorial, Julia
O'Connell Davidson compare le trafic d'êtres humains avec l'esclavage,
et montre à quel point il est difficile de donner une définition précise du
"trafic d'êtres humains."
Le premier article de Focus Point évoque le trafic d’organes, un
sujet qui jusqu’alors a reçu bien peu d’attention. à travers quatre études
de cas, l’auteur distingue les différentes pratiques de transplantations et
conclut qu’une approche pluridisciplinaire est souhaitable pour combattre
efficacement cette menace.
Trois des six articles présentés dans cette section décrivent précisément
les processus de trafics dans différentes régions d’Europe. Par exemple,
un article retrace l’histoire de femmes immigrées à Paris, que l’on a
contraintes à la prostitution. Un autre article se base sur les statistiques
d’une étude menée dans quatre villes italiennes afin d’appréhender les
représentations sociales et historiques de l’esclavage sexuel dans ce pays.
Enfin, le troisième article se focalise sur le trafic d'êtres humains dans les
pays de l’ancien bloc communiste et mentionne les différentes stratégies de
lutte contre le trafic d'êtres humains adoptées dans ces pays.
Deux autres articles adoptent une vision plus large et plus théorique:
l’un tente de fournir une explication structuraliste de la marchandisation
des femmes alors que l’autre évalue trois différentes approches du trafic
d'êtres humains: en tant que violation des droits de l'homme, en tant que
commerce illicite, et enfin en tant que pratique culturelle.
La deuxième section—Global Images—comprend deux articles. Le
Édito de la Rédaction
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premier étudie les différents types de contrôles des flux migratoires et de la criminalisation des
étrangers; le second introduit le débat relatif à la mondialisation, au sexe et à la race dans le
contexte de la prostitution africaine et de la politique d’exclusion en France.
La troisième section de la revue—From the Field—permet aux lecteurs d’appréhender
la question du trafic à travers des expériences concrètes. Dans un entretien exclusif, Natalys
Martin, avocate chez Amnesty International France, évoque les questions du droit d’asile et du
trafic d’êtres humains. Dans le second article, Eric Frecon partage son expérience au contact
de traffiquants indonésiens.
Enfin, Between the Lines se concentre sur une publication récente d’un article sur le trafic
illicite de matériel nucléaire. Dans Illicit Activity and Proliferation: North Korean Smuggling
Networks, Sheena Chestnut nous explique quelles seraient les conséquences d’un trafic
nucléaire en Corée du Nord.
Cette édition de la Revue de la Sécurité Humaine ne constitue qu'une sélection d'études
relatives au trafic d'êtres humains et à ses conséquences. L'équipe éditoriale a tenté de
rassembler des articles recouvrant le plus d’aspects possibles tout en adoptant des perspectives
variées de la sécurité humaine. Cependant, ce concept est extrêmement vaste et il est donc
impossible, dans le cadre de cette revue, de constituer un dossier exhaustif et approfondi sur ce
sujet. Là n’était pas notre ambition. À ce titre, nous avons choisi de présenter un aperçu d’un
des nombreux sujets examinés par la discipline de la sécurité humaine.
L'équipe éditoriale
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Staff Editorial
A fundamental issue that threatens human security, and affects
individuals all over the world, is trafficking. The most obvious, and often
limited, assumption of this issue focuses on the illegal trade in drugs. But
there are several other forms of trafficking that are much less understood
or indeed studied, for example, trafficking in human beings, adults and
children alike, for purposes of prostitution or enslavement; or the trafficking
in human organs. This edition of the Human Security Journal attempts to
bring together academic studies and professional experiences on different
forms of human trafficking, which highlights the urgency with which the
issue needs to be dealt.
The effects of trafficking are felt well beyond those who are directly
participating in the transaction, and impact society as a whole. It is true that
certain sections of society and certain parts of the world are more vulnerable
than others, but this does not lessen the gravity of the situation, or deny the
need for collective responsibility to affect a change.
Our guest editorialist, Julia O'Connell Davidson, is Professor of sociology
at the University of Nottingham and expert in sex trafficking. She is author of
"Prostitution, Power and Freedom" (1998) and "Children in the Global Sex
Trade" (2005). In the guest editorial, Julia O'Connell Davidson compares
huùan trafficking with slavery, and shows the difficulties of defining what
"human trafficking" really is.
The first article of our Focus Point section looks at an issue, which
receives relatively few attention: organ trafficking. Through four country
case studies highlighting different organ transplant practices, this piece
moots for a multi-disciplinary approach to deal with this threat.
Then, three of the six articles here detail the incidence of human
trafficking in different parts of Europe. For example, one of them relates
the experience of a selection of migrant women in Paris, who have been
forced into prostitution. Another article uses data drawn from research in
four Italian cities to analyze the historical and sociological representations
of debt and slavery in the context of sex trafficking. The third piece looks
at human trafficking in the post-communist countries in the Balkan region,
and briefly discusses regional responses to the issue.
Two other pieces take a broader perspective on the issue: one seeks to
examine structural explanations for the sexual commodification of women,
while another attempts to study three different approaches to human
trafficking—as a violation of human rights, as an illegal trade, and as a
cultural practice.
The second section—Global Images—includes two articles. One studies
variously migratory controls and the criminalization of foreigners; the other
one deals with the debate surrounding sex, race and globalization in the
context of African prostitution and the politics of exclusion in France.
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The third section of the Journal—From the Field—allows readers to learn more about
practical experience in matters of human security. For this edition, we have an exclusive
interview with Natalys Martin, a lawyer with Amnesty International France, who spoke about
the right to asylum and the trafficking of human beings. In the second article, éric Frecon
shares his experience with Indonesian traffickers.
This issue’s Between the Lines—the fourth section of the Journal that draws attention to
recent publications in the subject—reviews Sheena Chestnut’s study on Illicit Activity and
Proliferation: North Korean Smuggling Networks, which assesses the North Korea’s capacity
and ambition to engage in the international transfer of nuclear material and components.
This edition of the Human Security Journal represents only a selection of studies on
trafficking and its implications on human security. While we have tried to include as many
variants as possible under this umbrella concept of human trafficking, and attempted to bring
together varied perspectives, this issue clearly does not intend to be a comprehensive source
on the subject. As with any academic venture of this kind, we have been bound by limited
resources to restrict the articles that finally appear in the Journal. This edition, thus, serves
more as a smorgasbord of the wide range of subjects of study within human trafficking, and a
small contribution to the discipline of human security itself.
The Editorial Team
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Trafficking, Modern Slavery and the Human Security
Agenda
In February 2008, a major United Nations (UN) conference on human
trafficking was held in Vienna. Attended by "international celebrities" as
well as representatives from governments, Non Governmental Organizations
(NGOs), and international agencies, Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), described the event as something
between the World Economic Forum at Davos and the 1960s music festival,
Woodstock. "This is not an inter-governmental conference, nor is it a talk
shop. Think of it more as a rally. We march together."1 And yet, eight
years after states drafted the Trafficking Protocol to the UN Convention
on Transnational Organized Crime, and five years after this Protocol
came into force, it remains unclear what, precisely, we are being asked
to march against. In dominant discourse, "trafficking" is presented as a
hugely profitable business in which organized criminals transport millions
of human victims around the globe into conditions of slavery. Thus, Costa
continued his commentary by saying "200 years after the end of the transAtlantic slave trade, we have the obligation to fight a crime that has no
place in the 21st Century. Let’s call it what it is: modern slavery."2
Juxtaposing talk of "trafficking" with images of the trans-Atlantic slave
trade makes for powerful rhetoric. It also serves to divorce the human
rights violations that are commonly associated with the term "trafficking"
from their specific historical context. For although we are invited to picture
"victims of trafficking" as the contemporary equivalents of those Africans
who between the 15th and 19th Centuries were seized, manacled, shipped
across the world, sold as chattels, branded, and forced to labour under
threat of torture or death, there are some crucial differences between past
and present.
First, where those who were forcibly transported from Africa had no preexisting desire or ambition to move to the New World, the people who are
described as "victims of trafficking" almost invariably wanted to move to
another region or country, and almost invariably had excellent reasons for
wishing to do so. It is extremely rare that migrant adults or children who end
up in exploitative situations have been plucked from quietly contented lives
and taken against their will to a distant place by "slavers" or their agents.
In some cases, the decision to leave home is based on the belief that poor
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BBC News, 2008. "UN forum aims to end trafficking," http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7242180.stm (accessed
February 21, 2008).
2
Ibid.
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life-chances and earning opportunities will be greatly improved through migration. In others,
as Maybritt Jill Alpes’ article in this volume shows, the decision to migrate is made in a context
of more acute forms of human insecurity. Thus, Alpes’ research with West African migrant
women in prostitution in Paris found that some had migrated to escape the Muslim-Christian
tensions in Nigeria, one woman moved because she "had been subjected to harmful traditional
practices, another one left because she did not agree with a proposed arranged marriage and
yet another one had been orphaned through her families’ political persecution."
Whatever the motivation for moving, the decision to migrate is taken in a highly unequal
world, and international mobility is one of many privileges that are unevenly allocated. For
example, where it is relatively easy for the nationals of Western high-income OECD countries
to cross borders legally, those who hold passports from countries "with a history of violent
political conflict (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia), countries with a strictly autocratic regime
(e.g., Northern Korea and Myanmar), very poor countries (e.g., Ethiopia and Haiti) or countries
with some combination of these aspects"–in other words, countries where human security is
most often compromised–find it extremely difficult to do so.3 There is no easy correlation
between the legality of the mode of entering another country and the safety of the migrant at
the point of destination (and entering through legal channels does not automatically confer
"legal" immigration status). However, it is widely recognised that demand for mobility in
conjunction with the introduction of ever more restrictive immigration policies and tighter
border controls by affluent, migrant-receiving countries has led to the emergence of a growing
market for clandestine migration services, including smuggling across borders, faking travel
documents, and arranging marriages.4
In this criminalized, concealed and so entirely unregulated market, migrants are open to a
variety of forms of abuse and exploitation, some of which may place their lives in jeopardy
or lock them into extremely violent and exploitative situations at the point of destination. And
yet their experience is not necessarily one of violence, exploitation and abuses. Some irregular
migrants are assisted by third parties who do not cheat them or harm them in any way, and
even when they do experience elements of abuse or exploitation, it may be that the individuals
concerned nonetheless considers this preferable to remaining at home, where threats to their
security in the form of violence, exploitation or straightforward starvation may be far greater.
This is another sense in which the movement of people occurring today differs markedly from
the movement of people that took place under the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
An equally crucial difference between the trans-Atlantic slave trade and what is described as
"modern slavery" is that those who were historically transported from Africa to the Americas
were moved into societies where slavery was one of the established and recognised statuses
used to define employment relations. Scholars of labour history and slavery point out that it
Eric Neumayer, "Unequal access to foreign spaces: How states use visa restrictions to regulate mobility in a globalized world," British Geography,
72-84.
4
Jyoti Sanghera, "Unpacking the trafficking discourse," in Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered, eds. Kamala Kempadoo, Jyoti Sanghera and
Bandana Pattanaik (London: Paradigm, 2005); Ratna Kapur, Erotic Justice: Law and the new politics of postcolonialism (London: Glasshouse, 2005);
Eleonor Kofman et al. Gender and International Migration in Europe (London: Routledge, 2000); ILO, "Getting at the roots: Stopping exploitation of
migrant workers by organized crime," International Labour Office. Paper presented to International Symposium on the UN Convention Against
Transnational Organized Crime: Requirements for Effective Implementation. Turin, 22-23 February 2005.
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was not actually possible to cleanly demarcate slavery from other statuses
defining employment relations (such as indentured servant, apprentice, or
labourer) through reference to the degree of unfreedom or labour exploitation
it implied for the individual.5 The early law of the American colonies, for
example, locked formally "free" labourers into lengthy relationships (3-5
years or more) with their masters on pain of imprisonment and/or corporal
punishment and/or a prolonged period of servitude should they attempt to
leave.6 However, a "slave" was readily identifiable in the sense that s/he
was legally defined as such, and it is therefore possible to speak of and
study slaves in the Americas as a specific, bounded group (even if what
research reveals is that this legal category encompassed a diverse range of
experience, and that there was significant overlap between the experience
of slaves and that of many non-slaves).
Today, by contrast, people are not being transported into societies where
slavery is legally recognised and regulated as a judicial category. "Victims of
trafficking" are not people who have been formally assigned the legal status
of slave, and because today, as in the past, the experience of unfreedom
and exploitation ranges along a continuum, this generates real confusion
around who, precisely, we mean when we speak of "trafficked" persons. So,
for example, the Palermo Trafficking Protocol was introduced in tandem
with a protocol on smuggling, and as Bhaba observes,7 these protocols are
framed around an assumed dichotomy between irregular migration that is
coerced and irregular migration that is consensual: "Where people who are
trafficked are assumed not to have given their consent and are considered
‘victims’ or ‘survivors,’ people who are smuggled are considered to have
willingly engaged in a criminal enterprise."
But as the articles in this volume by Testaì and Alpes, all illustrate very
effectively, the idea of a neat line of demarcation between oppositional
categories of migration–voluntary and consensual versus involuntary and
non-consensual migration–vastly over-simplifies the systems and processes
that facilitate irregular migration in the real world, and fails to recognise
the complexity and variety of social relations between irregular migrants
and those who benefit directly or indirectly from their exploitation.8
We might also draw on insights from the work of Robert Steinfeld9
(discussed by Testaì, this volume) to criticize the notion of a clear
opposition between forced and voluntary migration. Steinfeld points out
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Laura Brace, The Politics of Property: freedom and belonging (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004); Tommy
Lott, "Early Enlightenment conceptions of the rights of slaves," in Subjugation and Bondage, ed. Tommy Lott (Rowman
and Littlefield, 1998); D. Geary, "Europe and slave protests in the Americas (1780 – 1850)," Mitteilungsblatt des Instituts
fuer Soziale Bewegungen, Heft 31 (Bochum: Ruhr University, 2004).
6
Robert Steinfeld, The Invention of Free Labor (University of North Carolina Press, 1991).
7
Jacqueline Bhabha, "Trafficking, smuggling and human rights," Migration Information Source (2005), http://www.
migrationinformation.org
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that the how the line dividing free and unfree labour is drawn is a matter of convention in
liberal democratic societies–it is imagined through reference to "a judgement about what kinds
of coercive pressures are legitimate and illegitimate in labor relations."10 This judgement has
varied historically, but today it is generally informed by a belief that economic pressures are
less coercive than physical force or the threat of imprisonment, even though "the threat of
starvation may certainly operate more powerfully than a short term of confinement."11 The
same holds good in relation to migration, and thus we find that dull economic compulsion
does not feature in the list of forces in the UN Trafficking Protocol (2000) that are deemed to
nullify a person’s consent to exploitation, even though, again, being unable to feed one’s self
or one’s children, or to pay for medical treatment for sick dependants may operate as just as an
irresistible force as the threat of physical violence.
Moreover, because the Protocol definition of the term "trafficking" does not describe a
single, unitary act leading to one specific outcome, but rather refers to a process (recruitment,
transportation and control) that can be organized in a variety of ways and involve a range of
different actions and outcomes, and because there are often close similarities between the
process described as "trafficking" and that described as "smuggling,"12 it is by no means clear
at what stage in the migratory passage a person becomes a "victim of trafficking." Nor is it clear
why, in cases where migrants are subject to forced labour or slavery–like practices, questions
about how they were recruited and transported into this condition should determine their status
and so their entitlement to protection and assistance. Indeed, the report of an Experts Group
on Trafficking in Human Beings convened by the European Union in 2003 notes that forced
labour is the crucial element of the Protocol, and states that "policy interventions should focus
on the forced labour and services, including forced sexual services, slavery and slavery–like
outcomes of trafficking–no matter how people arrive in these conditions–rather than (or in
addition to) the mechanisms of trafficking itself."13 In practice, however, policy interventions
and police and immigration officers who come into contact with migrants who have been
subject to forced labour continue to differentiate between "illegal immigrants," who are held to
have consented to movement, and "victims of trafficking," who are held to have been coerced
into moving.
The fact that "trafficking" is used as an umbrella term for a process that can lead to a variety
of outcomes muddies the water in other ways. It means that "trafficking" can, in theory, intersect
with a wide array of other markets, institutions and practices (labour markets, prostitution,
marriage, benefit fraud, organ trading, child adoption, independent child migration to name but
Bridget Anderson, Doing the Dirty Work (London: Zed, 2005); Rhacel Parrenas, Servants of Globalization: Women, migration and domestic work
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); Russel King, "Towards a new map of European migration," International Journal of Population
Geography, vol. 8 (2002), 89-106; Rutvica Andrijasevic, "The difference borders make: (il)legality, migration and ‘trafficking’ in Italy among ‘eastern’
European women in prostitution," in Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, ed. Sara Ahmed et al (Berg, 2003); Helma Lutz, "Life
in the twilight zone: migration, transnationality and gender in the private household," Journal of Contemporary European Studies, vol. 12, n°1 (2004),
47-55; Julia O’Connell Davidson, Children in the Global Sex Trade (Cambridge: Polity, 2005).
9
Robert Steinfeld, Coercion, Contract and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
10
Ibid., 16
11
Ibid., 25
12
There are also often close parallels between the process described as "trafficking" and that defined as "legal immigration" (see Julia O’Connell
Davidson, "Will the real sex slave please stand up?" Feminist Review n°83 (2006), 4-22.
13
European Commission, Report of the Experts Group on Trafficking in Human Beings (Brussels: European Commission, 2004).
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a few). Though some of these are socially tolerated and legally recognised
and/or regulated, so that the term "trafficking" would—presumably—be
applied only in cases that involved exploitation and coercion of a type and
degree that grossly violated accepted norms, others are stigmatised and/or
socially and politically contested. Questions about "trafficking" are easily
conflated with broader questions about whether certain markets or practices
should exist at all, for example, questions about whether body parts or sexual
services can be treated as commodities (see the article by Jeff Whitehead
in this volume on "organ trafficking," and the article by Karen Dunlop on
"sex trafficking").14 And attempting to use the concept of "trafficking" as an
analytical tool in relation to the many and varied rights violations that can
be associated with all these different markets, institutions and practices is
rather like attempting to sharpen a pencil with jelly.
Take "organ trafficking," for example. Though human organs for transplant
may sometimes be procured by means of violence or its threat, there are
also significant numbers of people who are driven by economic pressures
alone to consent to sell organs in both legal and illegal markets. Are they
"victims of trafficking?" If the answer is "yes" because they are consenting
to a contract that may harm them, then why aren’t people who agree to be
smuggled across borders in ways that potentially endanger their lives also
automatically regarded as "victims of trafficking?" The term "trafficking" is
also enormously elastic in the hands of the alliance of radical feminist and
religious NGOs that are currently lobbying for the abolition of prostitution
per se.15 It stretches to accommodate all women who work in prostitution,
even those who state they have freely chosen to do so, but then contracts to
exclude all but the most "seriously" exploited workers in other sectors.
And whether we are talking about contested markets or about markets,
institutions and practices that under normal circumstances are regarded as
legitimate, identifying "trafficked" persons is always problematic because
the experience of coercion and exploitation during the migratory process and
at the point of destination spans a continuum. Since there is no consensus
about the point on the continuum at which poor but tolerable working
conditions slip over into forced labour (or in which tolerable conditions
for wives or adopted children and so on slip into "modern slavery"), there
is no universal, established, external referent against which cases can
be measured and judged to be "trafficking" or not "trafficking."16 Taken
together, all of this means that ‘trafficked persons’ do not exist as some kind
of prior, objective or legal category of persons that can form the object of
Kathleen Barry, The Prostitution of Sexuality (NY: New York University Press, 1995); Sheila Jeffreys, The Idea of
Prostitution (Melbourne: Spinifex, 1997).
15
Ronald Weitzer, "The social construction of sex trafficking: ideology and institutionalization of a moral crusade," Politics
& Society vol 35 (2007), 447-474.
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research or policy.17 This is one of the reasons why we should take all claims about the scale
and profitability of "human trafficking" with copious quantities of salt. It is also why we need
to interrogate what it is, exactly, that people like Antonio Maria Costa are asking us to march
against.
In a world in which there are simultaneously more pressures and incentives for migration
and more barriers in place to prevent movement (at least to prevent movement from poorer to
more affluent regions), migration does often go hand in hand with very serious violations of
human and child rights. But we are not being enjoined to fight against all of these violations
alike.
Missing from the mainstream "anti-trafficking" agenda are concerns about the rights
violations endured by legal migrants. Framed by concerns about transnational organized crime,
the UN Protocol approaches trafficking as a subset of illegal migration. And yet, leaving aside
the fact that it is perfectly possible for a person to move within a state or enter another state
legally whilst still being "trafficked" according to the protocol definition (children can enter a
country legally with kin who then subject them to slavery or servitude; people can be coerced or
deceived into travelling from one European Union country—such as Lithuania—to another—
such as the UK—for purposes of exploitation), it is known that the actions and outcomes
taken to constitute "trafficking" by the Protocol—violence, confinement, coercion, deception
and exploitation—sometimes take place within legally regulated systems of migration and
employment (also within legal systems of migration into private households).
Migrant workers who are legally present in many countries under various work permit
schemes can find themselves subject to forced labour and other forms of exploitation, and in
many cases, their abuse and exploitation in the destination country is linked to deception or
the abuse of a position of vulnerability at the recruitment stage.18 In the United Arab Emirates,
for example, the construction industry relies heavily on workers who have migrated through
legal channels but who are often in effect subject to a form of debt-bondage—many are forced
to work for many years for extremely low wages in extremely poor and dangerous conditions
to pay off debts to labour recruiters, and are unable to quit because their passports have been
confiscated by their employer.19 But this is not the kind of "modern slavery" that anti-trafficking
campaigners are calling on us to march against.
Also missing from the agenda are questions about the human and child rights violations
associated with the measures that states set in place to control and police unauthorized
Bridget Anderson and Julia O’Connell Davidson Trafficking – A Demand Led Problem? Part I, (Stockholm: Save the Children Sweden, 2002).
"Victim of Trafficking" does, of course, exist as an administrative category in a number of states. It is a status assigned to those migrants who are
considered deserving of protection and assistance on grounds that they have experienced the particular constellation of coercive and exploitative practices
during the migratory process and at the point of destination that the authorities understand as "trafficking." But if anti-trafficking campaigners were to
focus on those who are actually afforded the status of "Victim of Trafficking," the numbers involved would be so small as to make any comparison with
the trans-Atlantic slave trade appear almost ludicrous. In the United States, for example, the authorities have managed to identify just "1,362 victims
of human trafficking brought into the United States since 2000" (Jerry Markon, "Human trafficking evokes outrage, little evidence," Washington Post,
September 23, 2007).
18
AMC, Asian Migrant Yearbook 2000: Migration Facts, Analysis and Issues in 1999 (Hong Kong: Asian Migrant Centre, 2000); Bridget Anderson and
Ben Rogaly, Free Market, Forced Labour? (London: TUC, 2005); ILO, A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour (Geneva: International Labour Office,
2005).
19
Human Rights Watch, "Building Towers, Cheating Workers: Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in the United Arab Emirates" HRW vol 18,
n°8 (2006).
16
17
▪ 13 ▪
g
u
e
s
t
E
D
I
T
O
R
I
A
L
Guest Editorial
migration. In addition to the harms associated with and following from
deportation proceedings, between 1993 and 2006, the organization UNITED
for Intercultural Action documented more than 6700 deaths of refugees
and migrants in Europe attributable "to border militarization, asylum laws,
detention policies, deportations and carrier sanctions,"20 and UNITED’s
figures are undoubtedly underestimates. And though dominant discourse on
"trafficking" tells us the threat of harm comes from mafia thugs and other
hardened criminals, immigration policy and the state actors that enforce it
appear to present an equal if not greater risk to irregular migrants’ health
and well-being, even life itself. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented
migrants are held in detention centres around the world, often in appalling
conditions.21 A 2002 report on Moroccan migrant children in Spain found
they were frequently abused by staff and other children in overcrowded,
unsanitary residential centres.22 HRW researchers interviewed migrant
children who had been denied medical care, beaten with batons and electrical
cables, held in "punishment cells" for up to a week without adequate bedding
and sometimes without access to a toilet. Detained in residential centres
for sometimes more than two years, not all the children were permitted to
attend school.
These kinds of threats to human security were not the focus of the Vienna
Forum, for state-sponsored violence, like structural violence23 is not on the
"anti-trafficking" agenda.
Alpes (this volume) observes that to approach the social reality of
migration experiences in terms of legal definitions, such as the Palermo
Protocol, "forces scholars into a statist perspective." This is certainly the
distinguishing feature of academic and journalistic research that leaves
the term "trafficking" unchallenged and uncritically reproduces assertions
about "modern slavery."24 But there is also a growing body of scholarship
that critically deconstructs dominant discourse on "trafficking," and that
approaches migrants as purposive actors who, like all social actors, always
make choices, though rarely between options that are of their own choosing.
This not only allows us to recognise migrants, even those who are subject to
UNITED, "United for Intercultural Action: European network against nationalism, racism and fascism, and in support of
migrants and refugees" (2007), www.unitedagainstracism.org
21
Liz Fekete, "Conditions at Detention Centres Slammed," IRR News March 1, 2000; R. Vertaik, "Inquiry Urged Over
Increase in Detention Centre Deaths," The Independent, September 17, 2005; IRR, Roll call of deaths of asylum seekers
and undocumented migrants (2006) www.irr.org.uk; Amnesty International, "Europe: Treatment of refugees and asylum
seekers," Media Briefing, June 20, 2005.
22
Human Rights Watch. "Nowhere to Turn: State Abuses of Unaccompanied Migrant Children by Spain and Morocco"
(2002) www.hrw.org
23
The term is used by Sheper-Hugues and Bourgois to describe "The everyday violence of infant mortality, slow starvation,
disease, despair and humiliation that destroys socially marginalized human beings." See Nancy Scheper-Hughes and
Philippe Bourgois,ed., Violence in War and Peace (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004).
24
Kevin Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley (CA: University of California Press,
2000); Phil Williams, Illegal Immigration and Commercial Sex: the new slave trade (London: Frank Cass, 1999); Paolo
Monzini, Sex Traffic: Prostitution, Crime and Exploitation (London: Zed, 2005).
20
▪ 14 ▪
the most extreme forms of exploitation and abuse, as subjects and agents (rather than regarding
them as objects and eternal victims), but also helps to focus attention on the structural factors,
both global and local, that serve to constrain the options available to individuals.
This issue of the Human Security Journal makes an important contribution to this emerging
literature. The article by Maybritt Jill Alpes make extremely effective use of interview data to
reveal the complex and many-layered patterns of dependency, obligation and reciprocity that
exist behind what can only ever be thinly described in the statist language of "victims" and
"perpetrators," and to show that the division between "human trafficking" and "smuggling of
migrants" is both unworkable and irrelevant from a human rights perspective. Patrizia Testaì’s
contribution to this volume also deserves to be singled out for praise. It provides a truly
groundbreaking analysis of the relationship between debt and "trafficking," one that powerfully
illustrates the political dangers that attend on the discursive construction of "trafficking" as a
form of "modern slavery" detached from its specific historical, global, social and economic
context.
Julia O'Connell Davidson*
Professor of Sociology
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Nottingham
*
Julia O´Connell Davidson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham. She is author of "Prostitution, Power and Freedom" (Polity, 1998)
and "Children in the Global Sex Trade" (Polity, 2005), and also has a longstanding interest in labour process theory and employment relations. Since
2000, she has been involved in research on various different aspects of the exploitation of migrant labour, and has written extensively on the definitional
and political problems associated with the term "trafficking."
▪ 15 ▪
▪ 16 ▪
Focus Point
▪ 17 ▪
The Harvest:
Human Organs and Human Security
Jeff Whitehead
Organ trafficking receives little international attention in terms of scholarship
and objective data collection. This study outlines four cases, Iran, Israel,
India, and Spain, each of which uses a different method to address organ
transplant practices.The author proposes that a multi-disciplinary approach
should be adopted by those in the human security and medical communities
to draft informed policy to contain this growing threat to human security.
O
ver the past twenty years, the
black market sale of human
organs, specifically kidneys,
has become a very profitable
enterprise. However, there have been
virtually no attempts to objectively analyze
organ trafficking, the dangers associated with
it, and its relevance to the human security
agenda. As indicated by the UNODC's own
definition, the trafficking in persons, "..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."1
Although all forms of human trafficking are
included in the human security agenda, organ
trafficking has been relatively overlooked.
Human trafficking, sexual exploitation and
forced labor have received considerable
attention, including a wealth of scholarship,
data collection and a country by country
database by humantrafficking.org.2 This is not
the case with organ trafficking, which should
be lifted from its current state of obscurity
and included both within the context of
human trafficking and within the human
security paradigm as a whole. In this article,
the author has begun the research necessary
to understand organ trafficking and address
the current debate over which method,
legalization or prohibition, could eliminate
the trafficking and black market for organs.
The first section of this study examines
the known extent and breadth of human
organ trafficking, illuminating facets such
as the profitability of organ sales, medical
concerns, and the conventional responses
to the problem of a growing and dangerous
black market.
Jeff Whitehead recently completed his Masters in Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate
School of Public and International Affairs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is currently working in International Education
and beginning a Masters in Business Administration at the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh.
Focus Point
▪ 18 ▪
The second section dismisses the
conventional responses and introduces
a set of cases that illustrates the different
types of control mechanisms, gauges their
effectiveness and shows how each relate
to the human security of the individuals
involved.
The final section broadens the scope,
offering a global perspective on organ
trafficking and its potential rise. It suggests
a course of action and demonstrates the
potential for contributions from and
coordination of both the human security and
medical community.
completed transplant. Many of these donors
are often left in poor condition after their
transplant; the money gained not enough
to make a lasting impact on their lives.5 Yet,
organ brokers continue to exploit them,
drawing upon their poverty and position as
a source of revenue in the pursuit of wealth.
There are also cases where donors are simply
trafficked and killed, their organs extracted
and brought to a recipient.6
The second track is a form of reverse
trafficking called transplant tourism where a
recipient pays for travel to a country where
organs are readily bought and sold, an
organ from a live donor, and the transplant
The Illicit Organ Market: A New
procedure itself. According to Nancy
Threat to Human Security
Scheper-Hughes, whose work is virtually the
only attempt to address the problem with
The market for human organs is demand any amount of scientific objectivity, the flow
driven. The current waiting list for organs in of organs is "from South to North, from poor
the United States stands at roughly 105,000, to rich, from black and brown to white, and
over 70,000 of which await kidneys. The from female to male bodies."7 Regardless of
number of organs transplanted from January the delivery system, the flow of organs has
to November 2007 was just above 26,000.3 managed to stay well under the radar in the
Therefore, in the United States alone, only human security, medical, and international
a quarter of the demand is being met. In communities, despite the fact that donors
Europe, by 2004, 120,000 people were using have been killed and that millions of dollars
dialysis treatments, over 40,000 of those in exchange hands through the trade.
need of a kidney transplant.4 Given the low
supply of available organs, those who can Big Business
afford to do so have filled the void between
supply and demand by purchasing organs In 2003, UNICEF estimated that human
on the black market.
trafficking was a $12 billion per year
enterprise.8 A growing volume of reports
The Black Market for Bodies
indicate that many individuals have been
trafficked with the understanding that they
Organs sold on the black market follow two were to reach the United States or England
very distinct tracks, both of which include only to be killed for kidneys, corneas, livers
the trafficking of humans for organs. In and other organs.9 Humans and their organs
the first track, a person (or donor) is taken are inextricably linked. Thus, it is reasonable
across borders and brought to a recipient. to suggest that some of the profits associated
This donor may or may not know that they with human trafficking are directly related
are being trafficked for the purpose of organ to the sale of organs. As there are already
(most commonly kidney) transplantation. distinct functions of trafficked humans,
Sometimes, these donors are lured by the id est prostitution or forced labor, organ
prospect of financial gain, albeit small in transplantation should be treated as another
comparison to the price charged for the branch due to its potential for high profits at
▪ 19 ▪
Jeff Whitehead
the expense of the well-being of the donor.
Although a total dollar value on the
worldwide sale of organs has yet to be
established due to inadequate efforts to
study the practice, the organ trade is a
lucrative and thriving business. Kidneys,
for example, which are the most prevalent
organ exchanged on the black market, can be
bought from a live donor for as little as $750
in Iraq or India to $2,700 in Moldova to $7,500
in Turkey.10 Yet, a broker may earn between
$100,000 and $250,000 for a completed
transaction. This usually entails covering
all of the costs for the recipient's travel,
obtaining an organ from a live donor and
securing a suitable location for the transplant
surgery. It has been estimated that in 2003,
between two and three hundred Americans
bought kidneys on the black market through
transplant tourism.11 In such regions as
Punjab, India, officials have reported that
up to $31 million likely changed hands via
kidney sales over the five year span of 19972002 through transplant tourism.12
The only organization dedicated to the
illicit sale of human organs is OrgansWatch,
a UC Berkeleybased
outfit "In 2003, UNICEF
spawned
from
that
the
findings estimated
of the Bellagio human trafficking
Taskforce.
The was a $12 billion per
Bellagio Taskforce year enterprise..."
was a unique
and
innovative
study of human organ trafficking over a five
year period. Conducted by Nancy ScheperHughes and her colleagues, their findings
were instrumental in bringing the practice
to light. Prior to the work of the Taskforce,
organ trafficking garnered little attention
and was even dismissed as a myth by the
U.S. Information Agency.13 Yet, the initial
funding for both the Bellagio Taskforce and
OrgansWatch was a mere $500,000.14 The
budget for the most significant effort to
understand its extent and combat human
Focus Point
organ trafficking could be traded on the
black market for roughly 70 kidneys or four
complete transplants.
Medicine in the Modern Era
In order for a transplant to occur, the broker
must obtain an organ, a surgeon, and a medical
facility. Most organ transplants occur outside
of the legitimate medical community. Much
of what is known about transplant tourism
comes from journalists working in the field.
Cases discovered and prosecuted shed light
on just how dangerous the practice can be
for the both donor and recipient. Blood-type
matching is often performed quickly and
carelessly. Facilities are often mobile so as
to avoid contact with law enforcement, and
thus, substandard. Recovery procedures
are often rushed and also substandard.
Most recipients are not even aware of their
destination until they board the plane or train
headed for their prospective donor. Given
its gruesome nature, it would be logical that
even among the medical community, the
same sort of emphasis would be extended to
organ trafficking as has been placed on stem
cell research and abortion.15 A telling report
that illustrates the medical concerns of organ
trafficking comes from one of its most high
profile arrests. Between 1997 and 2002, over
1,500 illegal organs transplants took place,
accounting for roughly $31 million. Yet donors
were given just $500-$1,000 for each kidney.
Likewise, "the 'donors' were not even given
proper postoperative care, and in some cases
were threatened with imprisonment for the
illegal act and thrown out of the 'hospital' a
week after the transplant."16 Arrests for illegal
organ trafficking rings are still made almost
every year, the most recent in Gurgaon, India,
in February 2008.17
Conventional Responses to the Black
Market for Organs
There are two conventional responses to the
▪ 20 ▪
problem of trafficking, one that recommends
legalizing the practice and another proposing
its prohibition. There are pros and cons to
each of these solutions.
Legalize the Sale of Organs
Individuals from the fields of medicine,
anthropology, sociology and journalism have
argued that the legalization of organ sales
could eliminate illicit organ flows and create
a legitimate and profitable market. They fall
along a spectrum from those who believe
that only certain organs should be legalized
to those who believe that all organs should
be legalized.18 They argue that legalization
would help increase the supply of available
organs and reduce the large number in need.
This could ultimately save the lives of the 1530%19 or 7,000-8,000 people, on waiting lists
who die before a compatible organ becomes
available.20
This camp attests that what a person wishes
to do with his/her body, including organ
sales, should be considered an inalienable
human right.21 However, as illuminated as far
back as the 1994 Human Development Report,
humans should not be put in a position to
sacrifice their own bodies in order to survive.
The 1994 Human Development Report, which
outlines the human security paradigm, states
that humans should have "basic assured
income—usually in the form of remunerative
work, or in the last resort from some publicly
financed safety net."22 In many cases, donors
see the sales of their organs as a last resort,
once other options have run out. Likewise,
the uneducated are falling prey to one of
the most educated populations, namely the
doctors and/or surgeons who profit the most
from their sales.
Prohibit the Sale of Organs
Those in favor of prohibition seek to forbid
what they feel is an unethical and irresponsible
practice. Legalization, they attest, will not
eliminate the black market, but only create
competition for the legitimate market. Those
who sell organs on the black market would
simply undercut the costs of the legitimate
market and maintain the same medical perils
prevalent in the practice today. Those against
also assert that, given the current disarray
of laws and policy, legalization would
require substantial financial support and
cooperation from the political, medical, and
law enforcement communities. They state
that the sheer complexity and breadth of the
regulatory mechanism required to control
organ sales is beyond the scope of current
interest in the problem. Drawing parallels
with the drug and sex trades, they point out
that even when regulation exists, it is difficult,
if not impossible, to enforce.23
These scholars are also concerned with
the inequality of access to organs. With
millions of Americans currently without
health insurance or enough coverage to fund
a transplant, it would remain a practice of
the poor feeding the rich.24 Even if legalized,
organs would remain a coveted and expensive
commodity, making equitable distribution
difficult. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a leading
advocate against legalization of organ sales,
and George Soros have deemed the sale
of organs as a proverbial "last frontier" of
commerce.25 Under this practice, the poor
could look within themselves for a pragmatic
source of emergency revenue, eliminating
the altruism currently associated with organ
donation.
Flaws of the Conventional Responses
It is the opinion of the author that both
conventional responses have the unrealistic
notion that an international policy could
be branded on organ trafficking. Contrary
to other forms of trafficking and the sale
of humans, the sale of organs could have
the potential for good. Organ transplants
save lives. Yet the logistics of increasing the
supply to meet the growing demand requires
▪ 21 ▪
Jeff Whitehead
more than just a blanket of legislation. The
wholesale legalization of organs poses a
number of significant problems. First, the
donor must be educated, well-compensated
and rehabilitated during the post-operative
stage. Likewise, legalization will also require
an incredible amount of regulation. It is
unlikely that one policy would be able to be
regulated on a global scale. Prohibiting the
sale of organs internationally would require
significant effort from the enforcement
community as black market rings of organ
traders will ultimately arise to fulfill the
demand (that will not simply go away
should prohibition legislature be passed).
As the underlying conditions are different
across countries and regions, it would
be very difficult to simply implement a
global standard. Either way, the goal of the
international community, including those
in human security, should be to promote
the elimination of this form of human
trafficking.
A New Approach: Case by Case
Analysis
In the following section, the cases of Iran,
India, Israel, and Spain have been used
to illustrate the different methods for
controlling and regulating organ transplant
practices. These cases have been chosen
because they represent the full gamut of
transplant practices, all of which should be
thoroughly analyzed and included within
the framework of human trafficking. These
four cases should function as the beginning
of a much larger analysis that addresses,
on a case by case basis, the extent of organ
trafficking and/or transplant tourism in a
particular country, the legislation in place to
address it, and whether or not that legislation
has been effective in eliminating the black
market. Of the four cases illustrated in this
study, Spain's policy of presumed consent
has yielded the best result. It has successfully
eliminated the black market for organs while
Focus Point
creating an equitable and safe supply for
transplants. Iran's policy, despite the flaws
that shall be described in a subsequent part
of this article, has also achieved some success
in eliminating its black market for kidneys.
India and Israel, on the other hand, have
been unsuccessful in eliminating the black
market. India, despite policy prohibiting the
sale of organs, continues to be a destination
of choice for transplant tourism. In India,
organs that are not stolen from unsuspecting
victims are often purchased from the poor.
This provides a steady supply for the wealthy
transplant tourist. Israel's domestic policy
technically prohibits the sale of organs.
However, Israeli health providers cover the
procedure because their medical system
compels them to pay for operations overseas
that are not available in Israel. Further still,
there are Israeli companies that will even help
broker the transaction.26 Thus, while domestic
policy prohibits the sale of organs, medical
policy allows and, in fact, supports organ
trafficking through transplant tourism.
Each of the cases to be discussed
illuminates pros and cons for their specific
set of policies regarding organ sales.
However, before any policy alternatives are
presented for wide-spread implementation,
those in human security should engage in
the research necessary to raise awareness of
the problem, just as has been done for child
soldiers, small arms and human trafficking.
After all, the 1994 Human Development Report
does argue that"human security is easier to
ensure through early prevention."27 Human
security agencies are poised to collaborate
with the medical community so that a
situation such as has arisen in Israel is not
repeated elsewhere.
Figure 1 below represents the spectrum of
possibilities for the organ market. Quadrant
1 (Q1), Iran, is a case where organ sales
are legal and practiced. Quadrant 2 (Q2)
represents a situation where organs sales
are legal but not practiced. While data and
a concrete example of this situation are
▪ 22 ▪
not available, it is conceivable that many
religious states throughout the Middle East
could fall into this category. Quadrant 3 (Q3),
India, is a case where organ sales are illegal
but practiced. Quadrant 4 (Q4), Spain, is a
case where organ sales are prohibited and
not practiced. There are also a number of
countries where the rules are not as clear. To
help illustrate, the author has chosen Israel,
which straddles the boundary between legal
and illegal, and practiced and not practiced.
As previously noted, Israel's domestic policy
prohibits the sale of organs while its medical
policy obliges insurance providers to pay for
transplant tourism, thus perpetuating organ
trafficking. Thus, organ sales are illegal
and not practiced within Israel, but legal
and practiced as part of transplant tourism
outside the country.
Not Practiced
Practiced
Figure 1: Human Organ Trafficking in
Seclect Countries
Q1
Legal
Illegal
Iran
India
Q3
Israel
Spain
Q2
Q4
In each of the four cases, the following
factors were examined with regards to that
country's human organ trafficking policies:
transplant laws, extent of known illegal organ
trafficking, healthcare practices, and donor
health and welfare. Although social factors
such as religion, politics, and poverty play
a role, they are not the determining factors
for the success or failure in any of these
four cases. Instead, the success or failure is
determined by the ability of the legislation
to address the demand for organs. Where
demand is met, the black market disappears
and vice versa. Social factors such as poverty
and poor education play a relative role in that
the donors of illegally trafficked organs are
generally uneducated and come from some
of the poorest regions of the countries where
the practice is prevalent. This is precisely the
section of the global populace that should be
protected from such practices.
India: A Destination for Transplant
Tourism
Until the 1994 Transplantation of Human Organs
Act made organ sales illegal in India, the
practice was legal and prevalent. Yet, the 1994
law prohibiting organ sales left a loophole
that allows for "unrelated kidney sales."28
Under these rules, non-related patients who
have a personal relationship are permitted to
donate to each other. In many cases, donors of
different ethnicity, nationality and language
came forward, claiming to be "emotionally
close" to the recipient. Of the roughly 3,000
reported transplants performed in India per
year, less than one third of those are among
relatives. The rest are among supposed close
personal friends. Thus, between 65 and 70
percent of the transplants occurring in India
could be due to illegal organ sales.29 This data
also only included the legitimate market. It
does not include the black market, of which
there is proven activity.
Due largely to the fact that the regulations
are so lax (the 1994 legislation is India's
only attempt to address organ trafficking),
India has become a premier destination
for transplant tourism. In Punjab, police
uncovered a ring of organ traffickers that
included several high profile doctors and
surgeons. It has been estimated that "between
half a million and a million rupees were
▪ 23 ▪
Jeff Whitehead
charged for each kidney transplant."30 Using
exchange rates from February, 2008, 500,000
rupees equals roughly $12,650, while one
million rupees equals roughly $25,000. Of
the 2,384 kidney transplants in Punjab, 1,522
were likely through this ring of individuals
currently being charged.31 Similarly, in 1995,
police broke up a ring of organ traffickers
responsible for the removal of kidneys from
over 1,000 "unsuspecting" Indians.32 So many
organs have been sold in Villivakkam, the
region has become known infamously as
Kidneyvakkam."33
A telling case study, conducted by
four medical doctors, surveyed a small
cross-section of the population of illegally
compensated donors in Chennai. In one
month, these doctors found and interviewed
305 kidney sellers. Of the 305, 70% sold their
organs through a middleman, in many cases,
a stranger. Sixty percent of these noted that
their spouse had also sold an organ. Although
all were compensated, payment averaged one
third less than originally promised. Likewise,
the amount paid for a kidney has actually
decreased over the past ten years from an
average of $1,603 in 1991 to $975 at the time
of the study authorship in 2001. Although
95% of the donors stated that they sold an
organ to provide for basic needs, many have
seen their personal economic status decline
despite improving conditions in the region
as a whole.34
As recently as February 2008, police
uncovered yet another organ trafficking ring
in India. Amit Kumar, a surgeon connected
to transplants from patients from the
United States and Canada was arrested in
Kathmandu with nearly $250,000 in cash. It
is widely believed that his clinic in Gurgaon,
a suburb of Delhi, was responsible for over
500 illegal organ transplants. Reports from
the area indicate that "some victims were
forced onto the operating table at gunpoint,
while others were tricked with promises of
work." Raids of the site and surrounding
areas uncovered a list of 48 patients awaiting
Focus Point
kidneys as well as 5 patients already in India
awaiting a transplant.35
In India, little effort has been made to
educate the population as to the dangers of
illegal organ trafficking. The Indian healthcare
system has undergone considerable changes
in recent years. Currently, India's healthcare
system is largely concerned with defining
itself and widening its access to the country's
enormous population. It is not in a position
to actively monitor transplants outside of its
network, nor is it in a position to police doctors
who engage in illegal organ transplants.
India is a prime example of a country whose
prohibition laws do not satisfy the conditions
for prevention of the black market, nor has
it helped the organ donors. As is the case
in many other countries like India, the
poorest populations are exploited due to
lack of education and poverty. Herein also,
legislation has not been crafted to remove the
demand. Instead, quite the opposite, because
there is supply in India, recipients use it as
one of the most common destinations for
transplant tourism.
Iran: Legalized Kidney Sales
Aside from Iraq, a major hub in illegal organ
sales, most countries in the Middle East shy
away from engaging in the sale of organs
on the black market.36 There is still a stigma
against organ donation and, as is also the case
in Israel, a particular aversion to transplants
from the recently deceased. In fact, only 84
out of over 10,000 transplants have been from
cadavers since the 1980s.37 In 1988, the Iranian
government approved groundbreaking
legislation that allowed for unrelated donors
to be given compensation for their organs.
While many donors are admittedly from
lower socioeconomic classes, the program is
solely for and fostered by Iranian citizens.
The government has given full endorsement
to two non-governmental agencies, the
Charity Association for the Support of
Kidney Patients (CASKP) and the Charity
▪ 24 ▪
Foundation for Special Diseases (CFSD).38 For
donation, Iranian citizens receive $1,219 (2002
figure) from the CASKP and extra incentive
in the form of employment or money from
the recipient or the recipient's family after
the procedure.39 The initial payment of $1,219
for a kidney in Iran was actually higher
than the black market rate of $750-$1,000 in
neighboring Iraq in 2002, which has removed
the incentive for Iranians to allow themselves
to be trafficked to a recipient.40
Through these two NGOs, organ
transplants are arranged with surprising
efficiency. Donors and recipients are
networked, screened and contacted through
a system of hospitals. During the period of
1985-87, only 247 patients received a kidney
transplant in Iran, while 400 traveled to
Europe and the U.S. for a transplant. Since
the inception of paid donation, nearly 11,000
kidney transplants have been performed
in Iran. The improvement in medical
technology and facilities has also improved
overall survival rates and early diagnosis
of kidney failure. According to A.J. Ghod,
who is himself a member of the Nephrology
and Transplant Unit at the University of
Medical Sciences in Tehran, although further
improvement in these areas is still necessary
and should not be ignored, the current policy
has clearly made an impact.41
However, far from perfect, the criticism
of the Iranian system comes in the form of
pre-operative donor education and posttransplant donor health and welfare. A
very poignant survey conducted by Javaad
Zargooshi explored the experience of 300
kidney donors. Of these, 65% have reported
that their health has worsened since the
transplant. Many others lost their jobs as
they were unable to perform the same
duties as they had before the transplant.
Rumors of donor suicide and post-transplant
stress also permeate through the donor
testimony. Since their transplants, these 300
legitimately compensated Iranians fared
little better than their illicitly compensated
Indian counterparts described earlier. Little
long-term financial gain has resulted in a
disillusioned subset of Iranian donors, 85%
of whom have stated that if given another
chance or education prior to donation, they
would not donate their kidney.42 This is
also a good example of how the motivation
for monetary gain and lack of altruistic
purpose can warp organ transplant practices.
Although having removed the black market
and satisfied demand, in order to promote
this practice in other countries where the
underlying conditions are similar, donor
health and welfare must be addressed.
Spain: Presumed Consent
In the late 1980s, Spain, like Iran, changed
its organ transplant policy, implementing
presumed consent. All citizens became
organ donors upon their deaths unless
they made a formal appeal to have their
name removed from the registry. Spain also
crafted the necessary regulatory apparatus to
help facilitate the transplant process.43 This
combination of factors has helped increase
Spain's organ donation rate by 142% since
1989. In kidneys alone, Spain has seen an
increase from 422 transplants in 1998 to 1,003
in 2002. In fact, Spain leads Europe with a
rate of 33.7 donors per million.44
In addition to presumed consent laws,
Spain completely revamped its healthcare
system. Its complete nationalization has
enabled 99.5% of the 41.7 million citizens to
access health care. To deal specifically with
the problem of organ demand, Spain founded
the Organización Nacional de Transplantes
(ONT) in 1989.45 Led by Blanca Miranda,
the ONT has been remarkably successful,
increasing the number of organ donors
per million from 14.3 in 1989 to its current
state of 33.7. The ONT hopes that Spain will
eventually manage to run an organ surplus
in order to match and effectively distribute to
the most suitable host.46
Education plays a significant role in
▪ 25 ▪
Jeff Whitehead
Spain's organ donation efforts. Completely
transparent, the 139 regional coordinators
spend considerable time speaking with the
families of possible donors. These "ONT
professionals identify potential organ
donors by closely monitoring emergency
departments and tactfully discussing
the donation process with families of the
deceased."47 As in the United States, families
of the deceased have an impact on the ability
to use organs. ONT's education program has
led to low refusal rates from families after
the process and its benefits have been fully
explained. Only between 20-23% of families
interviewed refused donation, a staggering
number compared to the typical 60% refusal
rate in other countries.48 Likewise, the ONT
educates medical professions on success,
recruitment, and shortage rates so that they
can pass accurate and current information
to their patients. Miranda believes that the
current policy will eventually result in a
countrywide 15% refusal and possible 37-38
donor per million rate.49
In the United States, such systems of
universal healthcare are often criticized
as slow and cumbersome. Yet, it is clear
that Spain has devised a system where
transplants have increased and organs have
been distributed relatively equally across
the population. Donors and recipients from
almost all regions and economic levels have
participated. Not only has the ONT eliminated
the black market for organs, it has managed
to double the number of participants in the
system over a short five year span. In the case
of Spain, effective policy has eliminated the
sale of organs while fostering a high rate of
legal donation.
for organs but, as shall be illustrated, a very
high demand. Although selling organs has
remained illegal and is seldom practiced
within Israel itself, Scheper-Hughes believes
that "Israel's citizens purchase, proportionally,
the largest number of organs per capita in the
world."51 As only 3% are organ donors and
most are particularly averse to organs from
the recently deceased, many Israelis choose
transplant tourism over long waiting lists.52
Israel's kidney waiting list currently stands
at just 600, comparatively small to other
countries. However, the current wait for a
kidney in Israel is around four years.53 While
domestic policy prohibits the sale of organs,
medical policy supports it. "Under Israel's
medical system, health insurers must pay for
operations overseas if they aren't available
domestically, although insurers have a say
on the location."54
There are no domestic laws that prohibit
transplant tourism. Israelis are openly
engaging in transplant tourism in places
such as China, South Africa, and throughout
Eastern Europe, where questionable facilities,
treatment and selection of donors, and pricing
schemes are finally beginning to garner
international attention. Transplant tourism
among Israelis is so widely spread that in
2001, 60 of the 244 post-transplant patients in
Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem
had engaged in the practice.55 A staunch
supporter of transplant tourism, Dr. Yaakov
Dayan stated, "I'm proud of my actions.
A district court judge, two broadcasters, a
major general in the Israel Defense Forces
and rabbis all received transplants through
me. I have saved hundreds of lives."56
Another such doctor, Zaki Shapira, has aided
over 300 Israelis obtain organs, helping to
Israel: Transplant Tourists
organize transactions in Turkey, the Balkans
and elsewhere. Scheper-Hughes believes that
Within a year of its prohibition, numerous the practice itself may have originated with
bills came before the Knesset to either amend Shapira in Israel in the mid-1990s.57 or legalize domestic organ sales.50 To date,
Organ donation is the only legal way to
no such amendments have been ratified. engage in an organ transplant. Yet, there is
Thus, in Israel, there is very little supply nothing currently prohibiting transplant
Focus Point
▪ 26 ▪
tourism. Faith plays a significant role in the section outline the different scenarios for
hesitancy of many Israelis to donate organs the human organ market. The policies in
legally. Many believe that the body must be India and Israel have not eliminated the
buried intact to be ready for the resurrection. black market. Nor have they curtailed the
Due to the small supply, the alternative, trafficking of humans for organs. Particularly
transplant tourism, is a way to minimize cost in these two cases, those in human security
and fill the demand. A complete transplant as well as the medical community should be
tour package in Moldova, Romania, South concerned with the wellbeing of the donor.
Africa, Turkey or India might cost anywhere These donors sell their organs for a small sum
between $75,000 and $150,000.58 In fact, and often receive substandard treatment.
Scheper-Hughes asserts that the price of the Iran's successful legalization of organ sales
transplant package has risen from $120,000 proves that it is possible to eliminate the
in 1998 to roughly $200,000 by 2001.59 Yet, black market by addressing the demand for
one transplant surgery is a much better organs. However, its primary concern is one
alternative for the individual and Israeli that permeates through the organ market.
healthcare providers than $50,000 per year The poor donate their organs to help fulfill
on a dialysis machine.60
basic needs and have reported significant
Although an attractive
post-operation
health
alternative for Israelis, this " There are two conventional and welfare issues. It is
practice is detrimental to
that Spain's policy
responses to the problem evident
the global community.
of presumed consent has
There is no effort to educate of trafficking, one that significantly improved its
legalizing abilities to influence the
the donor as to the dangers recommends
of the surgery. Likewise, the the practice and another organ market. Spain has
medical dangers prevalent
managed to increase its
proposing its prohibition." also
in organ trafficking do
supply of organs. Instead
not stop at the donor, but
of live donors, Spain has
also extend to the recipient. Moshe Tati, managed to address its demand by using the
an Israeli transplant tourist, had a very organs of the recently deceased.
difficult post-surgery experience. Unsafe
In order to give a wider perspective
medical conditions and organ compatibility on the organ market, the author has used
problems have forced Tati back onto the what information is available to expand the
dialysis machine. Michael Friedlaender, who models and include other countries with
treated Tati after his return to Israel, believes similar policies. Figure 2 provides a wider
that to avoid such examples, the practice perspective on world organ policies where
should be legalized and regulated by medical such policies have captured media attention.
professionals.61 Yet, in order to argue in Here again, Quadrant 1 (Q1) represents a
favor of legalization, it must be proven that scenario where organ sales are legal and
legalization does remove the medical perils. practiced, Quadrant 2 (Q2) where organ
sales are legal and not practiced, Quadrant
Conclusions and Implications
3 (Q3) where they are illegal and practiced,
st
for Human Security in the 21
and Quadrant 4 (Q4) where they are illegal
Century
and not practiced. As is evident from the
table, the number of countries where organ
A Wider Net
sales are illegal yet practiced far outweighs
any other category. Many of the countries in
The four case studies presented in the previous Quadrant 3 of Figure 2 have recently made
▪ 27 ▪
Jeff Whitehead
headlines for instances of illegal human
organ trafficking.
Figure 2: A Wider Perspective on Human
Organ Trafficking Practices
Legal
Illegal
China
Practiced
Iran
Q1
Brazil,
England,
Italy, Mexico,
Moldova, Russia
South Africa,
Turkey, India,
United States
Israel
Q3
Not Practiced
Norway, Spain
Q2
Q4
Although some countries, particularly those
in Scandinavia, have replicated Spain's
policy, presumed consent has not succeeded
in all cases. Brazil is a center of the illegal
organ sales despite attempts to squelch it
through presumed consent legislation. It
Focus Point
was so unsuccessful that Brazilian presumed
consent policy was eventually reversed.
Unlike in Spain, Brazil's healthcare is a split
between public and private sector care. The
public sector care pales in comparison to
private sector care. The private sector, where
most transplants occur, commands the most
resources and has the best doctors and
facilities. It is also much more costly and only
available to the relatively wealthy. Many of
those who were expected to donate organs
were actually donating to the private sector,
and thus, the poor fed the rich.62
China, like Israel, which straddles the
boundary between legal and illegal, uses
the organs of assassinated convicts to help
meet their domestic demand. The Chinese
also reserve the right to sell these organs
to transplant tourists.63 Besides those in
the cases, there have been reports on those
countries in quadrant 3 that point to sustained
organ trafficking and transplant tourism.
Unfortunately, however, organ trafficking
has not been studied systematically enough
to even know the true extent in each of those
countries. Even in the United States, where
the practice is only beginning to come to
light, it is evident that brokers like Jim Cohan,
a notorious "international organ transplant
coordinator," could arrange for a transplant
for an American citizen through such cities as
New York or Los Angeles.64
One of the primary goals of this study is
to encourage such scholarship to take place,
to replace field reporting with unbiased
and objective data. The media has shown
that organ trafficking does pose a threat to
human security. But the media cannot help
contain the practice. Scholarship in the vein
of Scheper-Hughes' initial work is the only
way that the human security community can
best understand this problem and treat the
root cause, which as argued in this article, is
a very high demand and very low supply. As
the cases of Spain and Iran have shown, when
demand is met, the black market disappears,
transplants are safer, and humans are not
▪ 28 ▪
trafficked and exploited for their organs.
While both of these countries have
demonstrated success, there are too
many question marks surrounding donor
health and welfare for Iran's policy to be
recommended without caution. As the case
suggests, although payment for organs is
higher than black market rates, many donors
believe that they have made a mistake by
donating an organ and that they are worse
off for having done so. Should Iran manage
to address and reverse that common feeling
among donors, the Iranian model might also
be a viable possibility. Iran's policy does,
indeed, share some significant similarities
with the Spanish policy. Both are sponsored
by government organizations and NGOs that
educate and foster healthy numbers of organs
for transplantation. Both are also solely
dedicated to their own citizenry. This has, in
both cases, stabilized and worked to reverse
the demand for organs as their respective
waiting lists show.
There are two major differences between
Iran and Spain's policies, namely, payment
and the living status of the donor. Spain's
system does not offer payment. Instead, donor
education has promoted the idea of presumed
consent without monetary incentive. Iran's
policy obviously does provide payment,
offering the donor a set price that is higher
than the black market rates. Also, Spain uses
a compulsory post-mortem system while
Iran uses a voluntary one with a living donor.
Some cultures do not promote the idea of
post-mortem transplants. Instead, some
cultures prefer, or even insist on, transplants
from living organs donors. This means that
although Spain's policy works very well, it
may not be culturally feasible to implement
in all scenarios. Thus, assuming that donor
health and welfare issues could be controlled
in Iran, two possible models could be used
to eliminate the black market. Countries
with conditions close to Spain's could move
in the direction of presumed consent, i.e. the
prohibition of organ sales, while countries
with conditions close to Iran's could use
legalized and highly regulated organ sales.
Conclusions
The future of the organ market will depend
not only on those in the medical community,
but also on those who wield the power to
craft informed legislation. First and foremost,
organ trafficking must be recognized as a
legitimate human security concern by the
international community. At present, the
problem is largely ignored by those who have
the ability to study it. Instead, most coverage
of the topic is from journalists and advocacy
groups. The result is a lack of objective data.
This study is an attempt to conceptually
and operationally evaluate the conditions in
countries where the organ market is handled
in very different ways. It is the hope of the
author that this type of scholarly approach
will be continued to address the intricacies of
this growing problem. Country profiles such
as those on the humantrafficking.org website
should be crafted for all countries, particularly
in regions where organ trafficking is known to
be prevalent. To do this, the author suggests
a small, but mobile taskforce, adequately and
permanently funded and staffed by scholars
and medical professionals. Such a taskforce
could report regularly to such international
organizations as the UN or the WHO, both
of which have invested interest in the human
security agenda. The precedent for such a
taskforce has already been set by ScheperHughes in the form of the Bellagio Taskforce.
The result of their effort was some of the only
scholarly analysis of the problem. Yet, when
the funding ended, so did the taskforce and
the on-site analysis of the organ market.
If it is not addressed, the growing problem
of human organ trafficking will have both short
and long-term implications for policymakers.
In the short-term, policymakers will be faced
with its rise. As medical technology improves,
so will the black market for organs as they
will be easier to extract and transplant. In
▪ 29 ▪
Jeff Whitehead
the long-term, policymakers will be charged
with including organ trafficking in the
human security agenda and crafting policy
to restrain it. At present, policymakers have
two popular alternatives, legalization and
prohibition. However, as has been discussed
in this article, a wholesale application of either
model would have significant drawbacks.
Likewise, the fact that Spain and Iran have
had similar results in the elimination of the
black market suggests that, under certain
conditions, both prohibition and legalization
could simultaneously eliminate the black
market and increase the number of legal
transplants.
Under wholesale legalization, the
international community will face the
enormous task of regulation and equal
distribution of organs. In order to effectively
prohibit the practice, the enforcement
community would need to be ready and able
to combat the black market. Yet, there is also
no guarantee that the black market would
be eliminated in either case if demand is not
addressed. Instead, a case by case analysis
of each country should be performed to
determine the current climate for organs
and whether or not Spain or Iran's policies
could be replicated therein. Likewise, it also
possible that after thorough research has been
performed, other viable policy alternatives
will surface.
Of the four examples discussed in this
article, Spain's presumed consent policy
has had, by far, the best result. Among the
factors that have allowed Spain such success
are its education initiatives, healthcare
system, and efficient regulatory mechanism.
It is the opinion of the author that where the
conditions are similar or could be molded,
this policy should be considered. It is also
apparent that presumed consent is not an
option for some countries where cultural
mores would prevent this type of regulatory
mechanism. Where presumed consent is not
possible, Iran's policy of controlled kidney
sales could be a viable one if the current state
Focus Point
of donor health and welfare is addressed and
reversed.
As long as there is a gap between supply
and demand for organs, there will be a black
market to bridge it. Far from the myth it was
once believed to be, human organ trafficking
has erupted into a very real and very
dangerous new frontier for those engaged in
organized crime. By addressing this problem
with the appropriate research and data
collection, an enhanced understanding will
help craft innovative policy. As it currently
stands, neither wholesale international
prohibition nor legalization is feasible, both of
which would require enormous financial and
political support. Instead, by coordinating
their efforts, the medical and human security
communities could address domestic
demand with the goal of eliminating or, at
least, curtailing this new and growing form
of human trafficking.
▪ 30 ▪
Notes
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention
Against Transnational Organized Crime: Article 3, Paragraph (a)."Articles Proposed at the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized
Crime and its Protocols. November 15, 2000, www.uncjin.org/Documents/Conventions/dcatoc/final_documents_2/convention_%20traff_eng.pdf
(accessed February 8, 2008).
2
Human Trafficking.org, www.humantrafficking.org (accessed February 8, 2008).
3
Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, www.optn.org/latestData/step2.asp (accessed February 8, 2008).
4
Clare Nullis-Kapp, "Organ Trafficking and Transplantation Pose New Problems," Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 82:9 (2004), 715.
5
Madvah Goyal et al, "Economic and Health Consequences of Selling a Kidney in India," Journal of the American Medical Association 288:13 (2002),
1589-1590.
6
Mark Franchetti, "Dozens Killed for Body Parts," London Sunday Times, July 29, 2001, 21.
7
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Organ Trade: The New Cannibalism," The New Internationalist, April, 1998, 15.
8
Godpower Okereke, "The International Trade in Human Beings: A Critical Look at Casual Factors," Crime and Justice International, June/July, 2005,
11.
9
Bruce Johnstone, "Italy Rushes in Law to Ban 'Spare Part' Baby Sales," The Telegraph. May 18, 2003, http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.
jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/18/worg18.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/05/18/ixworld.html/news/2003/05/18/worg18.xml (accessed February 10, 2008).
10
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Organs Without Borders," Foreign Policy 146 (2005), 26-27.
11
Brian Kates, "Black Market in Transplant Organs," New York Daily News, August 25, 2002.
12
Sanjay Kumar, "Police Uncover Large Scale Organ Trafficking in Punjab," British Medical Journal 326 (2003), 180.
13
"The 'Baby Parts' Myth: The Anatomy of a Rumor," United States Information Agency, May, 1996, http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/
The_Baby_Parts_Myth.html (accessed February 6, 2008).
14
"New Program Aims to Monitor Organ Trafficking." The Augusta Chronicle, November 8, 1999, http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/110899/tec_1241847.shtml (accessed February 6, 2008).
15
Michael Finkel, "Complications," The New York Times Magazine, May 27, 2001, 30.
16
17
"Alleged Mastermind of Indian Organ Scam Arrested in Nepal," Fox News.com, February 8, 2008, www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,329809,00.html
18
Ronald Bailey, "The Case for Selling Human Organs," Reason Online, April 18, 2001, www.reason.com/rb/rb041801.html (accessed February 6,
2008); Donald Bourdreaux, "Organ Donation: Saving Lives through Incentives," Viewpoint on Public Issue: Mackinac Center for Public Policy 99-34
(1999): 1-2. www.mackinac.org/archives/1999/v1999-34.pdf (accessed February 6, 2008).
19
Parliamentary Assembly Report from the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, "Trafficking in Organs in Europe," European Council Doc
9822 (June 2003): section I.2.
20
United Network of Organ Sharing Website: www.unos.org (accessed February 10, 2008).
21
Ronald Bailey, "The Case for Selling Human Organs," Reason Online, April 18, 2001, www.reason.com/rb/rb041801.html (accessed February 6,
2008), Donald Bourdreaux, "Organ Donation: Saving Lives through Incentives," Viewpoint on Public Issue: Mackinac Center for Public Policy 99-34
(1999),1-2. www.mackinac.org/archives/1999/v1999-34.pdf (accessed February 6, 2008).
22
Human Development Report 1994. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994), 25.
23
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "The Global Traffic in Human Organs," Current Anthropology 41 (2000), 191-224; Brian Kates, "Black Market in Transplant
Organs," New York Daily News, August 25, 2002; Michael Finkel, "Complications," The New York Times Magazine, May 27, 2001, 30.
24
Claude Earl Fox, "House Testimony: National Organ Transplantation Policy" (address to the Human Resources Subcommittee, U.S. House of
Representatives, April 8, 1998, http://newsroom.hrsa.gov/speeches/foxOPTN.htm, accessed February 9, 2008).
25
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Organ Trade: The New Cannibalism," The New Internationalist, April, 1998, 14-17.
26
Andrew Batson and Shai Oster, "China Reconsiders Fairness of 'Transplant Tourism:' Foreigners Pay More for Scarce Organs; Israelis Debate Reforms,"
Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2007, A1.
27
Human Development Report 1994. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 25.
28
Organs Watch website, "Hot Spots: India," http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/biotech/organswatch/pages/india.html (accessed February 8, 2008).
29
Sanjay Kumar, "Despite Ban, Organs Still Sold in India," Reuters Heath, March 9, 2001, www.vachss.com/help_text/archive/despite_ban.html
30
31
Ibid.
32
"India Kidney Trade," TED Case Studies 240, www.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/KIDNEY.HTM (accessed February 10, 2008).
33
Sanjay Kumar, "Despite Ban, Organs Still Sold in India," Reuters Heath, March 9, 2001, www.vachss.com/help_text/archive/despite_ban.html
34
Madvah Goyal et al, "Economic and Health Consequences of Selling a Kidney in India," Journal of the American Medical Association 288:13
(2002),1589-1590.
35
"Alleged Mastermind of Indian Organ Scam Arrested in Nepal," Fox News.com, February 8, 2008, www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,329809,00.html
36
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Rotten Trade: Millenial Capitalism, Human Values, Human Values and Global Justice in Organs Trafficking." Journal of
Human Rights 2:2 (2003), 199.
37
Ahad J. Ghods, "Renal Transplantation in Iran," Nephrology Dialysis Transplant 17:2 (2002): 223-227.
38
Abraham McLaughlin, Ilene Prusher, and Andrew Downie, "What is a Kidney Worth?" Christian Science Monitor Online June 9, 2004: 4, http://www.
csmonitor.com/2004/0609/p01s03-wogi.html (accessed February 10, 2008).
39
Vidya Ram, "International Traffic in Human Organs," Frontline 19:7 (2002), www.flonnet.com/fl1907/19070730.htm (accessed February 6, 2008).
1"
▪ 31 ▪
Jeff Whitehead
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Organs Without Borders," Foreign Policy 146 (2005), 26.
Ahad J. Ghods, "Renal Transplantation in Iran," Nephrology Dialysis Transplant 17:2 (2002), 223-227.
42
Vidya Ram, "International Traffic in Human Organs," Frontline 19:7 (2002), www.flonnet.com/fl1907/19070730.htm (accessed February 6, 2008).
43
Annabel Ferriman, "Spain Tops the Table for Organ Donation," British Medical Journal 321 (2000), 1098.
44
Mary Spooner, "More Countries Hoping to Copy Spain's Organ-Donation Success," Canadian Medical Association Journal 169:9 (2003), 952.
45
Ibid.
46
ONT, "Estadisticas," http://donacion.organos.ua.es/ont/ONT%20-%20Estadisticas.htm (accessed February 10, 2008).
47
Mary Spooner, "More Countries Hoping to Copy Spain's Organ-Donation Success," Canadian Medical Association Journal 169:9 (2003), 952.
48
Xavier Bosch, "Spain Leads the World in Organ Transplantation and Donation," Journal of the American Medical Association 282:1 (1999), 17.
49
Blanca Miranda, J. Vilardell and J.M. Grinyo, "Optimizing Cadaveric Organ Procurement: The Catalan and Spanish System," American Journal of
Transplant 3:10 (2003), 1189-1190.
50
Judy Siegel Itzkovich, "Israel Considers Paying People for Donating a Kidney?" British Medical Journal 326 (2003), 126.
51
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Rotten Trade: Millenial Capitalism, Human Values, Human Values and Global Justice in Organs Trafficking," Journal of
Human Rights 2:2 (2003), 218.
52
53
54
Andrew Batson and Shai Oster, "China Reconsiders Fairness of 'Transplant Tourism:' Foreigners Pay More for Scarce Organs; Israelis Debate Reforms,"
Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2007, A1.
55
Sam Vanknin, "Analysis: Organ Trafficking in Eastern Europe," United Press International, November 12, 2002, http://globalpolitician.com/articleshow.
asp?ID=383&cid=4 (accessed February 6, 2008).
56
Roni Singer and Ran Reznick, "Assuta Doctors Face Investigation for Alleged Organ Dealing," Ha'aretz.com, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/
ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=305641&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y (accessed February 6, 2008).
57
Mario Osava, "Poor Sell Organs to Trans-Atlantic Trafficking Ring," Inter Press Service News Agency, February 23, 2004, www.ipsnews.net/interna.
asp?idnews=22524 (accessed February 6, 2008).
58
csmonitor.com/2004/0609/p01s03-wogi.html (accessed February 10, 2008);
59
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "Organs Without Borders," Foreign Policy 146 (2005), 26.
60
61
Ibid.
62
Desinand Alves and Christopher Timmins, "Social Exclusion and the Two-Tiered System Healthcare System of Brazil" (paper presented at the LACEA
Conference, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2001, www.lacea.org/meeting2001/Alves.pdf, accessed February 10, 2008).
63
Michael Parmly, "Sale of Human Organs in China" (hearing before the subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, House International
Relations, June 27, 2001, www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/rm/2001/3792.htm, accessed February 6, 2008).
64
Brian Kates, "Black Market in Transplant Organs," New York Daily News, August 25, 2002.
40
41
Focus Point
▪ 32 ▪
▪ 33 ▪
Jeff Whitehead
The Traffic in Voices:
Contrasting Experiences of Migrant Women in
Prostitution with the Paradigm of "Human Trafficking"
Maybritt Jill Alpes
This article is based on empirical research with West African migrant women
working in prostitution in Paris. Given current migration regulations in
Western Europe, as well as state policies on prostitution, the traffickers
and people considered to be trafficking victims de facto form part of the
same economy of the margins. What is needed to cut down on the number
of trafficking victims is to guarantee basic human rights to migrants.
T
he o r g a n i z at i o n a l f r a m e w o r k o f
migration (in France and other European
countries) currently is such that the
status of "trafficking victim" is one of
the few means of attaining (at least restricted)
residence rights. In order to secure humane
treatment to irregular migrants then the automatic
tendency would be to broaden the definition
of "human trafficking." Yet, the paradigm of
"human trafficking" is also a problematic legal
categorization of migration trajectories. Reshaping
the frames through which (undocumented) migrant
women are looked at, I inevitably partake in a
sensitive political debate. However, assumptions
inherent in classifications of migrants need to be
questioned more generally and vulnerabilities
of"trafficked women"need to be contextualised
with potential prior vulnerabilities in places
of origin. Does a migrant woman have to be
"innocent" and "vulnerable" to earn the legal
protection of host states? Does a migrant worker
have to be female and work in prostitution to have
a right to legal protection?
In an age of supposed "globalization," free
circulation of finance, services and information,
remarkably little attention is given to the (un)
free circulation of labour. Rather than as labour
migrants, "undocumented" migrants are produced
as "illegal immigrants," "smuggled aliens" or
"trafficked victims." Yet, de facto undocumented
migration is predominantly labour migration.1 The
construction of "irregular" migrants as "smuggled
criminals" or "trafficked victims" effaces the labour
aspect of these migration trajectories. Hence, the
very division of "irregular"migration into "human
trafficking"and "smuggling" is also not a natural
given that can be embraced uncritically as a tool
of scholarly analysis.2 I would hence argue that to
look at the social reality of migration experiences
in terms of legal definitions, such as the Palermo
Maybritt Jill Alpes holds a MA in "Development Studies" from Sciences Po Paris and a BA in "International History and
International Politics" from the University of Sheffield. She is now a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of
Amsterdam. Her research looks at local perceptions and practices of female migration from Cameroon to the Europe.
Focus Point
▪ 34 ▪
Protocol, forces scholars into a "statist" perspective.
When studying the experiences of migrant women
in prostitution, it becomes clear that the paradigms
of "trafficking" radically simplify social reality
so as to fit the management schemes imposed by
states.3 The dynamics of "irregular" migration and
the patterns of behaviour of people involved in it
cannot be explained from a perspective that sees,
like the state, only rules and dynamics recognised
by the latter.
Women trafficked for exploitation in prostitution
are subject to a complex web of often rather
contradictory interpretations and portrayals.
Different groups approach the question from
their respective ideological, moral and political
convictions. NGOs working on prostitution will
look at "human trafficking" either in terms of
"slavery"or in terms of "sex workers" rights. The
mainstream media has a tendency to portray"human
trafficking"in terms of physical violence and
criminality. Women and"traffickers"are polarised
into "innocent victims" and "evil perpetrators." Yet,
knowledge on "human trafficking" is not always
based on an analysis of the lived experiences of
migrant women.4 Political interests and moral
concerns get projected onto the category of
"trafficked women."
In the literature on migration,"human trafficking"
has come to be understood as a form of exploitative
labour migration.5 Since its adoption in 2000,
the Palermo Protocol has become the central
document used for purposes of defining and
dealing with "human trafficking."6 Essential to
this legal definition of"human trafficking"are the
elements of deception, manipulation, coercion,
abuse of authority, as well as debt bondage and
forced labour. It is hence the deceitful nature of the
recruitment process and the exploitative working
conditions, rather than the type of work that gives
rise to women's migration stories falling under the
framework of"trafficking."7 However, in practice
counter-"trafficking" policies and programmes
are mostly implemented in a way that still takes
prostitution itself, rather than exploitation in
prostitution to define "human trafficking."
Even though not all foreign migrant women in
prostitution can hence be considered "trafficking
victims," a comparison of their migration
experiences with the paradigms of "trafficking" is
pertinent given that not only abolitionist NGOs,
but also state policy commonly presumes that
these women have indeed been "trafficked."
Furthermore, the obscurity concerning living and
working conditions after migration, the enormity of
the debt bondage, as well as the unclear conditions
under which the interviewed women needed to
repay their debts do serve as indicators of little
autonomy, great vulnerability and hence potential
exploitation. Deceit, coercion, debt bondage and
forced labour can be said to characterise at least a
certain phase of the narratives of the interviewed
women.
This article contrasts the paradigms of "human
trafficking" with the migration experiences of West
African migrant women working in prostitution in
Paris. I trace out the tensions between migration
experiences and assumptions inherent in the
paradigm of "human trafficking." Whilst doing this,
I equally make observations on important factors
(outside the paradigm) that can help to explain
the situation and position of migrant women in
prostitution.
Field Research
This article is based on a series of interviews
with migrant women considered to be "trafficking
victims" and on a period of observation with a
Paris-based NGO called Cippora. At meetings of
the association, I spent about three hours every
week from October 2004 to March 2005 in the
company of the women whom I was to interview
subsequently. The interviews took place in the
office of a partner association of Cippora, as well
as in the home of an informant. I also had access
to some internal documents of the NGO, such as
the testimonies of the women for their residence
permit.
Cippora engages in outreach activities with
people working in prostitution, welcomes them
in weekly drop-in sessions, and offers free
French classes and technical assistance. In
France, a limited residence and working permit
of three months (renewable) can be obtained
under the condition that the women agree to quit
prostitution and lay open the way in which they
came to France.8 With a written testimony and the
backup support of an NGO, such as Cippora, the
▪ 35 ▪
Maybritt Jill Alpes
women can gain access to a temporary residence
and working permit. In practice, both this legal
device and Cippora's main line of action conflate
prostitution with "trafficking." 9 Considering
work in prostitution to be by definition an act of
enslavement, an abolitionist position does not allow
one to distinguish between voluntary migration into
the sex industry and exploitation within the sex
industry (or other sectors of work). To mark this
distinction, it is important to look at the working
conditions of the interviewed women, as well as
at the way in which they migrated.
One of the interviewed women was Cameroonian;
the other nine came from Nigeria.10 The youngest
of the interviewed women was 17 when coming
to France. The oldest was 29 at the time of the
interview. The interviewed women had generally
been in France already for a time ranging from
one to two years. Most of them had migrated
either within Nigeria or more widely in the region
before coming to France. At the point when I spoke
to them, none of them was any longer under the
direct control or menace of a "trafficker" or pimp.
They were not working in prostitution any more,
and were preparing their testimony for the police,
waiting for their papers or already searching for
work with their new residence permit. Most of
them took French classes and all of them were
coming regularly to the weekly drop-in sessions
of the association. The nature of the sample of this
study implies that in all cases it was both possible
to gain autonomy from the person who had initially
facilitated their migration to France, as well as
desirable for them to leave work in prostitution.
Even though there might be counter examples to
the cases I have studied here, dynamics and patterns
such as these exist and need to be accounted for.
"Media outrage at the
violent situations of
women in prostitution
obscures the trajectory of
the women themselves."
driven approach to "human trafficking" can
turn counter-trafficking activities into tools for
cutting down on both prostitution and migration.
A member of Cippora explained the following to
me: "The Sarkozy law has devices that—within
a wider framework of integration—allow for a
permit to stay in the country. Not all victims can
be regularised." Here, the NGO worker's dilemma
is between wanting to fight prostitution and help
women out of prostitution whilst equally trying to
uphold an anti-immigration stance. "Not everyone
has the vocation to stay in France." "Those who
want to integrate will succeed. For those who want
to use the NGO, it is the task of NGO workers to
say 'no.' Papers aren't the solution to everything.
Papers are there for work."
NGO workers at Cippora often reduced the
causes of "human trafficking" to poverty and
kidnapping.12 Women, in this view, have either no
agency or clearly they must be desperate to want
to migrate for work. Yet, most of the women of this
study had decided to migrate in a context of acute
human insecurity. Some of the interviewed women
had been involved in various ways in the MuslimChristian tensions in Nigeria, another woman had
been subjected to harmful traditional practices,
another one left because she did not agree with a
proposed arranged marriage and yet another one
had been orphaned through her families'political
persecution. Media outrage at the violent situations
Human Trafficking and the Choice to of women in prostitution13obscures the trajectory of
the women themselves. It obscures the violent
Migrate
situations they might have found themselves in
"Human trafficking" can be looked at from various before migration. It is not because women leave
angles: morality, crime, public order, human rights, their home and change their place that suddenly
labour, migration.11 Different actors tend to focus they are in danger of being discriminated against,
on different angles and hence one needs to be exploited and/or mistreated. The assumption of
acutely aware of "whose problems" shape and the trafficking paradigm is that women are "safe"
produce any given analysis of the phenomenon. For at home and in danger when "away."
Without wanting to victimise migrant women
states, for example, "human trafficking" is largely a
further,
the narratives of the interviewed women
problem that concerns public order. A public-order
Focus Point
▪ 36 ▪
were all characterised by stories of (gendered)
violence of different sorts. Yet, migration is also a
way for people to strive for security. When Rose
Mary said that, for example, that she was happy to
be able to go with the "trafficker," this is because
previously she had been raped by a gang of men
and consequently imprisoned for four months
on charges of adultery. Despite all human rights
violations, it is important to keep in mind that
"traffickers" also answer a need and demand for
migration services.
Most women in the study had already migrated
previously within Western Africa, namely
Mandalene, Irene, Felicia, Edith, Liliane, Juliette,
Queen and Precious. Yet, the human trafficking
paradigm leaves little space for the choice to
migrate. One can choose to migrate and still end
up in exploitative circumstances in the end. The
perspective of migrants and their agency within the
course of migration is often overridden by a strong
bias towards concerns of the state, such as border
crossings, the potential increase of undocumented
migrants and criminality.14
In a situation of lacking viable alternatives,
accepting the risk of debt bondage for at least a
limited amount of time can become a possibility.
People's living conditions might be such that a
choice for indentured labour becomes possible.15
Yet, to change the focus from human right violations
after migration to mistreatment beforehand is less
comforting. It highlights the need for migration, as
well as the structural factors which make formal
and fully regulated migration from certain parts
of the world almost impossible and unregulated
migration dangerous and potentially exploitative.
Evolving Dynamics
On a legal and formalistic level, the Palermo
Protocol establishes a clear distinction between
"human trafficking" and "smuggling." Whereas
the illegal crossing of borders is at the heart of
"human smuggling," the key determining element
of "human trafficking" is the exploitation of
the migrant him/herself.16 Smuggling is a crime
against a state, whilst "trafficking" is a crime
against a person. One would hence assume that
the relationship between a trafficker or smuggler
and the person crossing the border could serve
as an indicator to tell the two phenomena apart.
Within smuggling the relationship between the
person and the smuggler would be one of service
provider and client. Within "trafficking" the
relationship between the migrant and the trafficker
would be one of exploiter and victim. These legal
definitions only look at one point in time, however.
Relationships are dynamic. Dynamics between a
migrant and his or her "trafficker" (or migration
broker) evolve over time.
On the basis of the gathered interview material,
it seems that there can be elements of help and
gratefulness even in the relationship between a
trafficker and a "trafficked woman." Just before
migrating to Europe, Antonia, for example, had
found herself orphaned, as well as homeless after
a politically motivated arson attack during which
both her parents had died. And Rose Mary had been
in prison with charges of adultery before being
given a chance by her former partner to leave the
country. When I asked her what she had thought
when she had first met the man who was to bring
her to France, she answered: "When I first met
him, I was happy. He said he would rescue me
and I was relieved. And yes, he helped me out of
there. When I was told I had to prostitute, I thought
I should have died in Nigeria, that's better. If I see
him now, I would hand him over to the police. He
destroyed my life. There were so many accidents
happening during my time as prostitute. I don't
know whether he sent them to kill me and they had
pity with me. I broke my legs, got stabbed, raped,
had a pistol to my head and still they were asking
me for money."
Often the women referred to these people as
"Madame" and/ or "the man who brought me
here." Looking at "traffickers" also as people
who facilitate or sponsor a migration process
can help to explain certain dynamics within the
narratives of the interviewed women. As Florence
put it: "There are people who are responsible
for changing country. You pay them and they
take you." Even if coercion is exercised in the
country of arrival through the undertaken debt, the
initial demand for migration has been satisfied.17
Skrobanek forcefully makes the point that in most
cases women freely chose migration and are only
subsequently directed into exploitative channels.18
These migration agents and/or "traffickers" move
▪ 37 ▪
Maybritt Jill Alpes
in on the voluntary movement of women and direct the journey. Later I also went out with one of the
them into exploitative labour.
men." Escoffier suggests that these relations and
It is important to give justice and consideration associations need to be seen within their context of
to all of these different dynamics within the desired mobility and enforced immobility.19
relationship between the women and the people who
All of the interviewed women talked about
are coined as "traffickers." Dorothy had to plea with debt and various degrees of uncertainty around the
her migration broker to be accepted "on board." She exact height of the debt incurred in the process of
was working in a hair dresser's salon in Cameroon migration (e.g. documentation and transport). The
and clients of her needed to vouch for the integrity average price the interviewed women needed to
of Dorothy's character before the woman would pay back amounted to € 30,000. The interviewed
accept to bring her to France. In the rhetoric of the women were not always aware of the specific sum
migration broker, she was agreeing to this deal out to be repaid before they set off on their journey.
of kindness. Dorothy's case study demonstrates to Whilst some of the interviewed women had been
us the degree to which in some cases women have told that they would not have to pay, most believed
to be active to be recruited for migration to Europe. that they could pay back their debt in a relatively
The problem at stake in those cases is the degree short time of a few months. However, even if the
to which migrant women have control over the women entered into agreements on exact debts to
outcome of migration. Florence, for example, tried be repaid for transport, it is difficult to put the sums
to make her migration trajectory safer by chosing of money into perspective. Edith said: "No. It was
to only go with a white migration broker and not here that he told me that I would have to pay him
with a black one. Her migration broker came from back for the transport. He told me $50,000. […] I
Lebanon and she described her first encounter told the man that 50,000 was too much. He said it
with the man as follows: "I saw the white man. I is not so much, that here it is possible to earn that
thought it would be a European." Florence was not much, so I said OK."
subjected to voodoo before leaving the country and
It is extremely difficult for anyone to estimate
when asked about it, she responded: "That's why the value of a given amount of money, if one does
I don't go with black. Black do voodoo to black. not know the working possibilities and the living
That's why I don't go to
expenses in a country
black, but to white."
on another continent.
"It
is
important
not
to
polarize
actors
As for the
stark contrasts
into 'victims' and 'perpetrators.' The
"Madames," they are
between levels of
Given current migration regulations income and cost of
often described as
in Western Europe, 'traffickers' and living in country of
having been former
'trafficked' in many ways form part of origin and destination
"trafficking victims." In
an attempt to overcome the same 'economy of the margins.'" needs to be kept in
the simplification of
mind when seeking to
a divide into victims and perpetrators, I suggest understand the women's narratives, as well as their
conceptualising the "Madame" as a "group potential exposure to "trafficking."
leader." She is the "first amongst equals," the one
The uncertainty about the actual debt incurred
further ahead in her migration narrative, the one can weaken the women's position in relation to
"promoted" and also the one "accommodating" the person who brings them to France. Patterns
and "helping" the newcomers. The interviewed of debt repayment are informal, not solidly fixed
women also sometimes referred to the "Madame" beforehand and hence both negotiable, as well
as the "girlfriend" of the person who had brought as a potential means of coercion and enforced
them to France. Such dynamics seem widespread dependency. Often the women do not attempt to
and can already develop during the journey. Efe note down systematically their payments to the
has this to say about the 7 months of travelling person who had brought them to France, but if they
between Nigeria and France: "My cousin went out do, it is also not unheard of that the "Madame" or
with one of the men, so I didn't have to work during "trafficker" searches for and destroys such notes.
Focus Point
▪ 38 ▪
Depending on how much she had been able to
work, Edith had to give between 2,000 or €3,000
to her "trafficker" every three months. Liliane was
working for twelve months in Marseille. Twice a
week, she had to give about €500 to the "Tunisian
man" who had brought her to France. If she had no
money to give, she was not beaten, but"told off"and
verbally put under pressure to pay more next
time. Whilst she was under pressure to generate
sufficient money to satisfy demands from the
"Tunisian man," she could still make independent
choices about occasionally not going to work.
Edith, too, recounts that despite the pressure to pay
back the debt there were margins of manoeuvre to
refuse certain customers.
Relations of dependency can be renegotiated.
Over time, the interviewed women increasingly
understood the context of their situation, as well
as of their "trafficker." They acquired more and
more skills to get by on their own in this new
and unfamiliar country where they do not speak
the language. They also began to understand the
weaknesses of the very person who pressures them.
These processes did not necessarily exclusively
depend on whether the women had actually
finished paying back the agreed sum of money
or not. Irene, for example, had to give about 600
to €700 every week to the person who might be
considered her "trafficker." She had not paid back
the asked €30,000 when eventually she cut off all
relations to the man who had brought her to France.
She went to Paris where she continued to work
in prostitution independently: "Why can't you go
to Paris? If you go to Paris, it will be okay. But I
don't have money to buy the ticket. She gave me
the money. I left the hotel he put us in. I changed
my phone number and he could not see me. So that
is how I left that place doing my own."
Sometimes the women said that they could start
working independently in prostitution once the
person who had brought them to France got into
trouble with the police. Even when the original
"trafficker" is in jail, though, the women do not
necessarily regain complete autonomy. Debt is
transferable. Other men can claim patronage over
the women, take their money away from them and
threaten to kill them. This is what happened for
example to Antonia. Her "trafficker" was in prison,
but she still was in danger when trying to earn her
living on the street. Other men connected with
her trafficker threatened her and asked her to pay
back the money. She was told to send her earned
money to the brother of her "trafficker" who was
still in Nigeria.
Facets of Coercion
It is important not to polarize actors into "victims"
and "perpetrators." Given current migration
regulations in Western Europe,"traffickers" and
"trafficked" in many ways form part of the same
"economy of the margins." An understanding of
"human trafficking" in terms of the "degree of
relative autonomy and control" over the outcome
of the migration process over time brings "human
trafficking" into wider debates on labour migration,
as well as redirects attention towards the perspective
of migrants, rather than of states.20 This I believe
is more rewarding if one is interested in capturing
the multitude of exploitative elements in migration
which "human trafficking" supposedly is meant to
circumscribe.
The migration narratives of the interviewed
women are not void of physical violence. Liliane,
for example, was being threatened with murder
and Edith had been photographed naked and
was subsequently blackmailed and threatened
that these would be sent back to her family in
Nigeria. Yet, coercion can also work in a more
indirect and structural ways. For a start, the women
initially were in a situation in which there were no
alternative legal and safe ways of migrating for
work and this forms the basis of their vulnerability.
Coercion and exploitation in migration also occurs
because there is a lack of viable alternatives both
in the country of origin and within migration.
Antonia came to France assisted by the brother
of a man she had met in Nigeria. Before she left,
this man had asked her not to "make problems
with his brother." Antonia agreed, "I say OK, you
people are helping me out." In France she tried to
resist having to work in prostitution. Yet, she was
beaten and threatened with more violence. Antonia
narrates that the Nigerian man said the following in
a telephone conversation: "My brother is telling me
that you are making problems all the time. I don't
understand. Just because I helped you." Having
initially agreed with gratitude to accept the help
▪ 39 ▪
Maybritt Jill Alpes
of the Nigerian man and his brother, drawing lines
and boundaries of permissiveness is difficult. The
internationalization of the discourse of the trafficker
is logical in a context of structurally enforced, but
chosen migration and social isolation.
In France, the interviewed women had all
initially been very isolated in their daily lives.
Lacking friends or members of family in their
vicinity, the only people the interviewed women
socialised with were their clients, other women
and their respective "trafficker" or "Madame."
The Madames would, for example, throw birthday
parties for the interviewed women.
After the initial stage of the "trafficker" helping
the women to leave an undesirable situation and
to come to France, all of the interviewed women
except for one were directly faced with the need
to work in prostitution. Work in prostitution can
be enforced by physical violence or emotional
blackmail, but also by a lack of viable alternatives
and a high demand for these services. Antonia
talked of having been forced into prostitution
through threats of killing and actual beatings.
Uneasy about her prior work in prostitution, she
told me that she had been locked into a room
and denied food. But the necessity to work in
prostitution does not in all cases come directly from
the trafficker or person who brought the women to
France. Mandalene for example was told by other
Nigerian women that without documents she did
not have a chance to find any other kind of work:
"And when I got here there is no help. If you don't
have paper, you cannot work in France. If you don't
have their paper, you cannot work easily. So I found
somebody to help me to go to the street."
Here, it is not the trafficker, a pimp or a Madame
beating or directly forcing Mandalene to work in
prostitution. Whilst her "trafficker" had lied to
her about job prospects in Europe, she was not
directly coerced by him into prostitution. It was the
other women with whom she was living in France
who gave her to understand that this was her only
option. Without papers, knowledge of French,
relatives, friends or even acquaintances in France,
Mandalene did not have to be beaten into accepting
prostitution as an income generating activity.
Edith confirms this portrayal. She described her
first few days in France in the following way: "I
was given food for three days. After that I would
Focus Point
have to go and work in prostitution, too. After the
three days the girls were shouting at me if I took
anything from them. They said that they, too, had
to prostitute for this. So I decided, let me be doing
it, too, maybe one day I can stop."
Besides this simplistic question of knowing or
not knowing, choosing or not choosing to work in
prostitution, it is very unlikely that the women could
have been aware of actual working conditions. Work
in prostitution can take various forms, particularly
in different cultural and geographical settings.21
Women do not simply divide into "prostitutes" and
"good women." Asked whether she had not heard
rumours about prostitution in Europe, Liliane said:
"Yes, rumours, I heard about prostitution. But not
about having to work in the street. I thought just
you needed to have five boyfriends. Even if I know
it's prostitution, I promised to pay. But I didn't
know about the road."
Furthermore, the isolation women find
themselves in can become a great source of
vulnerability. During the interviews, it often
became clear that the women were suffering
from loneliness. The role of the "trafficker" and
"Madame" cannot be limited to one of mere
"exploiter." The women do not have documents,
do not speak French and have no members of their
family for support and advice in France. They are
suspicious and have a great fear of anything printed
or official. In this context, the "Madame" or the
person who brought them here are also the closest
people to them in the country of arrival.
Other important elements of control are voodoo
practices. Voodoo can amongst others take the
function of enforcing an essentially informal
agreement on migration. Before migration,
"traffickers" celebrate voodoo ceremonies during
which the women have to promise to pay back
their debt, to stay loyal to the trafficker and not
to tell anyone about their situation. Given that
the women cannot pay for their travel before the
journey, these oaths function as a kind of guarantee
to the people who take the women to Europe.
Edith: "I did the voodoo oath in exchange for the
transport." It is difficult for the women to refuse
to engage in these oaths. Juliette: "I was obliged to
do voodoo several times during the journey. I was
obliged to do it, otherwise it would have been as
if we didn't trust them. It was so that we wouldn't
▪ 40 ▪
talk to the police." If this secrecy oath is broken
by the women, they as well as their families are
in danger. Countervailing spiritual authorities
can be drawn upon
break the power
"State laws on to
f the original
prostitution and ooaths.
the time
i m m i g r a t i o n of the At
crucially weaken quite a interviews,
few of the
the position of interviewed
women
u n d o c u m e n te d were practising
migrant women." Christians. Given
the religious and
spiritual landscape of countries like Nigeria, this
is in itself not surprising. Yet, for those women
who had undertaken a voodoo oath, becoming
practising Christians can also function as a shield
of protection from the feared voodoo spell.
When trying to understand the dynamics within
"trafficking," it is interesting to take religious and
spiritual dimensions into account, too. As van Dijk
suggests, the engagement with the spiritual domain
can also be associated with the women's desire to
travel abroad. If these desires are felt to be "blocked
by spiritual forces," elements of migration (such
as passports, visa and air ticket) become part of
the realm of spiritual empowerment and "signs of
heavenly benevolence."22
Even though Mandalene had to give about 1,000
to 2,000 francs to the man who had organized
her documents for her, she still had freedom of
movement, as well as the capacity to make choices.
Working and living conditions of the interviewed
women do not hinge solely on their trafficker, but
also depend largely on the given legal framework
on prostitution and immigration. "Police will see
you and deport you to your country." "When you
go to jail, they tell you [you] have to go back to
the Africa." Attitudes of the interviewed women
towards the police are ambiguous, however. Edith,
for example, proudly told me that the police was
her "power:" "I am afraid [of going back] because I
haven't paid back the money yet. If I am in Nigeria,
the man can do anything for [to] me. I have no
money. The police only believes those who have
money. The police is not protecting you in Nigeria.
I understood that he was afraid of the police, too. I
have more power here than in Nigeria. The police
is my power."
Edith was afraid of being sent back to Nigeria
where she would receive no protection at all from
the police. In France, however, she had understood
that her trafficker was as much afraid of the police
as she had been initially.
The causes of exploitation and vulnerability
hence do not always lie exclusively with the nature
of their work and the agency of the trafficker, but
also with the wider circumstances in which the
women find themselves, including constraints
imposed by the state. State laws on prostitution
and immigration crucially weaken the position of
undocumented migrant women seeking to earn their
living in prostitution. Vulnerable to state agents
both as "undocumented" and as "prostitutes,"
migrant women are inherently very dependent
on the people who facilitated their migration and
work process.
Internal Dynamics and Perceptions
From a state perspective, the behaviour, meaning
and attitudes of trafficked women cannot be
explained. Without recognising and giving due
consideration to the rules and regulations within
informal migration, one cannot begin to understand
the dynamics of "human trafficking." Even if
formally defined as an illegal activity, parts of
the processes of "human trafficking" can be
perceived as licit, acceptable and even desirable
by participants. As Wong points out, "the world of
the illicit" is not "one of solely of victims terrorised
by criminals."23 A state's view will classify human
trafficking "as a crime and hence the work of a
"trafficker" as essentially "evil" and "illegal."
I will now turn towards the women's perception
and portrayals of their migration trajectory at large.
Having deconstructed the dichotomy between
"victim" and "perpetrator," one can also look at the
category of "traffickers" in a different way.
Inherent in the narratives of the interviewed
women was also a strong notion that the trafficker
did despite everything answer a demand: "I feel my
life was in danger. She said she would help me."
Liliane had this to say about her trafficker: "They
give you impression to come and then here they
collect big money…When I was in Africa they told
me I will pay the money in three months time, after
you come here life is difficult." The fact that she
▪ 41 ▪
Maybritt Jill Alpes
had not been fully aware of all elements does not
seem to have influenced her view of the man who
brought her here. "I know he is a proxénète (pimp).
I think it is his work. That's what he does. He can
help me to Europe. [...] He didn't disappoint me. He
take me to Europe." When exploring whether she
was angry with this man, her reply was: "I am not
angry with him because I deserve it. I don't deserve
to work in prostitution. But I deserve to come to
Europe […]. I am not angry because other people
do it, too. […] He did me a favour."
Most of the interviewed women had not heard
of the term "human trafficking" before. And if they
had heard of it, they suggested "human trafficking"
referred to prostitution or criminality in general.
The interviewed women were all extremely
defensive about having worked in prostitution.
As soon as I uttered the "p word," whatever my
actual question, the answer always was that they
were not working in prostitution anymore or that
they had been forced to work in prostitution.
Antonia's statement is typical of this kind of
defensive attitude: "I cannot do that. My mother
didn't do that." These reactions and attitudes can
be explained largely by the organizational context
of the NGO through which I had been able to
make contact with these women. The interviewed
women generally tended to portray themselves as
"victims" in terms of the work they had done, but
not in terms of migration.
Migrant women in prostitution do have
obligations to their trafficker. They asked for a
migration service, so it is logical for them to "feel
the responsibility" to pay back the money required
for this service. Having worked for a while, the
women can change perspective and begin to argue
that the amount of money asked for these migration
services is exaggerated. When I asked Orobosa,
how she knew that she had finished paying back,
she replied: "When he called me, I said is enough.
I said is enough. I don't have money."
Tied into a web of gratitude and dependency,
it is difficult to tell from what point onwards one
would no longer be bound by prior promises and
obligations to the person who had initially delivered
a service. The women often talked in the interviews
about the right of the trafficker to ask them for the
money. Florence: "I don't have right to not to pay.
He used money to bring me." There is a strongly
Focus Point
felt obligation to pay back the debt. Looking at
their cases in isolation, they often perceive of
coercion and exploitation as accidental. Some of
the women even go so far as to believe that it is
their fault if they get beaten or mistreated since it
is their obligation to pay back the money.
From an inside perspective, the trafficker is
a person with whom the migrant had previously
struck a deal and hence has at least a certain
shared interest. When the interviewed women
knew their way about enough, they could assert
themselves and put into question the amount of
the debt bondage. This is a complex and slow
process. Despite growing frustration, some of the
interviewed women continued to feel guilty and
even afraid about not having paid all of the money.
When changing perspective, it becomes more
understandable where coercion is rooted and how
emancipation from a "trafficking" situation can be
a question of negotiation.
Conclusion
If one looks at the migration experiences of the
interviewed women exclusively through the lenses
of the Palermo Protocol, one sees like a state.
Internal patterns of obligation and reciprocity
cannot be seen from the perspective of a state that
polarises actors into "victims" and "perpetrators."
The state, the way in which it manages migration,
constructs and deals with migrants and women in
prostitution will be left out of the picture. Sources
of coercion and vulnerability are not limited to the
hands of "pimps" and "traffickers." Migrant women
in the sex industry are vulnerable in France by
being both "undocumented" and "prostitutes." As
such "trafficker" and "trafficked" form part of the
same "economy of the margins." Elements within
exploitative labour migration—such as forced
labour, debt bondage, deceit and coercion—are not
entirely disconnected from this position of more
general marginality. Only not seeing like the state
allows us to see the state.
In the light of the generated interview material,
this article suggests that it is fruitful to consider
"trafficking" within a wider framework of
voluntary labour migration. Traffickers are also
migration brokers and hence provide services for
which there is a demand because of the current
▪ 42 ▪
state of migration management. This de facto
enforced immobility needs to be considered when
one talks about the choice of migrant women to
want to migrate. At the same time, the discourse
of disempowerment and victimhood continues to
dominate precisely because of what it obscures.
The discourse of trafficking is attractive because it
diverts attention away from enforced immobility,
from the fate of undocumented migrants more
generally and from human rights violations before
migration.
There is a more general need to question
assumptions in the way people who migrate
are talked about and engaged with. Driven by
concerns with prostitution and/or immigration,
anti-trafficking activities can in themselves result
in human right violations. As Ratna Kapur puts it,
"the failure to foreground the human-rights aspects
of trafficking has resulted in further pushing the
activity underground, and centring the security of
the state at the cost of the security of the migrant
subject."24 A concern with "human trafficking"
understood as exploitative migration will hence
refocus attention away from the Palermo Protocol
towards the Migrant Workers Convention that seeks
to guarantee basic human rights to all migrants and
their members of family, regardless of sector of
work and status of documentation.25
▪ 43 ▪
Maybritt Jill Alpes
Notes
"Undocumented migrations are […] pre-eminently labor migrations, originating in the uniquely restless creative capacity and productive power of
people. The undocumented character of such movements draws our critical scrutiny to regimes of immigration law and so demands an analytic account of
the law as such, which is itself apprehensible only through a theory of the state. Likewise, the specific character of these movements as labor migrations
within a global capitalist economy demands an analysis of the mobility of labor, which itself is only understandable through a critical theoretical
consideration of labour and capital as mutually constituting poles of a single, albeit contradictory, social relation." Nicholas P. De Genova, "Migrant
'Illegality' and Deportability in everyday life," Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (2002), 423.
2
Julia O'Connell Davidson and Bridget Anderson, "The trouble with 'trafficking,'" in Trafficking and Women's Rights, eds. Christien van den Anker and
Jeroen Doomernik (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 22.
3
James C. Scott, Seeing like a state – how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (London: Yale University Press, 1998).
4
Jyoti Sanghera, "Unpacking the 'trafficking' Discourse," in Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered – New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and
Human Rights, ed. Kamala Kempadoo, (London: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), 4.
5
International Organization of Migration, "Data and Research on human trafficking: A Global Survey," International Migration vol. 43 (2005): 1- 2.
Kamala Kempadoo, ed. Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered (London: Paradigm Publishers, Boulder, 2005). Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema,
eds. Global Sex Workers – Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, (New and London: Routledge, 1998). Laura Agustin, "The Disappearing of a Migration
Category: Migrants Who Sell Sex," Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 32 - 1 (2006), 29- 47. Christien van den Anker and Jeroen Doomernik, eds.
Trafficking and Women's Rights (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Anette Brunovski and Guri Tyldum, Crossing Borders – An Empirical Study of
Transnational Prostitution and Trafficking in Human Beings (Oslo: Fafo, 2004). Annuska Derks, "From White Slaves to 'trafficking' Survivors – notes on
the 'trafficking' debate"(Paper presented at the conference on Migration and Development, Center for Migration and Development Working Paper Series,
Princeton University, 2000). Melissa Ditmore and Marjan Wijers, "The negotiations on the UN Protocol on 'trafficking' in Persons," Nemesis 4 (2003).
David Feingold, "Think Again – human trafficking," Foreign Policy (2005).
6
The full and exact name of the Palermo Protocol is United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish "trafficking" in Persons, Especially Women
and Children. The Protocol supplements the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. It splits up "human trafficking" into
three distinct, but interconnected elements: a) the recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a person; b) by use of threat, force, coercion,
abduction, fraud or deception, abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or giving or receiving payments of benefits to achieve the consent of a person
having control over another person; c) for the purpose of the exploitation in prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services,
slavery, practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal or organs.
7
Kamala Kempadoo and Jo Doezema, ed. Global Sex Workers, (New and London: Routledge, 1998).
8
Under special conditions, foreigners working in prostitution in France can obtain a temporary residence permit of three months (renewable). This legal
disposition is part of the legislative framework on prostitution drafted by Sarkozy in ("loi de la sécurité intérieure"). In practice, the testimonies do not
necessarily amount to the denunciation of a trafficker. Cippora needs to guarantee and certify the progress of the women in their"reinsertion"process, i.e.
whether the women are taking French classes and whether they have started looking for work in other domains. The main goal of this legal provision very
clearly is to allow foreign women working in prostitution to stop doing this work.
9
The wife of Moses, Cippora is the name of an immigrant woman of"foreign"origin in the bible.
10
Most interviews took place in English, rather than French. So as to guarantee the security of the interviewed women, all names have been changed in
this paper.
11
Marjan Wijers and Lin Lap-Chew, Trafficking in women, Forced Labour and Slavery-like Practices in Marriage, Domestic Labour and Prostitution
(GAATW, 1999), 189- 211.
12
These attitudes and explanatory frameworks came out clearly in statements by volunteers in the NGO through which I had contacted the women of this
study, but they are also inherent in much journalistic work on the subject.
13
Whilst portrayals of trafficked women like to uphold the ideal that women should "stay home," gender discrimination can be one of the many factors
that pushes women towards a decision for migration. Hence both the discourse on trafficked women, as well as the actual causal patterns of their
migration are gendered, but in acutely different ways.
14
Ratna Kapur, "Travel Plans: Border Crossings and the Rights of Transnational Migrants," Harvard Human Rights Journal 18 (2005), 116- 119.
15
Julia O"Connell Davidson and Bridget Anderson, "The trouble with 'trafficking,'" in Trafficking and Women's Rights, eds. Christien van den Anker and
Jeroen Doomernik, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 22– 23.
16
Draft Report of the European Experts Group on "trafficking" in Human Beings (Brussels: 2004), 10.
17
It is not clear from the interview material to what extent various people at different stages of the migration process (and in that respect
smugglers,"traffickers"and pimps) are organizationally linked up with one another.
18
Siriporn Skrobanek et al., The traffic in Women: Human Realities of the International Sex Trade (London: 1997), 98.
19
Claire Escoffier, "Communautés d'itinérance et savoir-circuler des transmigrant-e-s au Maghreb" (Ph.D. diss, Université Toulouse II, 2006), 189.
20
Diana Wong, "The Rumour of 'trafficking'– Border controls, Illegal Migration, and the Sovereignty of the Nation State," in Illicit Flows and Criminal
Things – States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalisation, eds. Willem van Schendel and Itty Abraham (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 2005), 82.
21
Paola Tabet, La grande arnaque – sexualité des femmes et échanges économico- sexuel (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2004).
22
Rijk van Dijk, "Voodoo on the Doorstep: Young Nigerian Prostitutes and Magic Policing in the Netherlands," Africa: Journal of the International
African Institute 71-4 (2001), 572 and 558- 586.
23
Diana Wong, "The Rumour of trafficking" in Illicit Flows and Criminal Things – States, Borders, and the Other Side of Globalisation, eds. Willem van
Schendel and Itty Abraham, (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005), 89.
24
Ratna Kapur, "Cross-border Movements and the Law: Renegotiating the Boundaries of Difference," in Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New
1
Focus Point
▪ 44 ▪
Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights, eds. Kamala Kempadoo, (London: Paradigm Publishers, 2005), 31.
25
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, adopted by General Assembly
resolution 45/158 of 18 December 1990.
▪ 45 ▪
Maybritt Jill Alpes
People for Sale?
Three different approaches to Human Trafficking
Laura Kokko
All the major international organizations are involved in the fight against
human trafficking. The present article discusses the three most common
approaches to trade in persons; it examines the trafficking as human rights
violation, illegal business and culturally patterned practice. The author
argues that it is essential to acknowledge the dividing lines between these
major currents in the fight against trafficking.
I
t was supposed to be clear from the beginning.
Human trafficking is not transporting people.
It is purchasing them. Contrary to the
smuggling of migrants, trafficking is carried
out against the victim's will. It involves deception,
coercion, abduction, fraud, debt bondage or abuse
of power.
So it was said, and so it was addressed—as an
issue of organized crime and human rights violation.
But as trafficking rose up the political agenda and
the knowledge of its operations spread, alternative
positions began to emerge in international
discourse, contesting the prevailing human rights
and law enforcement approach. Besides studying
human trafficking as a crime under international
law, new approaches started to see it as an illegal
business, and as such, subordinate to the economic
laws of supply and demand. Furthermore, trade
in humans began to be examined in the context
of local traditions in the countries of origin. In
other words, it was observed that specific cultural
practices encouraged and rationalized trafficking.
In the light of recent observations, the initial
rather simplistic divide between voluntary and
forced migration has turned into appreciation
of something more complex. Depending on
the standpoint, studies of trafficking produce
very different interpretations, even conflicting
information, about the nature of the problem. Yet
this divergence of views remains undebated in
the international arena. This is not to say that the
disagreement would not have been identified. It
has just not been openly discussed.
The aim of this article is therefore to clear the
way for an explicit debate regarding what appears
to be the main apple of discord in anti-trafficking:
the role of the victim. Is his involvement voluntary
or coerced? Is the divide between forced and
voluntary migration as clear-cut as it appeared in
the beginning? Through the presentation of three
Laura Kokko holds a Master's degree in Anthropology from the University of Helsinki and one in Conflicts and Security
Studies from Sciences Po Paris. She interned at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2005
and is currently working as a Planning Officer of International Projects at the Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences.
Focus Point
▪ 46 ▪
different approaches to trafficking, the article
seeks to bring up the controversial binaries and
congruencies between trafficking and voluntary
migration.
The selected three approaches do not constitute
an exhaustive list of all the positions taken in
the field, and other authors have categorized the
existing schools of thought differently. Nicole
Lindstrom for instance, presents four approaches
to human trafficking, calling them migration,
law-enforcement, human rights and economic
approaches. 1 This article's division of antitrafficking standpoints in the three separate currents
is therefore made only to demonstrate the conflicts,
which arise from the disagreement on the role
of victim in trafficking. This is to say that there
exist also other contradictory elements between
the different approaches to anti-trafficking, but
the scope of this article does not allow them to be
discussed here.
Though provocative in its formulation, this
article aims to find common goals rather than to
pick a quarrel. As the measures taken against the
trade in persons reflect different worldviews and
particular interests of the agents in the field, it is
important to compare the existing approaches.
Chosen measures bear varying assumptions on
the nature of the problem and produce differing
results. In addition, unsettled disagreements lead
to unnecessary conflicts and disguised turf wars,
even though the actors combating human trade
should play in the same side. To avoid various
anti-trafficking efforts proving inconsistent and
ineffective, the article recommends open and direct
discussion on the presumed factors engendering
trafficking.
Trafficking is Human Rights Violation
"I was one of the victims of trafficking in Italy. One
of my clients decided to help me and get me out
of prostitution. After reporting to the police and to
the Italian State Attorney's Office, I co-operated in
the criminal proceedings against members of the
organized crime group dealing with prostitution.
During these proceedings, the police put me in a
cheap motel where criminals soon found me. They
kidnapped and abused me. They beat my face with
a hammer, I became unrecognizable. I turned to the
client who first helped me. Talks with the police
soon followed, and extradition too, since I am the
citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina."2
Anywhere between 700,000 to four million
people worldwide are estimated to have fallen
victim to trafficking in recent years.3 Accordingly,
trafficking has become an increasing concern of
various international organizations and NGOs,
and several conventions have been drawn up take
up the gauntlet.4
Fight against trafficking has very legalistic
roots. For long, the issue was seen mostly through
the prism of human rights and rule of law, and
accordingly, most of the anti-trafficking efforts
consisted of crime investigation and victim
assistance based on international conventions.
The UN Resolution 49/166 adopted in 1995
is commonly considered to have given the major
impulse to international anti-trafficking initiatives,
as the General Assembly condemned "illicit
and clandestine movement of persons across
national and international borders."5 Thenceforth,
several conventions have been drafted in different
international arenas. The most well-known of
them is the Palermo Protocol (2000), or Protocol
to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking
in Persons, Especially Women and Children
supplementing the United Nations Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime.6
Whereas the UN Resolution somewhat confuses
trafficking with "undocumented migration," the
Palermo Protocol defines trafficking clearly as
"recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring
or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use
of force or other forms of coercion." The clearcut
divide between voluntary and forced migration
creeps in and the main emphasis of the Palermo
Protocol lies in law enforcement action.
Consequently, different agencies have come
up with action plans that focus on catching the
perpetrators and bringing justice to victims.
Whereas Europol, Interpol and national agencies
cooperate in border control, crime investigation
and prosecution, the UN agencies together with the
European Union (EU), International Organization
▪ 47 ▪
Laura Kokko
for Migration (IOM), Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and NGOs
like La Strada have promoted legal reforms and
granted assistance to victims in the form of legal
protection, shelters and repatriation services.7
While important headway has been made
with regard to new anti-trafficking legislation,
enforcement in most countries is still very
weak. Despite some successful investigations,
prosecution rates remain low. Similar concerns
apply also to the victim assistance. Appropriate
framework seems to be in place, yet it will not
produce expected results. Weak law enforcement
and declining efficiency of victim protection can
be attributed to various facts:8
effective law enforcement.12 Direct involvement
of police, judiciary and politicians in trafficking
constitutes one of the biggest challenges to
counter-trafficking efforts, as it implies that "the
fox is set to keep the geese."
These observations call for the serious
reconsideration of today's policies used to fight
trafficking. Improved law enforcement and victim
assistance are still considered integral parts of
the counter-trafficking activities. Yet today, many
international actors are convinced that damage
control measures alone cannot stop the flow of
trafficking. Accordingly, they have sought to
develop alternative tools to tackle the problem.
Taking notice of the deeply embedded structural
• Trafficked victims are not easily identified. causes of human trade—such as the socioThey are often treated as irregular migrant economic context in the countries of origin and
workers, which usually provides for the destination—some international organizations
have insisted on more preventive than curative
immediate deportation.
• Victim protection mechanisms are insufficient. counter-measures. Convinced that the emphasis
Majority of court cases rely mainly on on law enforcement and victim protection alone
the testimony of victims. Under present cannot eradicate the "root causes" of trafficking,
circumstances however, victims are reluctant some agencies have shifted their funding priorities
to denounce forced labour practices, as they away from law enforcement and border control to
are afraid of deportation or revenge of the economic and political development.13
trafficker.
• As victims have become increasingly aware Trafficking is Dirty Business
that their assistance is conditional on repatriation
or testifying against traffickers in prosecution "As all normal school girls, I too had dreamt
cases, they choose not to seek help. As a of going to Kathmandu to find better work and
result, the numbers of assisted victims are education opportunities. I felt that opportunity came
when my close friend Nanu Maya told me that she
decreasing.9
• Recent reports suggest that the traffickers had an uncle, Babu Krishney, in Kathmandu who
have adjusted their strategy to increased law was willing to help me get a good job."14
Contrary to victim protection and criminal
enforcement by using more subtle forms of
coercion that are difficult to identify and prove prosecution, the economic approach to antitrafficking places emphasis on the policies
in court.10
• Re-trafficking has been identified as an addressing the broader socio-economic conditions
increasingly prevalent problem. The 2005 that lead to the trade in persons.15
Firstly, trafficking can be seen as illegal business
IOM Balkans Regional Contact Point report
documents that anywhere between 3 to 50% of fuelled by the itch for tremendous profits. It is
women repatriated from destination countries to impossible to come up with exact figures but it is
their home from 2003 to 2005 were re-trafficked estimated that the profits generated by trafficking
are only rivalled by those of trafficking in drugs.16
within a year.11
• Especially in the countries of transition, The worldwide trade in persons has been estimated
corruption is a major impediment to more by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime at $7
Focus Point
▪ 48 ▪
billion annually. The International Labour Office
(ILO) estimates the total illicit profits produced
by trafficked forced labourers in one year to be as
high as $32 billion.17
Secondly, trafficking can be explained in the
light of the economic laws of supply and demand
(of people):
on trustworthy social connections or legal channels,
whereas the majority of forced labour victims have
fallen prey to unscrupulous intermediaries who
exploit the lack of awareness among prospective
migrants.20
In the context of increased global economic
ties, the international community has come up with
anti-trafficking efforts that build partnerships with
• Demand in the countries of destination
private sector and seek to develop projects that
In the countries of destination, the demand for tackle the socio-economic factors engendering
cheap or forced labour in the sectors that cannot trafficking. Since the Dutch chairmanship in 2003,
be relocated is high in the context of increasing the OSCE for instance has paid more attention to
global competition. Trafficking occurs mainly the material "root causes"of trafficking by inviting
in the margins of formal economy with seasonal its member countries to look at the financial
employment. The sectors most frequently flows linked to trafficking and to involve private
mentioned are agriculture,
sector in the struggle against
21
construction, garments and
" The economic approach trafficking.
textiles industry, catering
Today, OSCE supports the
implicitly contests the rigid
and restaurant, domestic
binary of trafficking-versus- Code of Conduct to hospitality
work, entertainment and
smuggling set up by the and tourism industry in Southsex industry. The latest
Eastern Europe with a view to
human
rights
approach."
research has also found
enhancing the commitment of
coercive recruitment and
companies to support counteremployment practices in the mainstream trafficking efforts. In addition, the organization has
economic sectors, including food processing, sought to promote the understanding of the role that
health care and contract cleaning.18
the private sector can play in cultivating the skills
• Supply in the countries of origin
demanded by the labour market. To this end, OSCE
On the supply side, vulnerability in the countries has carried out projects that provide vulnerable
of origin for trafficking ensues from the local population groups with marketable job skills
poverty, lack of economic opportunities and and employment opportunities. Local business
discrimination in the labour market. As a community has participated in these projects
dual consequence of declining employment through their corporate social responsibility
opportunities and rising consumer aspirations, programmes.
there are growing incentives to migrate from
Moreover, the ILO is very active in the economic
the less to the more affluent countries. Poor approach of anti-trafficking. Ever since it launched
employment conditions in the countries of origin the Special Action Programme to Combat Forced
induce people to confide in the traffickers'false Labour in 2001, it has considered human trade as
promises of lucrative jobs abroad.19
economic exploitation of uninformed migrants
and has addressed the issue as part of its effort
Thirdly, human trafficking can be simply defined to promote international labour standards on the
as migration gone terribly wrong. As the wealthier basis of the two core ILO Conventions: the Forced
countries place more and more barriers in the Labour Convention (1930) and the Worst Form of
way of lawful and regular migration, criminal Child Labour Convention (1999).
elements sense the opportunity to reap large profits.
As can be seen from the ILO position, an
Most human trafficking occurs during the course economic approach seeks to find ways to prevent
of voluntary but ill-prepared and uninformed trafficking by integrating counter-trafficking
migration. "Successful migrants" rely more often measures into larger programmes that address
▪ 49 ▪
Laura Kokko
primarily the issues of poverty, migration and
labour market discrimination. It follows that the
economic approach implicitly contests the rigid
binary of trafficking-versus-smuggling set up by
the human rights approach. By turning its attention
to the material push-and-pull factors fuelling the
trade in persons, this approach argues that it is only
the traffickers'false promises of legal work that
turn voluntary migration into trafficking. Criminals
profit from the steady supply of unemployed and
displaced people who are forced to take desperate
measures to penetrate wealthier countries.
As a general rule, advocates of the economic
approach assent to the human rights approach,
maintaining that gullible victims are lured to live
their home. In other words, what begins as voluntary
migration may end up in trafficking. Yet some
authors have begun to suggest that the "trafficking
victims" migrate in fact more or less voluntarily
even if they have realistic idea on their destination.
This conclusion results from the ongoing cycle of
re-trafficking that has been observed to take place
among the victims repatriated by international
aid organizations.22 People can be cheated once,
but what makes them to fall victim to trafficking
repeatedly?
implies that besides economic and legal conditions,
central to the understanding of trafficking is how
this practice is accepted as a temporary solution to
an economic crisis.26
In the light of recent findings, some authors have
begun to question the involvement of deception and
coercion in trafficking. Instead, they have claimed
that specific cultural practices embedded in family
and kinships systems encourage and rationalize
trafficking, especially in the periods of dislocation
and social stress. The following examples illustrate
the importance of underlying cultural factors that
fuel trafficking:
Trafficking is Culturally Patterned
Practice
"When I came home I did not feel really welcome.
[The parents] already knew that I had escaped
from the exploiter. [The trafficker] called them
and threatened them, asking them to give back the
money he had spent on my trip to Greece if I did
not go back. My father was angry because he could
not see a way to pay him back."23
Families are sometimes found complicit
in the trafficking of minors. According to the
Second Annual Report on Victims of Trafficking
in South-Eastern Europe (2005), trafficking
occurs frequently with family awareness, if not
consent. 24 Similarly, findings of the 1998 La
Strada Programme shows that for many Central
and Eastern European women, sex work abroad
is viewed as one of the few available means to
escape poverty in their home countries.25 This data
Focus Point
▪ 50 ▪
• "Pai tai auo dap na" is a Thai proverb that
means literally "go prepared to die in front
of the sword." Anders Lisborg (1998) uses
it to describe the permissive Thai attitude
towards bonded labour. He refutes the image of
trafficked victims as being weak and passive.
On the contrary, Lisborg portrays them as
enterprising, courageous and willing to take
initiatives to improve their living conditions.
Working in the slavery-like conditions is viewed
among the Thai as a logical and rational means
to become a successful breadwinner for the
family. Individual emotions are neglected in
order to fulfil collective family obligations.27
• In the north of Albania, there is a link
between trafficking and blood feuds.28 In some
circumstances, blood feuds occur when a family
takes revenge for the trafficking of one of its
family members. In other cases, trafficking
may be the end result of a blood feud in that the
female family member must find work because
it is not safe for male family members to leave
the house. Women, whose family is engaged in
blood feud, may also be contacted by traffickers
for "marriage."29
• In Western Europe, the "American dream"
is often scorned, but to many East Europeans
emerging from Communist rule, aspiration to
ever higher standard of living remains strong.
Further encouraged by the naive ideas of easy
earnings abroad, they are willing to work hard
now and have the opportunity to be well-off and
independent in the future. La Strada Programme
gives the example of an East European
gynaecologist who wanted to set up her own
clinic and sold herself into prostitution to earn
quick money in the short term.30 These types of
"victims" are not interested in social benefits or
labour conditions: they want cash, much of it,
and they want it now!31
• Amongst Vietnamese Khmer, bride wealth
and exchange of gifts at the time of marriage
has been a common practice for long.32 While
traditional society may see no moral problem
with the marital exchange of women, once
the bride wealth enters the modern capitalist
market, its whole meaning changes. Faced with
increasing rural poverty, many young men have
begun to migrate to cities. Due to the shortage
of eligible men, many Khmer parents are
enticed by the payments offered by traffickers,
who promise to find a good husband for their
daughters but instead transport young women
to brothels in Saigon or across the border.
Bride wealth has transformed itself from the
traditional exchange into market transaction and
turned into trafficking in women.33
largely neglected topic in the international arena,
most probably because the cultural relativism
contradicts so clearly with the prevailing paradigm
of universal human rights. It is also feared that the
cultural justification of human trafficking would
pave the way for uncritical and biased preference
of policies limiting immigration.
It follows that the cultural approach has initiated
very few policy responses. Usually, cultural
conceptions are attacked by awareness raising
campaigns that aim to make trafficking in human
beings socially unacceptable. In Thailand for
instance, the National Commission on Women's
Affairs (NCWA) has tried to change male sexual
norms through a national poster campaign with
messages showing a child with a text: "my father
does not visit prostitutes." The Lao government
has initiated an array of prevention efforts through
print, radio, and television campaigns. Funded by
NGOs, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare
has produced a drama programme and billboards on
trafficking in Lao, Hmong, and Khu languages.36
As can be seen from the examples above,
certain cultural practices precursor or create
the preconditions for contemporary forms of
trafficking. Therefore, better understanding of the
cultural context, in which trade in humans occurs
and by which the normalcy of certain behaviours
is justified, is central to the counter-trafficking
efforts. What is common in one country may be
unacceptable or even illegal in another.34
In addition, Louise Shelley suggests that there
are significant cultural differences in trafficking
organizations reflecting the centuries old trade
patterns of the regions, where trafficking operations
are based. In her study, she identifies different
models of business operating in trafficking,
dividing the groups in geographical business types
or criminal enterprises: Post-Soviet organized
crime, Chinese traffickers, Mexican trade, Balkan
crime groups, trafficking out of Nigeria and
West Africa and legalized brothel keeping in
Netherlands.35
Cultural differences are however a sensitive and
One question, various answers—this article
has reviewed three different approaches to human
trafficking. After the review, it goes without saying
that there is no easy or one-dimensional solution
to human trafficking, since it is influenced by a
complex set of factors. An effective strategy must
combine and balance punitive measures with
protection of human rights and the removal of the
economic and cultural root causes.
In fact, several international organizations
involved in anti-trafficking are already holding
regular meetings to exchange experiences, learn
from each other, avoid duplication and dovetail
their activities.37 The Alliance Against Trafficking
in Persons for instance is a close partnership
with relevant international actors developing
effective joint strategies to fight against trafficking.
Furthermore, UN agencies, OSCE and IOM
launched a year ago the UN Global Initiative to
Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) aimed at
proposing innovative approaches for the study of
human trafficking.
Conclusions
▪ 51 ▪
Laura Kokko
These meetings bring up gaps and conflicting origin. From the perspective of the human rights
approaches in the field of anti-trafficking, showing approach, addressing the economic root causes of
how the measures chosen by organizations reflect trafficking falls within the scope of basic economic
the taste and ideological convictions of the agency development activities and should therefore not be
in question. During the last UN.GIFT meeting, for treated as a counter-trafficking effort.
instance, the IOM presented a survey, according
Secondly, it goes without saying that the cultural
to which sex trafficking in women has often approach is unacceptable to the supporters of human
been over-emphasized at the expense of labour rights position. The doctrine of cultural relativism
exploitation of boys and men.38
simply contradicts the idea of universal human
While all critical observations on the current rights and the studies on the cultural precursors
counter-trafficking efforts are welcome, it is of trafficking remain largely in the margins of
disquieting to notice that what appears to be the anti-trafficking community. Counter-trafficking
biggest bone of contention
agencies are strongly
among the anti-trafficking
dominated by human rights
actors today is passed over " [States] are tempted to frame actors, and with good reason,
in silence. Whereas the trade in persons as a simple they work hard to convince
human rights approach problem of illegal immigration. state leaders to support their
clearly distinguishes the
cause. To admit cultural
This
is
a
horrifying
scenario."
trafficking from migrant
factors behind trafficking
smuggling, the divide
would be detrimental to their
between trafficking and voluntary migration is strivings for the better recognition of victims'rights,
much more indistinct in economic and cultural especially today, when many governments opt
approaches. According to the human rights for severe immigration policies and immediate
approach, victims are always recruited against deportations.
their own will. The economic approach admits
Indeed, cultural approach comes in useful for
the victims'initial will to emigrate but stresses the the states that are willing to gain support for their
importance of untrustworthy middlemen that turn policies of tighter borders and stricter visa regimes.
migration into trafficking. Eventually, the cultural Supported by the data proving the victims'consent
approach suggests that some victims actually to trafficking, they are tempted to frame trade in
consent to trafficking even when they are fully persons as a simple problem of illegal immigration.
aware of the exploitative nature of their work.
This is a horrifying scenario not only to human
Unfortunately, the underlying disagreement rights actors but also to the agencies advocating an
on the role of the victim in trafficking is largely economic approach, because according to them, it
ignored in policy formulations and never explicitly is actually the recent global tightening of asylum
debated. Usually in lieu of open debates, conflicting admissions that has increased trafficking by forcing
views manifest themselves in the disguised form of many desperate people to turn to illegal means to
turf wars and unnecessary rivalry between different migrate. What is a root cause for one is a remedy
actors.
for the other.39
To mention one example, it is commonplace
It is unfortunately in this context of conflicting
to observe turf wars between the actors that approaches that anti-trafficking activities take place,
advocate law enforcement measures and those and it comes to as no surprise to the reader that
that call for preventive action. If the trafficking incoherent strategies and turf wars have resulted in
is considered a crime against human rights, it weak results. This is a sad observation, given that
is more relevant to prosecute perpetrators and the common enemy would call for the concerted
bring justice to victims than to tackle the lack of counter-actions and effective cooperation.
employment opportunities and dissatisfaction with
This is why it would be high time to develop
local labour and wage conditions in the country of a comprehensive anti-trafficking strategy that
Focus Point
▪ 52 ▪
would take into consideration the complex divide
between trafficking and voluntary migration.
Multisectoral working structures have already
been established. They seek sustainable solutions
through coordination between different agencies
as well as origin, transit and receiving countries.
Yet the policy formulations prepared by these
structures keep on ignoring the actors' differing
views on the victims' role in trafficking. As long
as there is no agreed consensus on the relation
between the two positions, efficient cooperation
remains a distant dream.
It is by no means an easy task, for the search for
common ground requires the opening of debates on
very sensitive issues. Yet it is wiser to deal with the
conflict than to pretend that it does not exist, for it is
only through the recognition of incoherence in the
frontline that will enable the formulation of more
united and convincing positions in the future.
▪ 53 ▪
Laura Kokko
Notes
Nicole Lindstrom, "Transnational Responses to Human Trafficking: The Politics of Anti-Trafficking in the Balkans," Maxwell School of Syracuse
University Women Caucus Human and Sex Trafficking Speaker Series (2005). http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/programs/ces/pcconfpdfs/
Lindstrom.pdf.
2
Extract from an interview quoted in Munir Podumljak, Influence of Corruption on Trafficking in Humans (Zagreb: ACTA Anti-Corruption AntiTrafficking Action, 2005), 1.
3
Daan Everts, "Human Trafficking: The Ruthless Trade in Human Misery," Brown Journal of World Affairs 10 (2003) (2003), 149.
4
Sexual exploitation of women is probably the most well-known, but not the only form of trafficking. Other forms include forced labour, begging,
delinquency, organ removal and adoption. Rebecca Surtees, Second Annual Report on Victims of Trafficking in South-Eastern Europe (IOM International
Organization for Migration, 2005).
5
In fact, the concern over human trafficking dates back to 19th century, when it was often called "white slave traffic." Lynellyn D. Long identifies
various United States authorities who were worried about "rural white innocent girls being taken advantage of by notorious Parisians and dark-skinned
Mediterranean men." The International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade was passed at a meeting in Paris, 1904. Convention was
refined and expanded gradually untill the Second World War, but there seems to be little counter-trafficking activities during the Cold War period. It does
not appear on the international agenda again until the 1980s. Lynellyn D. Long, "Anthropological Perspectives on the Trafficking of Women for Sexual
Exploitation," International Migration 42 (2004), 20.
6
Jyothi Kanics, Gabriele Reiter and Bärbel Heide Uhl, "Trafficking in Human Beings: A Threat under Control? Taking Stock Four Years after Major
International Efforts Started," Helsinki Monitor 16 (2005), 53.
7
University Women Caucus Human and Sex Trafficking Speaker Series (2005), 5, http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/programs/ces/pcconfpdfs/
Lindstrom.pdf.
8
A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour, Global Report under the Follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work,
Report to the Director-general (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2005), 51- 60.
9
Lindstrom.pdf.
10
Report to the Director-general (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2005), 51- 60.
11
Lindstrom.pdf.
12
Munir Podumljak, Influence of Corruption on Trafficking in Humans (ACTA Anti-Corruption Anti-Trafficking Action, 2005), 5.
13
University Women Caucus Human and Sex Trafficking Speaker Series (2005) 7, http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/programs/ces/pcconfpdfs/
Lindstrom.pdf.
14
Trafficked victim quoted in Phyllis Coontz and Catherine Griebel, "International Approaches to Human Trafficking: The Call for Gender-Sensitive
Perspective in International Law," Women's Health Journal 4 (2004), 6.
15
Lindstrom.pdf.
16
Daan Everts, "Human Trafficking: The Ruthless Trade in Human Misery," Brown Journal of World Affairs 10 (2003), 151.
17
David A. Feingold, "Think Again: Human Trafficking," Foreign Policy, 84 (?) (2005), 28.
18
Report to the Director-general (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2005), 52.
19
Helen Santiago Fink and Sebastian Baumeister, Economic Aspects of Trafficking in Human Beings and the Role of Private Sector (Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe, Office of the Co-ordinator of Economic and Environmental Activities, 2005), 2.
20
Report to the Director-general (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2005), 46-48.
21
Jyothi Kanics, Gabriele Reiter and Bärbel Heide Uhl, "Trafficking in Human Beings: A Threat under Control? Taking Stock Four Years after Major
International Efforts Started," Helsinki Monitor 16 (2005), 60; Daan Everts, "Human Trafficking: The Ruthless Trade in Human Misery," Brown Journal
of World Affairs 10 (2003), 153.
22
Lindstrom.pdf.
23
Extract from the interview of a child victim returned home by the ILO, quoted in Rebecca Surtees, "Alternative Forms of Trafficking Minors: Articulating
Victim Profiles and Conceptualising Interventions" (paper presented at the Childhoods Conference of the International Organization for Migration and the
Nexus Institute for Combating Human Trafficking, June 29–July 3, 2005 in Oslo, Norway).
24
Ibid., 20.
25
John Salt, and Jennifer Hogarth, "Migrant Trafficking and Human Smuggling in Europe: A Review of the Evidence" in Migrant Trafficking and Human
Smuggling in Europe: A Review of the Evidence with Case Studies from Hungary, Poland and Ukraine, eds. Frank Laczko and David Thompson (Geneva:
1
Focus Point
▪ 54 ▪
International Organization for Migration, 2000), 74.
26
Some authors have gone as fas as to emphasize subjective deprivation instead of absolute poverty as a push factor for trafficking. The spread of new
forms of consumerism and increasing materialism are considered to be more dangerous for potential victims than their objective economic situation.
According to Anders Lisborg, increasing competitive consumerism uncritically preached by the media, has led to a rising number of Thai university and
college students entering prostitution. Lisborg writes that "[t]ypically these girls are not hard up as the parents sponsor their tuition fees, but they become
sex-workers in order to acquire fasnionable mobile phones and brand name handbags." Anders Lisborg, "Bodies across Borders: Prostitution Related
Migration from Thailand to Denmark" (Working Paper 139, Department of Geography, Roskilde University Denmark, 1998), 26.
27
Ibid., 21, 24.
28
Blood feud is a long-running fight between two groups of people, usually extended families. Feuds begin when a member of one group attacks or
insults a member of the other. Usually, blood feuds turn gradually into long-running cycles of retaliation. Laura Manninen Aro et al., eds., Jargon:
Kulttuuriantropologian englanti-suomi–oppisanasto, (Jyväskylä: Kopi-Jyvä, 1995), 25, 62.
29
Rebecca Surtees, e-mail message to author, December 7, 2005.
30
John Salt, and Jennifer Hogarth, "Migrant Trafficking and Human Smuggling in Europe: A Review of the Evidence" in Migrant Trafficking and Human
Smuggling in Europe: A Review of the Evidence with Case Studies from Hungary, Poland and Ukraine, eds. Frank Laczko and David Thompson (Geneva:
International Organization for Migration, 2000), 74.
31
Gijspert van Liemt, "Human Trafficking in Europe: an Economic Perspective," (paper prepared for the International Labour Office's Special Action
Programme to Combat Forced Labour, 2003, place?), 20. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=forcedlabor
32
Bride price or bride wealth is a customary payment to formalize a marriage between two families. It is paid by the groom's family to the bride's family,
thus giving the husband a right to his wife's children and work. Note the difference with dowry, which is paid to the parents of the groom, cf. endnote
28: Jargon (1995), 26.
33
Lynellyn D. Long, "Anthropological Perspectives on the Trafficking of Women for Sexual Exploitation," International Migration 42 (2004), 11.
34
Rebecca Surtees, "Alternative Forms of Trafficking Minors: Articulating Victim Profiles and Conceptualising Interventions" (paper presented at the
Childhoods Conference of the International Organization for Migration and the Nexus Institute for Combating Human Trafficking, June 29–July 3, 2005
in Oslo, Norway), 23.
35
Louise Shelley, "Trafficking in Women: The Business Model Approach," Brown Journal of World Affairs 10 (2003), 129.
36
Asian Regional Initiative against Trafficking, http://www.humantrafficking.org, (accessed February, 5, 2008).
37
Daan Everts, "Human Trafficking: The Ruthless Trade in Human Misery," Brown Journal of World Affairs 10 (2003), 153.
38
Frank Laczko and Elzbieta Gozdziak, eds., Data and Research on Human Trafficking: A Global Survey, (Geneva: International Organization for
Migration, 2005). UN.GIFT Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, http://www.ungift.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=637&
Itemid=910, (accessed February 5, 2008).
39
David A. Feingold, "Think Again: Human Trafficking," Foreign Policy 87 (2005), 27.
▪ 55 ▪
Laura Kokko
Human Security, Sex Trafficking and Deep
Structural Explanations
Karen Dunlop
Sex trafficking of women is driven by structures, cultures, beliefs and
behaviors that are normally associated with crime and the parallel economy.
But these explanations fail to consider the deep structural underpinnings
of control violence and legitimated abuse of women as human beings.
This article develops deep structural explanations, which provide a more
meaningful and nuanced consideration of what drives the sex trade.
S
ex trafficking of women has developed
into a lucrative shadow market, and a
report on human trafficking by the United
Nations highlights its global breadth,
growing severity and pervasive nature.1 Although
human security is a deeply contested term, it cannot
be denied that the widespread and legitimized
treatment of the female body as a gendered
commodity and the violence and degradation
which accompanies it violates women's security
and should therefore be understood as a human
security concern. Roberts'approach to bridge
the conceptual gap within this field of study
draws upon an expanding school of thought and
identifies a relationship between human structures
and human security.2 The inclusion of structures
of violence and the role of human agency within
this re-conceptualization provides a manageable
framework from which "human insecurity"3 can
be considered, and control violence such as the
sex trafficking of women may be understood and
examined. The purpose of this article is to consider
sex trafficking not as discrete events that are
unconnected, but to examine them within the wider
framework of human insecurity as structurally
determined. The first section considers the patterns
and flows of trafficked women, identifying the
capture, transit and control of women globally.
The article then moves to address "regular"
explanations for the sexual commodification of
women such as the impact of globalization on the
mechanisms of demand and supply and also the
issue of criminality. Ultimately, the article will
transcend such explanations to identify and develop
deep structural determinants of this form of global
sex violence against women.4
Karen Dunlop has recently completed a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Ulster, having graduated
there in July 2006 with a First Class BA Hons in International Politics and winning the Dean’s Prize for the Faculty of
Arts.
Focus Point
▪ 56 ▪
The Mechanics of Sex Trafficking
What Is Sex Trafficking?
The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women
(GAATW), The Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women (CATW), and bodies such as the European
Commission and Europol offer a wide range of
definitions.5 Kelly and Regan conclude that "the
key difference between these definitions is the
extent to which they locate trafficking in women
for sexual exploitation as a sub-category within a
wider concept of trafficking in persons, or present
it as a particular form." 6 Hughes defines sex
trafficking as: "Any practice that involves moving
people within and across local or national borders
for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Trafficking
may be the result of force, coercion, manipulation,
deception, abuse of authority, initial consent, family
pressure, past and present family and community
violence, economic deprivation, or other conditions
of inequality for women and children."7
As this definition implies, there are multiple
phases, connections and areas associated with this
process. The 2006 United Nations report on human
trafficking highlights this complexity and identifies
"127 countries of origin, 98 transit countries and
137 destination countries."8 The following section
sketches the mechanics of trafficking, in part to
substantiate claims of complexity and breadth, but
also because this is the first stage of understanding
the power relationship between traffickers and
trafficked people—an allusion to the deep structural
nature of this vast problem.
Capture
The estimates of women and girls entering the
global commercial sex market every year ranges
from $1.2 million9 to a significantly higher figure
of $4 million.10 Hughes argues that this variation
can in part be explained by the fact that "the
trade is secretive, the women are silenced, the
traffickers are dangerous, and not many agencies
are counting."11 Sheila Jeffreys maintains that
"trafficking in women for prostitution is a problem
in all regions of the world."12
The continuous supply of women to global sex
markets relies greatly upon the methods of operation
and recruitment which traffickers have developed.
Such methods include recruitment through
newspaper advertisements offering hopeful job
opportunities to many women caught in economic
difficulty in their home country;13 or the use of
"marriage agencies" to contact women and entice
them with offers of travel and emigration.14 People
may also be recruited through an acquaintance.
"Second wave" recruiting involves trafficked
women returning to their country of origin to
recruit more women for the industry.15 The factor
of consent has often been used to legitimize the
exploitation of women through sex trafficking by
the men who sell them. However, Kelly and Regan
emphasize that "they are not made aware of the
extent to which they will be indebted, intimidated,
exploited and controlled."16 In addition, women
are stolen from streets ("kidnapped"), and they
may also be "donated" by very poor families
whose alternatives have expired. Reckless social
behaviour like gambling also involves debt
repayment in, for example, daughters.17
Transit
Transit refers to "the countries that make up the
transnational route by which a victim is transported
from their country of origin to a destination country
determined by the traffickers."18 The routes used
demonstrate the global networks which traffickers
can now utilise, and hence, the extent of suffering
for the women involved. Monzini stresses that
today's markets and routes may be influenced by
"previous relations of colonial domination… the
power of attraction of certain sex markets; and
the profitability of exploitation given the price
differential for sexual services between nearby
countries."19 Together with the factor of "the sharp
rise in certain long-distance migratory flows,"20
Monzini states "that the various sources have
slowly come together in a single global network."21
Indeed, price differentials need not relate to nearby
countries. The reduced cost of air travel to places
like Thailand make such travel justifiable because
of the extremely low relative rates for sex between
▪ 57 ▪
Karen Dunlop
Europe and Eastern Asia. Stereotyping of mythical women also work the sex markets of Southeast
sexual capacities ("the exotic Orient"), a trend Asia for men whose tastes do not extend to Asian
women. Moreover, the Philippines provide a rich
found in colonialism, persist to this day.
source of women who are sold and trafficked
into sex and submission to the Middle East and
Transit: Routes within Europe
London, amongst other places. A similar disaster
Transit routes have developed and become longer awaits Africans and Latin Americans. A 2006
and more structured and it is argued that the United Nations report on human trafficking states
increasing expansion of the European Union has that: "Western Africa is the reported sub-region
transformed countries that were previously areas from which most of the trafficking in persons in
of origin or transit into destination areas. Within the region originates. Among origin countries in
Eastern Europe, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia Africa, Nigeria is the only country which is ranked
now form areas of transit and exploitation for very high, according to the citation index, followed
women from the former Soviet republics, travelling by Benin, Ghana and Morocco, all of which rank
west.22 Belgrade, which has been described as the high."29
Transit from West Africa is not the end of
"gateway to the Balkans, has become the hub for
this
story: women are sex trafficked from Africa
traffic heading towards Slovenia and Albania, from
where it is possible to gain access to the Schengen to the Middle East routinely to supply Arabian
area [of Europe]."23 Furthermore, Monzini stresses demand. And Latin America both provides and
that in Belgrade "are the places where women… attracts traffickers. The World Migration Report
are most frequently turned into commodities, to 2005 emphasizes that "in Brazil, some 500,000
be placed on the cheap markets for commercial girls are in the prostitution business, many of
sex."24 Jeffreys emphasizes that the Netherlands them trafficked,"30 with 75,000 Brazilian women
is a major destination point within Europe for the working abroad in the sex industry. Trafficking is
traffic "as well as being a destination for European anticipated to steadily grow due to the increase
prostitution tourism."25 Government policy in in sex tourism within Latin America and the
support of prostitution and the sex industry within Caribbean. The International Organization for
the Netherlands has caused the demand for sexual Migration notes that "adolescents from Columbia,
exploitation and the flow of 30,000 women to the the Dominican Republic and the Philippines have
been trafficked to Costa Rica for prostitution in
estimated 2,000 brothels there.26
areas known as sex tourism destinations."31
Transit: Asia, Africa and Latin America
Control
South East Asia has long been the source of women
trafficked into lucrative sex markets abroad. Monzini states that the handover of trafficked
After the Vietnam War and the development of women represents "entry into a circuit where the
local Thai sex markets, flows west have extended act of exchange may take place over and over
into areas such as Germany, Scandinavia and again, and where a constant threat is present at
Australia. However, highlighting the continual each 'resale.'"32 Passports and documents are often
change in the traffic of women globally, Biemann removed and destroyed and the girl then becomes
states that "Thailand is no longer just a sending aware of the reality of her situation, her entrapment
country, but has also become a country of into prostitution and debt bondage. According to
transit and destination."27 Furthermore, Monzini Biemann, women are now placed "in the contexts
highlights that Bangkok has become a "magnet of the historical spaces of the brothel and the
attracting flows from Vietnam, China, Cambodia colony."33 Lazaridis cites Millett to reiterate this
and Indonesia,"28 especially to work in the "lower exploitation of women: "it is not sex the prostitute
class" brothels in the region. Eastern European is really made to sell; it is degradation. And the
Focus Point
▪ 58 ▪
buyer, the John, is not buying sexuality, but power,
power over another human being."34 This is not
always correct, however: young males travelling
to the East are indeed attracted to different looking
young women whose sexual services are provided
cheaply and without the "hassle" of emotional
involvement and dating. Power may result in the
commodification process, but this is not solely the
motivation of various "Johns." Lazaridis emphasizes
the marketability of women's bodies when she
states that "their work is characterized by all the
"It is apparent that entrapment
into prostitution and sexual
services is the ultimate agenda
for the traffickers and the women
become objects of male control."
ingredients of flexibility… and transferability,
in that one expects to be transferred from one
geographical location to another as the market
necessitates."35 It is evident that many different
factors complete the cycle of recruitment through
to control and exploitation of trafficked women
within the global sex markets. The patterns and
flows of women are extensive and cross many
complex routes from countries of origin, through
transit regions and onto temporary destination
points. However, it is apparent that entrapment
into prostitution and sexual services is the ultimate
agenda for the traffickers and the women become
objects of male control. The following section
examines conventional explanations for justifying
human female commodification.
Conventional Explanations
The extensive array of literature available on the
issue of sex trafficking clearly indicates recurring
explanations said to promote and maintain the
supply of women demanded by the sex trafficking
industry. However, such explanations are surely
lacking in depth and explanatory prowess, because
they do not deal with the fundamental question
of how men and women can view another human
being as a saleable object, fully aware of the
brutality with which trafficked humans are treated:
like commodities no different from heroine, stolen
cars and other commercial trinkets. The following
section surveys predominant analyses of female sex
trafficking, before building on this and developing
a deeper, structural explanation for this vast, brutal
and in-human trade.
The Economics of Trafficking
Although sex trafficking far predates globalization,
rapacious neoliberalism has accelerated the
demand, supply, mechanics and institutionalization
of sex trafficking. Modern globalization facilitates
sex trafficking, in much the same way that some
modernity scholars argue genocide has been
aggravated by modernity itself. Most explanations
for sex trafficking wrongly focus on this motivation
and the attendant technological mobilization
involved. Furthermore, these are facile arguments,
obvious to any observer. It is clear that consumption
has been expanded into hobby: in airports we
are urged to "relax and shop," to the extent that
consumption is habituated as a social behaviour.
Modernity has enhanced the opportunities for
men to buy sex and the market has responded
accordingly.36 Sex buying has become a legitimate
social behaviour in line with the purchase of many
other commodities, whilst the need to sell sex
"voluntarily" has increased in some parts of the
world as relative wealth declines.37 Authors such as
Jeffreys, Monzini and Kempadoo link the theme of
globalization to what they call the "feminization of
poverty" and hence the need for migration abroad.38
Since many nations with an effective separation
of powers and demonstrable accountability are
attempting to outlaw sex trafficking and, indeed,
prostitution, most trafficking is criminalised.
However, as the economy has globalized, so too
has criminality. Sex trafficking is just one example
of multinational illegal profit-making enterprises
to become "the underbelly of globalization, a
shadow economy that feeds on the process of
global integration."39
Furthermore, some observers link the spread
of pornography to the desire and opportunity to
fulfil male fantasies.40 However, this does not
▪ 59 ▪
Karen Dunlop
explain how one group of humans can see the sale
of another group as legitimate. Fergus argues that
"situating the causes of trafficking solely in terms
of economic or migration issues cannot account
for why the majority of those trafficked… are
most often trafficked into sexual exploitation."41
Moreover, while criminal gangs may be involved,
Kempadoo notes that "in view of the overall
paucity of evidence on the issue of trafficking
globally, it is near impossible to make a claim that
trafficking is entirely or even largely a problem of
organized crime."42 If not economic and criminal,
then, what drives and sustains sex trafficking?
What alternative theories are offered?
Dehumanization and Commodification:
The Power to Marginalize and Sell
Human Beings
Given the brutality of what most sex trafficked
women experience; that this is known but denied
by those who steal and enslave them; that the
process is all but global; and that economics is
better at describing transaction processes than
explaining the acceptance of dehumanization
and commodification in this process, how can we
explain this barbarous behaviour? I turn first of
all to the idea that women's difference in the eyes
of men is a deeply habituated experience that
determines much antipathetic behaviour on the
part of men towards women in general.
Sexual Difference
Eisenstein tells us that "de Beauvoir's analysis
of women's subordination proceeded from
the assumption that men viewed women as
fundamentally different from themselves. In being
so defined, women were reduced to the status of
the second sex."43 De Beauvoir argues that this
difference defines women in relation to men,
rather than autonomous beings. If this is the case,
it would explain male objectification of women as
they are not regarded as equal to men, therefore,
not worthy of the same treatment. De Beauvoir's
analysis is also highly significant as many "secondwave" feminists base their writings on her theory
Focus Point
of difference. "In a number of ways Kate Millet,
Shulamith Firestone, and others expressed the view
that women's differences from men were the chief
mechanism of their oppression."44
Firestone maintains that the childbearing and
reproductive function of women exaggerate and
maintain women's "otherness" from men and hence
a reason which makes them less human in the eyes
of men and more of an object. MacKinnon agrees.
She argues that "men and women were created
different, and not equally privileged… thus, it
was woman's reproductive biology that accounted
for her original and continued oppression." 45
Such approaches are critiqued on the grounds
of their biological essentialism, which Okin and
Mansbridge believe: "Leads to a theoretical deadend, not perhaps a surprising conclusion to an
argument that implicitly accepts the patriarchal
claim that women's subordination is decreed by
nature… it is necessary to develop a feminist
theoretical perspective that takes account of the
social relationships between women and men in
historically specific structures of domination and
subordination."46
Given this criticism, it may be argued that
an explanation based on the"otherness"of the
biological and reproductive features of women is
too oversimplified to explain the sex trafficking
of women, and also the treatment of women in
general. Although it may be a relevant factor
influencing male behaviour, to be of use in giving
an overall explanation, it may be included in a
broader theory.
Misogyny and Patriarchy
What else needs to be added to the notions
developed above? Smith believes that misogyny
(fear and/or hatred of women) and its extent and
subliminal codification may propel violence such
as sex trafficking.47 It has been noted that feminist
writers such as Daly and Brownmiller both believe
that "men fear and despise women while at the
same time desiring and using them to meet their
own various needs."48 Furthermore, the work of
Brownmiller on rape as a symbol of men's overall
access, power and privilege over women may also
▪ 60 ▪
be said to relate to misogyny. However, for some,
these arguments revert to biological determinism.
Eisenstein highlights that "Brownmiller stressed
the primacy of male enmity toward women, and…
the biological origins of this enmity."49 This implies
that anatomical differences are causing male hatred
of women and a justification for the intimidation
and exploitation faced by females. But again, this
is too narrow: not all men hate women and, if
such antagonism is biologically fuelled, why does
it not affect all men similarly? Instead, critical
scholarship veers towards socialized relationship
differences, rather than just biologically essentialist
arguments.
The most common of these is patriarchy, or "the
rule of the father." Patriarchy is presented by the
majority of feminists as the underlying reason for
male domination and subordination of females.
Sylvia Walby defines patriarchy "as a system
of social structures and practices in which men
dominate, oppress and exploit women."50 This
definition avoids the usual biological determinism
often associated with feminist theories. Walby
emphasizes that patriarchy is composed of six
different structures. Of these, patriarchal relations
within sexuality and male violence are most
relevant for understanding sex trafficking. Walby
also argues that "the link between patriarchy and
male-dominated sexuality is central to the analysis
of many radical feminist writers,"51 which include
Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon. It is
clear that patriarchal reconstructions of femininity
infer weakness and provocation of sexual chaos;
hence the reduction of women to a chattel by sex
traffickers becomes an endorsed activity and a
method of social control.
MacKinnon reemphasizes this view of female
objectification by questioning if women are
actually human given the treatment and violence
they are exposed to. MacKinnon asks: "If women
were human, would we be a cash crop shipped
from Thailand in containers into New York's
brothels? Would we be sexual and reproductive
slaves? Would we be bred, worked without pay
our whole lives, burned when our dowry money
wasn't enough or when men tired of us, starved as
widows when our husbands died (if we survived
his funeral pyre)?"52
This statement helps to focus our attention on
the global reach of patriarchal violence affecting
women as well as sustaining the dehumanization
and their treatment as mere objects within a male
dominated society. It may be argued that male
needs and wants are at the top of a gendered
hierarchy and women are used to help meet such
masculine needs.
Heterosexuality and Masculinity
MacKinnon has long been associated with an
analysis and criticism of heterosexuality and
how its patriarchal construction has subordinated
women. Incorporated within this is the theory of
male power and relative female powerlessness.
Such powerlessness of women under patriarchy
is presented as an explanation for the sexual
objectification of women. Women are being sold
as chattels because gender has become sexualised,
just as male power and domination is also sexual.
This power and gender inequality lies at the heart of
societies whose masculine dominance has not been
successfully challenged (by men as well as women).
MacKinnon states that: "Male dominance is sexual.
Meaning: men in particular, if not men alone,
sexualize hierarchy… Recent feminist work… on
rape, battery, sexual harassment, sexual abuse of
children, prostitution, and pornography supports
[this]. These practices, taken together, express and
actualize the distinctive power of men over women
in society; their effective permissibility confirms
and extends it."53
This view is endorsed by both LeMoncheck and
Walby. LeMoncheck states that "the dehumanization
of women in their sexual relations with men is but
a reflection of their subordination in other areas of
their lives."54 This view reflects the problems of
male domination which are engrained into many
aspects of society, perpetuating the acceptance of
female exploitation and objectification.
It is clear that a prominent explanation and
argument for the status and use of women within
the sex trade is the eroticization of male dominance
and how gender has become sexualized, especially
under heterosexuality.55 Walby declares that "while
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Karen Dunlop
some radical feminists argue that specific forms
of sexual domination are important to gender
inequality, MacKinnon contends that sexuality
constitutes gender. The eroticization of dominance
and subordination creates gender as we know
it,"56 and MacKinnon states that "being a thing for
sexual use is fundamental to it."57 Women therefore
become socialized into a particular role and socially
accepted and legitimated norms of behaviour, such
as heterosexuality, reinforce the male position.
The political institution of heterosexuality may
be patriarchal in the sense that its effects differ
for men and women. It will: "Turn a mere boy
into a respectable, fully developed man. Such
sexual asymmetry is simply an outgrowth of our
cultural double standard for men and women. In
the patriarchal culture of contemporary western
society, the role of men is to rule and provide,
while that of women is to obey and support the
rulers and providers… women are considered the
subordinates of men, not their moral equals. The
sexual sphere is no exception."58
Such perspectives make it easier to dehumanize
and exploit women in the sex trade. MacKinnon
enhances our understanding and moves the debate
further by using gender socialization to explain
the objectification of women in sex trafficking
and other walks of life. She emphasizes that
"socially, femaleness means femininity, which
means attractiveness to men, which means sexual
attractiveness, which means sexual availability on
male terms… Gender socialization is the process
through which women come to identify themselves
as sexual beings, as beings that exist for men."59
However, it may be argued that such a statement is
flawed by its reduction of women to mere passive
victims, with no agency or ability to overcome their
position, and also deterministic in that it supposes
all men reduce women to objects, and all women
are subordinated.
Jennifer Oriel reinforces the role masculinity
plays within sex trafficking of women, by
highlighting the issue of male sexual pleasure
and a male sex "right." Oriel states that: "The
construction of sexuality as gender-neutral in
sexual rights literature conceals how men's
demand for sexual pleasure often reinforces the
Focus Point
subordination of women… Research on sexuality
from the fields of feminism, political science,
public health, and HIV/AIDS reveals that violence
against women is fundamental to the construction
of masculinity. This violence is manifested through
rape, sexual coercion, sexual objectification, and
prostitution."60
Oriel analyzes how male sexual pleasure
reinforces masculinity: "according to men's own
research, male sexual pleasure demands the use of
women as objects for male sexual dominance."61
For Pateman and Oriel,"[t]he general display
of women's bodies and sexual parts, either in
representation or as live bodies, is central to the
sex industry and continually reminds men—and
women—that men exercise the law of the male
sex-right, that they have patriarchal right of access
to women's bodies."62
This expectation was illustrated well when
Sweden re-evaluated its legal approach to
prostitution. Despite recognising that Swedish
Law was sensitive to demand as being behavioural
and not merely genetic (sexed), they criminalized
prostitution to decrease male demand.63 However,
given that the mechanisms of sex trafficking in
women are driven to a certain extent by criminal
activity, the processes of supply and demand can
continue underground. Furthermore, the dominance
of masculinity and the role of heterosexuality are
intertwined with other structures; hence trafficking
in women extends beyond the reach of the law and
a solution which addresses demand rather than
supply. Busch et al. examine male demand for and
treatment of prostituted women. Their findings
are mixed but an interesting result suggests: "The
correlations between more conservative attitudes
toward sexuality, guilt about sex, and more frequent
pornography use suggests a sexual stereotyping of
prostituted women that allows some women to be
seen as "other"—women whose feelings of pain do
not need to be considered. Consequently, violent
behaviour perpetrated against prostituted women
can be justified. It may be that these patriarchal
attitudes toward women contribute to some men's
violence toward women."64
▪ 62 ▪
Pornography and Sex Stereotyping
The findings of Busch et al have drawn attention
to the use and role of pornography in perpetuating
sexual stereotyping and exacerbating the inhumane
treatment of women. Andrea Dworkin's analysis
of the impact of pornography highlights its role
in developing and sustaining the dehumanization
of women in general and that witnessed through
sex trafficking in particular. Dworkin states that
pornography "shows how dominance and abuse
are pleasure and entertainment."65 Both Barry
and Eisenstein refer to pornography as "cultural
sadism."66 It has gained extensive access into
the mass media and its acceptance transmits a
cultural endorsement of its message, that is, "the
worthlessness of women as human beings."67
Further, Dworkin's theory suggests "pornography
is the prostitution of the women in it, and it is a
metaphysical definition of all women as whores
by nature; so it is also the terror of being born
to be used, traded, and sold. The substance of
this terror… is the pleasure… for the men who
watch."68
Pornography rests on a continuum of control
and violence against women. It is a means by
which the dehumanization of women becomes
"normalized" and "harmless fun" in the eyes of
men, hence facilitating and perpetuating violence
and inhumane exploitation at the upper end of
the continuum, to the extent where women are
shipped up and sold to the highest bidder, stripped,
humiliated and exploited as cheap labour. Dworkin
argues that,"incomprehensible as it may be to us,
their enjoyment in our abuse is articulated as a civil
liberty of theirs."69 However, MacKinnon describes
how this civil liberty is desensitizing people to the
treatment women are facing, how it affects belief in
"rape myths" and how it defines specific sex roles
within society, contributing to the commodification
of female sexuality and enhancing men's powers as
consumers.70 The effect of pornography in defining
sex roles is evidenced through the words of one
pornography model who sees her "body as a tool,
something to be used."71 Therefore, perhaps it
may be argued that women are themselves slowly
becoming desensitised to the pain inflicted upon
them and their representation in pornography is
desensitizing others to how women are treated
through control violence such as sex trafficking.
Moreover, it normalises the traffickers'actions in
"The effect of pornography
in defining sex roles is
evidenced through the words
of one pornography model
who sees her 'body as a tool,
something to be used.'"
reducing women to a thing or less than human and
also reflects the common factor of male power and
female powerlessness, the sexualised lowering of
women and their status within society in general.
Conclusion
Conventional explanations portray economics,
"feminization of poverty" and criminality as
reasons why women are sex trafficked around the
world. Globalization and economics can explain
the growth in consumerism and increased levels
of poverty, but they fail to adequately explain why
sex trafficking is mostly a gender problem. Why
do women bear the brunt of this commodification
and sexual exploitation? It is only through
considering dehumanization and commodification
via the exacerbation of difference; by referring
to misogyny, patriarchy and heterosexuality; and
by considering the ties of these concepts with
masculinity, prostitution and pornography, that we
can begin to understand sex trafficking of women
as a gender inequality issue. Each of these issues
dehumanises women, but combined they reinforce
heterosexual assumptions regarding the legitimate
expropriation of women as sex objects. But how do
these themes combine to underscore sex trafficking,
allowing the sale of women as chattels?
If patriarchy creates the belief that men are worth
more than women, and in a legitimate position of
domination, then dehumanising women becomes
morally acceptable, and the commodification and
sale of their bodies is fitting with how they should
be treated. The reproductive capabilities of women
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Karen Dunlop
serve as a characteristic of their difference and have exacerbated an extant process; but the desire
"otherness" to men and a reason for the misogyny to understand, or to explain, beyond the facile and
which manifests itself in violence against women. the puerile has left women behind.
Power from patriarchal societies helps traffickers
to display misogyny through the control of female
bodies and sexuality. They exploit them as sexual
objects and sell them into a circuit of degradation
and torture.
Masculinity is part of patriarchy and its role
in society perpetuates the relegation of women.
As male dominance is often expressed as being
sexual, relegating women to a mere object becomes
fundamental to its maintenance. Patriarchy,
heterosexual masculinity and pornography form a
continuum of control, resulting in violence against
women, with the portrayal of rape myths through
pornography and sex stereotyping facilitating
the dehumanization of women. Each structure
and institution along this continuum of violence
exacerbates the exploitation of women, until the
female body is sold as a commodity, exploited as a
slave and even killed as if she was less than human.
The actions of traffickers reflect how women are
viewed in general, as different, less than human
and deserving of treatment which highlights their
subordinate position. Until patriarchal assumptions
on women are overturned, until male power
becomes no longer defined in sexual terms and
masculinity and pornography stop emphasizing the
primacy of male needs over female dignity, women
will be sex trafficked and dehumanised, tortured
and exploited for men.
The debate on sex trafficking only rarely
addresses the deep structures underpinning its
existence and its perpetuation, and the wrongful
assumption that we live in a "post-feminist
era" in which equality has been achieved does
nothing to help matters. Both men and women
sell girls, women and boys openly knowing
they will be raped and quite possibly killed: the
association of trafficked victims with unfeminine
attributes, coupled with social legitimatization and
normalization of male control and determinism of
female fortunes, coupled with the absence of viable
economic alternatives for both sellers and sold, all
combine to facilitate the sale of women as chattels.
The globalization of sex and masculine values
Focus Point
▪ 64 ▪
Notes
United Nations in Vienna, "Virtually No Country Immune from Human Trafficking, UNODC Report Shows," The United Nations Information Service,
April 24, 2006, http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2006/unisnar953.html (accessed May 1, 2006)
2
David Roberts, "Human Security or Human Insecurity? Moving the Debate Forward," Security Dialogue 37, n°2 (2006), 258.
3
Ibid.
4
I am aware that sex trafficking affects males as well, mostly in the form of vulnerable boys and young men. The literature suggests these are a minority
and, whilst this is no reason to exclude them, my focus is on women victims and survivors
5
Home Office, Development and Statistics Directorate, Policing and Reducing Crime Unit, Police Research Series Paper 125, "Stopping Traffic:
Exploring the Extent and Responses to Trafficking in Women for Sexual Exploitation in the UK," by Liz Kelly and Linda Regan (London: Home Office,
2000), 2-3, http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/prgpdfs/fprs125.pdf (accessed February 12, 2006).
6
Ibid.
7
Donna Hughes, "The 'Natasha' Trade: The Transnational Shadow Market of Trafficking in Women," Journal of International Affairs 53, n°2 (2000), 2,
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/natasha_trade.pdf (accessed February 4, 2006).
8
See note 1 above.
9
Jini L. Roby, "Women and Children in the Global Sex Trade: Toward More Effective Policy," International Social Work 48, n°2 (2005), 136; Donna
Hughes, "Welcome to the Rape Camp: Sexual Exploitation and the Internet in Cambodia," Journal of Sexual Aggression 6, n°1-2 (2000b), 3, http://www.
uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/rape_camp.pdf (accessed February 4, 2006).
10
Gabriella Lazaridis, "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women in Greece," The European Journal of Women's Studies
8, n°1 (2001), 70; J.S. Demir, "Trafficking of Women for Sexual Exploitation: A Gender-Based Well Founded Fear? An Examination of Refugee Status
Determination for Trafficked Prostituted Women from CEE/CIS Countries to Western Europe" (MA diss., University of Pavia, 2003), 2, http://www.jha.
ac/articles/a115.pdf (accessed January 20, 2006).
11
See note 7 above.
12
Sheila Jeffreys, "Globalizing Sexual Exploitation: Sex Tourism and the Traffic in Women," Leisure Studies 18, n°3 (1999), 188; Ian Taylor and Ruth
Jamieson, "Sex Trafficking and the Mainstream of Market Culture," Crime, Law and Social Change 32, n°3 (1999), 257.
13
Hughes,"The 'Natasha' Trade,"6
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
16
Home Office, "Stopping Traffic," 35; Demir, "Trafficking of Women for Sexual Exploitation," 2; Hughes, "The 'Natasha' Trade," 6.
17
Jill Radford and Diana E.H. Russell, Femicide: The Politics of Woman Killing (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1992); Michael L. Penn and Rahel
Nardos, Overcoming Violence against Women and Girls (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); Diana E.H. Russell and Roberta A. Harmes, Femicide
in Global Perspective (New York: Teachers College Press, 1992).
18
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, "Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns," April 2006, 60, http://www.unodc.
org/pdf/traffickinginpersons_report_2006-04.pdf (accessed May 1, 2006).
19
Paola Monzini, Sex Traffic: Prostitution, Crime and Exploitation (London: Zed, 2005), 85.
20
Ibid., 85-86.
21
Ibid., 86.
22
Ibid., 93; UNODC, "Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns," 91.
23
Monzini, Sex Traffic: 102.
24
Ibid.
25
Jeffreys, "Globalizing Sexual Exploitation," 188.
26
Donna Hughes, "The Corruption of Civil Society: Maintaining the Flow of Women to the Sex Industries" (Paper presented at the Andalusian Women's
Institute, Malaga, Spain, September 23, 2002): 3, http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/corruption_civil_society (accessed February 4, 2006).
27
Ursula Biemann, "Remotely Sensed: A Topography of the Global Sex Trade," Feminist Review 70 (2002), 79.
28
Monzini, Sex Traffic, 96; Peter S. Hill and Heng Thay Ly, "Women are Silver, Women are Diamonds: Conflicting Images of Women in the Cambodian
Print Media," Reproductive Health Matters 12, n°24 (2004), 110; Hughes, "Welcome to the Rape Camp," 29.
29
UNODC, "Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns:" 87.
30
International Organization for Migration, Migration Policy, Research and Communication Department, World Migration 2005: Costs and Benefits of
International Migration (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2005): 73, http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/shared/
mainsite/published_docs/books/wmr_sec01.pdf (accessed February 9, 2006); UNODC,"Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns," 97.
31
IOM, World Migration 2005, 73.
32
Monzini, Sex Traffic, 104.
33
See note 27 above.
34
Kate Millett, The Prostitution Papers (St Albans: Paladin Books, 1975): 56, quoted in Lazaridis,"Trafficking and Prostitution," 78.
35
Lazaridis,"Trafficking and Prostitution," 85.
36
Kamala Kempadoo, Jyoti Sanghera and Bandana Pattanaik, Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and
Human Rights (London: Paradigm, 2005), 12-13.
37
Roby, "Women and Children in the Global Sex Trade," 138; Jeffreys, "Globalizing Sexual Exploitation," 186.
38
Jeffreys,"Globalizing Sexual Exploitation," 186; Monzini, Sex Traffic, 58-59; Kempadoo, Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered, 171-72.
39
Gargi Bhattacharyya, Traffic: The Illicit Movement of People and Things (London: Pluto, 2005), 63.
40
Donna Hughes, "Supplying Women for the Sex Industry: Trafficking from the Russian Federation," in Sexuality and Gender in Postcommunist Eastern
1
▪ 65 ▪
Karen Dunlop
Europe and Russia, ed. Aleksandar Stulhofer and Theo Sandfort (Oxford: The Haworth Press, 2005), 209; Jeffreys, "Globalizing Sexual Exploitation,"
187.
41
Lara Fergus, "Trafficking in Women for Sexual Exploitation," Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault, 2005, 10, http://www.prostitutionresearch.
com/what's%20New/AustraliaTrafficking.pdf (accessed March 10, 2006).
42
Kempadoo, Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered, 15.
43
Hester Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought (London: Unwin, 1988), 3.
44
Ibid.
45
Catharine MacKinnon, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State (London: Harvard University Press, 1989), 55-56.
46
Susan Moller Okin and Jane Mansbridge, Feminism, vol. 1 (Aldershot: Elgar, 1994), 336.
47
Joan Smith, Misogynies (London: Faber, 1989), xi.
48
Jalna Hanmer and Mary Maynard, Women, Violence and Social Control (Basingstoke: MacMillan Press, 1987), 20-21; Smith, Misogynies, 99.
49
Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought, 31; Andrea Dworkin, Letters from A War Zone (New York: Lawrence Hill, 1993), 228-29.
50
Sylvia Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 20.
51
Ibid., 118.
52
Catherine MacKinnon, Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 41.
53
Catharine MacKinnon, "Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: Pleasure under Patriarchy," Ethics 99 (1989), 315.
54
Linda LeMoncheck, Dehumanizing Women: Treating Persons as Sex Objects (New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld, 1985), 50; Walby, Theorizing
Patriarchy, 118.
55
LeMoncheck, Dehumanizing Women, 49; Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy, 118-19.
56
Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy, 118; MacKinnon, "Sexuality, Pornography, and Method," 318.
57
MacKinnon, "Sexuality, Pornography, and Method," 318; Kathleen Barry, Female Sexual Slavery (New York: New York University Press, 1979),
121.
58
LeMoncheck, Dehumanizing Women, 49; Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy, 127.
59
MacKinnon, Towards a Feminist Theory of the State, 110.
60
Jennifer Oriel, "Sexual Pleasure as a Human Right: Harmful or Helpful to Women in the context of HIV/AIDS?" Women's Studies International Forum
28 (2005), 392.
61
Ibid., 397; Amir Hossein Kordvani, "Hegemonic Masculinity, Domination and Violence against Women" (Paper presented at the "Expanding Our
Horizons" conference, University of Sydney, Australia, February 18-22, 2002): 4, http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/Conference%20papers/
Exp-horiz/Kordvani.pdf (accessed November 22, 2005).
62
Oriel "Sexual Pleasure as a Human Right," 400.
63
Janice G. Raymond, "Prostitution on Demand: Legalizing the Buyers as Sexual Consumers," Violence Against Women 10, n°10 (October 2004),
1158.
64
Noel B. Busch et al., "Male Customers of Prostituted Women: Exploring perceptions of Entitlement to Power and Control and Implications for Violent
Behaviour Towards Women," Violence Against Women 8, n°9 (September 2002), 1108-1109.
65
Dworkin, Letters from A War Zone, 180; MacKinnon, Are Women Human?, 88.
66
Barry, Female Sexual Slavery, 205; Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought, 116.
67
Dworkin, Letters from A War Zone, 181; Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought, 117.
68
Dworkin, Letters from A War Zone, 181; MacKinnon, "Sexuality, Pornography, and Method," 328.
69
Dworkin, Letters from A War Zone, 182.
70
Stuart Jeffries, "Are Women Human?" The Guardian, April 12, 2006, g2 section.
71
MacKinnon, "Sexuality, Pornography, and Method," 338.
Focus Point
▪ 66 ▪
▪ 67 ▪
Karen Dunlop
Debt as a Route to Modern Slavery in the
Discourse on "Sex Trafficking:"
Myth or Reality?
Patrizia Testaì
Based on a field research undertaken in four Italian cities, this article explores
the concepts of debt and of slavery both historically and sociologically. The
author compares social representations of slavery and debt within the sex
industry with migrant women's own experiences. She argues that the use of
slavery and debt-bondage as metaphors encourages a colonial vision of the
world as divided between would-be civilized countries and poor ones.
T
he definition of slavery in terms
of
a polar opposition implying total lack
of choice has been questioned by
historians of labour relations, who have
challenged the idea of slavery as a separate system
involving the complete subjugation and physical
coercion of the slave. For example, with reference
to the free-unfree labour binary opposition and
to the question of choice and coercion, Robert
Steinfeld writes: "When we speak about most
forms of labour compulsion, we are talking about
situations in which the compelled party is offered
a choice between disagreeable alternatives and
chooses the lesser evil."1
Both slavery and free wage labour, he
continues, face this latter type of compulsion,
the difference consisting only in the nature and
range of unpleasant alternatives available in the
two cases. He takes the concepts of coercion
and consent to a paradox, citing John Dawson's
statement that "[C]ourts ha[ve] been slow to realize
that the instances of more extreme pressure were
precisely those in which the consent expressed
was more real; the more unpleasant the alternative,
the more real the consent to a course which would
avoid it."2 Steinfeld's argument suggests that to
draw a line between free and unfree labour is a
question of moral or political judgement rather
than a question of natural distinction between
two entirely different species of labour. To
further distinguish between legal and economic
compulsion as a way to draw the line between
free and unfree labour conceals the fact that both
pecuniary compulsion (that is compulsion subject
to market forces) and non pecuniary compulsion
(compulsion subject to the use of physical
violence), can coerce the performance of labour
under certain circumstances. Moreover, economic
coercion, which is normally associated with free
labour, is not based on some natural law about the
Patrizia Testaì has been involved both in the voluntary sector, for the prevention of HIV among prostitutes with LILA (Italian
League for the Fight Against AIDS), and in research on migration, gender, and sexuality. She has just completed a PhD at
the University of Nottingham on the usage of "slavery" as a gendered and racialized metaphor.
Focus Point
▪ 68 ▪
working of markets, but on an artificially-made
set of norms concerning property and on ad hoc
rules regarding labour relations. Depending on
circumstances, economic pressure may therefore
imply forms of coercion which are no less harsh
than physical coercion or confinement, since "the
threat of starvation may certainly operate more
powerfully than a short term of confinement."3
In this article I will focus on "debt as a way to
enslavement," as it appears in the literature on sex
trafficking. My research context is Italy, where
I have recently undertaken a field study on the
use of slavery as metaphor within the discourse
on trafficking. This study was based on in-depth
interviews with key actors and professionals
working in social protection programmes for
victims of trafficking in four Italian cities and
on interviews with migrant women working as
prostitutes and migrant women who accessed the
above said programmes. For the purpose of this
article, I will use both interview extracts with key
actors such as police officers, project coordinators
and psychologists, and migrant women's accounts
on their migration and prostitution experiences,
and how they viewed the debt linked to these
experiences. Before starting with the analysis
of interview data, however, I will introduce the
subject of debt by reviewing the literature on
debt as a way to enslavement and the problems
surrounding this concept, which has been
historically and sociologically linked to slavery,
poverty and related issues of migration. The
particular focus on migrant women engaged in
prostitution and usually represented as "special
victims" of trafficking will give a gender slant to
the subject of debt and to the article throughout.
slavery in particular, Toyin Falola and Paul
Lovejoy, consider the subject as one of paramount
importance to an understanding of "questions of
indebtedness, labor control, gender, and capital
flows in societies that were only imperfectly
connected to world markets."5 Focusing on the
institution of pawnship in Africa, they study its
transformation from a debt settlement mechanism
into a system of enslavement of free people during
the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the penetration
of capitalism in Africa. From their study it seems
that throughout the nineteenth century indebted
people increasingly would pawn themselves or
their lineages with a more or less conscious risk
or understanding that they would probably be sold
in the slave trade. As Toyin Falola observes in his
analysis of slavery and pawnship in the Yoruba
economy, during the slave trade, and even after
its abolition when slaves from the Yoruba region
of western Africa were still exported to Brazil
and Cuba, pawnship became entangled with the
demand for unfree labour in Africa, which ensued
from the intensification of production oriented to
the export economy. Both slavery and pawnship,
as "servile institutions," "developed extensively
in one of the most important areas from which
slaves were exported to the Americas."6
Writing on the links between pawnship,
colonialism and gender relations in Africa, Jean
Allman observes that, after its abolition at the
beginning of the twentieth century, pawnship
survived well into the 1940s in the form of
marriage, and points out that pawnage during
colonial rule "declined in uneven, ambiguous,
and very gendered ways that profoundly impacted
conjugal relationships."7 Other anthropologists
and historians have reported that in Nigeria the
Debt, Slavery and Symbolic
pawning system called iwofa was particularly
Representations of Poverty
intertwined with gender relations and with the
institution of marriage, itself a mechanism to
Debt-bondage is one of the slavery-like forms settle debts through the bride wealth system.8
that are often included within the discourse
The historical analysis of links between
concerning trafficking. A little overview of the pawnship and slavery, while in itself attesting to
literature on slavery, however, reveals that the the continuities between slavery and other forms
question of debt-slavery and of debt as a route to of servile labour, is also important in terms of the
self-enslavement is central in historical studies relationship between indebtedness and stigma,
on slave societies.4 Two historians of African and how this depends on changing perceptions
▪ 69 ▪
Patrizia Testaì
about what constitute licit and morally justified of social life valiantly resisted commodification.
ways to overcome economic difficulties, as we On the contrary, they readily absorbed monies,
will see below. It is also useful to understand the transforming them to fit a variety of values and
interconnections between the economic and the social relations."11
socio-cultural world, between abstract market
While gender, as a variable cutting across
relations and personal power relations, and how various social settings, is of particular importance
the meaning of debt can change according to in this process, other elements, such as age, race,
a mixture of structural conditions, prevailing and ethnicity, are mentioned by Zelizer as shaping
social values, and the people involved, both the uses, meaning and allocation of monies. The
those indebted and those engaged in illegal credit earmarking of money, however, is not confined to
services.
private social settings, but it concerns also the area
More generally, the question of debt can be of market exchange, where government efforts to
analysed from a standpoint of money and its socio- design a uniform legal tender are coupled with ever
cultural meaning. Viviane Zelizer, for example, more inventive systems of exchanges, from credit
in her analysis of the various relational aspects card systems to electronic money transfers, direct
of monetary exchange in advanced capitalist bank deposits, computerized home shopping and
societies, observes that the introduction of money so on. Zelizer concludes with a recognition that, as
in a given society did not transform it into a more money multiplies and enters all aspects of human
rational, impersonal, abstract world. Money, far life, people struggle to manage their complicated
from being just a numerical phenomenon, is subject social ties and long-distance connections, and one
to earmarking, so that distinctions can be made way of doing this is through differentiating money
between "dirty or clean, domestic or charitable, to meet their complex social needs.
tips or wage" monies, which are "a central feature
One way in which money is constantly created
9
of advanced capitalist economies." One of the and multiplied in a consumer society is through the
aspects of monetization of social relations is not creation of credit systems. Already in the 1970s,
just that social exchanges are commodified and Daniel Bell linked the creation of commercial
influenced by money, but also that money itself banks in the United States through the Banking
acquires different values and meanings according Act of 1933, and the establishment of bank
to the social contexts in which it is exchanged, holding companies which encouraged consumer
the ways in which it is used, the goods it buys, credit, to the ways in which western governments
where it comes from, and
in general had to manage
the people who possess "Debt is part of the system of advanced
capitalist
it. Money differentiation, trafficking. Debt is the first economies with persistent
then, is an inherent part of mechanism that triggers the inflationary
pressure,
a modern consumer society whole process of trafficking. It chronic capital shortage
where spending becomes a is, like the lack of passport, one and recurrent liquidity
central economic practice of those elements that keeps the crisis.12 His analysis is still
and "a dynamic, complex
valid to the extent that the
victim
tied
to
her
exploiters."
cultural
and
social
commitment to economic
activity."10 Moreover, it
growth continues to create
is in the private sphere that the earmarking of a set of economic and cultural expectations. This
monies acquires more significance, as "People leads both families and the economy at large to
invest a great deal of effort in creating monies live beyond their means through borrowing,
designed to manage complex social relations with the consequence that the pursuit of pleasure
that express intimacy but also inequality, love and happiness is increasingly achieved by
but also power, care but also control, solidarity subordinating any public interest to individual
but also conflict. The point is not that these areas private wants, which in modern western societies
Focus Point
▪ 70 ▪
are expressed by both economic interests of
accumulation to be pursued in the market place
and the enhancement of the self through specific
life-styles taken from "the repertoire of the
world's cultures."13 Of course, the enhancement
of the self and the pursuit of economic wealth go
hand in hand more often than not, and they may
take either licit or illicit forms, as wealth and the
acquisition of property can be achieved through
legal or illegal channels. This takes us back to the
problem of debt and stigma, which is so important
in trafficking discourse and migration contexts in
general.
Debt, like money, can have different meanings
according to the cultural and economic contexts
in which it is created. To move to contemporary
Italy, Alessandro Dal Lago and Emilio Quadrelli,
in analyzing systems of illegal money-lending and
processes of indebtedness, make links between
illegal credit systems, the subsistence economy,
and structural inequalities in the contemporary
world.14 Indebtedness, when it takes place in
marginal contexts, acquires a negative meaning
because it reveals the weakness of the victims
who have to resort to illegal credit, and the general
stigma attached to debt and to markets for credit
in contexts of poverty means that, while most of
the actors involved remain invisible, hidden in the
informal economy and submerged in the everyday
struggle for survival, other actors, like irregular
migrant workers, provide more public targets,
being particularly at risk of sliding into servile
labour and slavery-like situations.15 While this
is true in many cases of undocumented migrant
workers, from a sociological point of view an
irregular migrant worker who is forced to work
for extremely low pay because he/she fears being
deported, is not different from the Italian small
entrepreneur who loses his/her business because
he/she gets into debt with his/her illegal money
lenders and is forced to work for the latter.16
The rationale of all illegal credit systems is the
appropriation of property, and when property
coincides with the physical person, as when the
debtor has no other means to repay but her own
body, indebtedness leads to servility. This is as
true for the Italian entrepreneur who loses control
of his/her business and becomes dependent on
his/her moneylenders as it is for the daughter of
an indebted woman who is forced to sell sexual
services in order to repay the money-lenders, two
cases reported by Dal Lago and Quadrelli. This
should not lead us to conclude that all forms of
exchange which do not involve the physical
person as property are preferable to those which
involve the physical person, and particularly the
most intimate parts of the body, as in the case of
sexual services. To be sure, the transfer of labour
power in exchange for services occurs in many
social contexts which are not linked to situations
of indebtedness, and Dal Lago and Quadrelli
give the example of voluntary work and the
apprenticeship system within firms. However,
the personal and symbolic aspects involved in
the exchanges of labour for services become
particularly visible in the illegal world, notably
when there is an association with big Mafia
organizations and with irregular migrants who
transfer their labour in exchange for travel and
visa services; and this is something that emerges
clearly from interviews with actors who describe
the indebtedness affecting migrant prostitutes, as
we are going to see in the next section.
Representations of Debt in Sex
Trafficking
In narratives offered by key actors working in
social protection programmes, indebtedness is
given an additional meaning which goes beyond
questions of demand and supply, whether related
to alternative credit systems or to migration
services. The effect of this traditional meaning
of debt in the context of illegal migration and in
discourse on trafficking is viewed as part of an
enslavement mechanism which engulfs the victim
and her family in an exploitative situation: "Debt
is part of the system of trafficking. Debt is the
first mechanism that triggers the whole process of
trafficking. It is, like the lack of passport, one of
those elements that keeps the victim tied to her
exploiters. If it's not debt it's the passport, if it's
not the passport they say 'we'll kill your children
if you go.'"17
▪ 71 ▪
Patrizia Testaì
"Debt is a means for the traffickers to keep
them under control … because even after the girls
finish paying off their debt they (the traffickers)
would always say that they still must give money
…there is always a debt, otherwise who brings
them here? It's an economic aspect which is used
as a threat … In actual fact the traffickers don't
care about the debt, it's just that they want to keep
exploiting them."18
"You get indebted anyway, and you've got to
pay large amounts of money, you can only pay
back if you work long hours. Once in Italy they
find themselves working in brutal circumstances,
in the streets, in cars or standing by a street lamp…
it's a lot more degrading, you can't choose your
clients, as when you choose consciously to work
as prostitute."19
The kind of debt that emerges from narratives
about trafficking seems far removed from most
forms of indebtedness occurring in many western
and non-western countries, and, once again, gender
is an important aspect affecting the stigmatization
of debt in contexts where migration and sexuality
are involved. What would most distinguish
migrant women's indebtedness is their being
subject to a coerced form of labour and their lack
of legal protection which would seemingly leave
women without control over their time, work or
life. Consider this policeman's distinction between
Italian people who must work, because they are
indebted, and indebted migrant prostitutes: "If I
have to work because I have to give money to the
moneylender I can always go to the cinema in the
evening, I can always denounce the money-lender.
The prostitutes are beaten up, are locked up. They
are indebted because they need money to leave
their country in the first place. Of course people
who emigrate often get into debt, the problem is
how you repay the debt. One thing is to repay it
through normal work, quite another thing is to be
forced to pay it back through prostitution. In the
case of these women, once they arrive in Italy,
they are told 'now you have to work for us.' They
end up working for them for months, years, may
be not years as they always manage to escape
once they are more familiar with the place around
them…"20
Focus Point
While, as Dal Lago and Quadrelli show in
their ethnography of crime, loss of property and
of control over one's own labour and time is
something that affects even Italian citizens who
are caught by sudden economic crisis (as was the
case in Italy during the 1990s), I believe that the
reason why this last interviewee considered Italian
people's and migrant women's indebtedness as
two altogether different matters has to do with
the way in which processes of stigmatization
and marginalization are constructed according to
notions of citizenship which take into account the
gender and sexual identity of the people deemed
enslaved through debt.
The link between indebtedness and sexual
slavery is evident in actors' narratives about
trafficking and sexual slavery. Actors' narratives
suggest that indebtedness, like slavery itself, is
used as a metaphor for groups of women who are
constructed as Other because of their sex work
and of their coming from poor contexts. While
many among those interviewed recognise that
other migrant workers are indebted, and that
debt is part of the migration experience, there
is a distinction made between indebted migrant
workers and indebted prostitutes, and between
different groups of migrant prostitutes: "Brazilian
domestic workers could go out, their freedom of
movement was not limited. They would not go
out because they were undocumented and feared
about the police … if they were caught by the
police and sent to Brazil before they repaid their
debt they would not know how to repay it … But
it was their choice to work in this way … Once
they cleared the debt they were free to go where
they wanted. In the case of prostitution the debt
could not be paid back, because their exploiters
would take all the money. This is in all cases of
prostitution … For the Nigerian it's different.
They leave their country with another woman
who worked as prostitute as well before. They
contract a debt with this woman, but they don't
know how much their debt amounts to. They find
out about the money they owe to the woman only
once they arrive to Italy. So they are forced to
work as prostitutes until they pay off their debt,
then they are free to work independently if they
▪ 72 ▪
want."21
"[Nigerian] girls are promised a good job in
Italy, they get indebted in order to pay for their
travel and visa expenses. Often those who came
through debt become exploiters as well."22
There are in these narratives, as in most
narratives about new slavery concerning prostitute
women, tensions and contradictions between
accounts that depict indebtedness as a mechanism
of coercion and control only for migrant prostitutes,
and accounts which admit that migrant women
working in prostitution, in particular Nigerian
women, do manage to pay their debts and to
engage in prostitution independently, or even to
run their own business by recruiting other women
after they settle their debt. I would now like to
look at how migrant women themselves view and
make sense of their experience of indebtedness
and sex work.
Migrant Women's Accounts of
Indebtedness
The tension between narratives which depict debt
as enslavement and loss of control and narratives
which leave space for freedom and agency is more
striking when we look at women's own accounts
about their experience of getting indebted. While
in key actors'accounts the issue of debt was used
to depict a situation which, almost uniformly, was
viewed as "slavery," in reading migrant women's
stories about indebtedness we can find a more
nuanced account of their experiences, and of the
relationship they established with their exploiters/
creditors. In their narratives, debt no longer
assumes the characteristics of "debt-bondage,"
or of a phenomenon altogether different from the
debt that ordinary people incur in most parts of
the world. On the contrary it appears as something
more ordinary, a difficult situation which they are
able and willing to deal with in most cases. Thus,
my Nigerian interviewees, who use the assistance
of "agents" to whom they get indebted, clearly
express a mixture of feelings about the people
who helped them with travel and documents,
as we can see from the interview extract below
with a Nigerian woman in a social protection
programmes in Palermo, called here "victim of
trafficking" (VoT): "We girls from Nigeria know
that we're suffering, that's why we come here.
But the madam charges us too much money …
80 million lira (€40,000). All of them charge you
a lot of money. But it's good that they brought us
here. They helped us in a way. They are second to
Jesus Christ…"23
The relationship with those who "brought" them
to Italy is perceived by my Nigerian interviewees
in particular in very practical terms and there is
a business-like nature in the type of "contract"
established between them and those who facilitated
their migration. This is in line with research done
by the International Organization for Migrations
(IOM) on trafficking in Italy indicating that most
women trafficked for sexual exploitation have
made at least a minimal agreement with their
traffickers, with only one actual case of abduction
found.24 The same study found that from 1995,
both Nigerian and Albanian women arriving in
Italy were aware of the fact that once in Italy they
would have to prostitute themselves to pay the
debt they incurred at the moment of departure.
This means that women make sense of their
situation, rather than being totally at the mercy of
fate, even in a context which leaves ample room
for abuse and exploitation, as in the following case
involving a 25 year old Nigerian street prostitute,
here called "sex worker" (SW): "It's normal that
people who help you to come here want money,
and they can't ask the same money they spend…
You know… if you buy something you can't sell
it for the same price. If I had to help my sister
to come here I would bring her here for free, I
wouldn't ask for money, but there are people who
bring girls who are not from their family, they're
not their sister so they ask for money …they will
ask for the money they had to spend to bring them
here…
The money they use to drop somebody they
will use to pay for another five (girls), but after
you pay the money back they maybe try to find a
way to make you pay more and more money, and
this is no good. If you don't pay they threaten you
…they say they will kill your mother, and they
will do it … Some people are honest but some are
▪ 73 ▪
Patrizia Testaì
bad, and the ones that are bad are more than the
All this also points to the simplistic way in which
honest ones… For me, it took me a year to pay off connections are made in trafficking discourse
my debt. I don't have to pay anybody now. I can between organized crime and debt-bondage
work for some time more and then stop."25
whenever women move across continents. For one
In much of the literature on trafficking, thing, as Julia O'Connell Davidson points out, there
conditions related to migration over long distances, exist a variety of models of "business" practice on
consequent debt, and work in the sex market, tend the part of middle agents offering services, who
to be uniformly equalised to situations of debt- are not all interested in overexploitation or the use
bondage. Liz Kelly, for example, problematizes of violence and may merely wish to "recoup their
the notion of "choice" in contexts where women outlay on travel and documents and the fee for
can hardly "afford to travel between or across their services."30 For another thing, the migrant
continents."26 For her, the very fact that women and prostitution stories of my Nigerian—and, we
arrive with considerable debts and that they will see, Colombian—interviewees, who moved
"find their way into sex markets thousands of through great distances, reflect on the whole what
miles away" through "facilitation, or even direct Alison Murray says about Thai women who move
recruitment," means that their circumstances to Australia to work in the sex industry, and that
cannot be much "different from debt bonded is that "most of these women enter their contracts
trafficked women."27 Yet interviews with migrant willingly, and if they can pay off their debt, they
women reveal that, even
may become recruiters
in the most constraining
or
brothel
managers
"(...)
prostitution
(...)
allows
31
of contexts mentioned
themselves."
Overall,
women
(...)
to
change
their
by Kelly, indebtedness
these cases expose the
cannot be read only in material circumstances both problematic nature of the
terms of debt-bondage, in their destination country expression "debt-bondage,"
and we cannot ignore the and back home, by opening which is often used in the
for
their literature on trafficking to
positive impact of agency opportunities
in those contexts. More children and themselves." pathologize debt for certain
to the point, the very fact
groups of migrants and,
that Nigerian "networks" are mainly formed by as Murray puts it, to perpetuate the stereotype
women who act both as recruiters and prostitutes of helpless victims. The interview extract from
in a hierarchical organization which allows a 38 year old Colombian woman who refused
for "career" advancement, invalidates Kelly's to be helped through Article 18, illustrates how
argument that extreme structural inequalities and indebtedness can take many forms, and even
gender violence "decreases women's space for when it entails extortion, can be accepted as a
action, whilst simultaneously increasing men's."28 temporary burden: "I was working for a woman
Women see their debt situation in very realistic in Colombia who would provide clients, a friend
terms, so that often they are able to establish for of mine also lent me some money to travel to
how long they will work to pay money back to their Italy, so that part of the money I earned it myself
agents and are able to resist the latter's attempts part, was borrowed. I gave it back without interest
to extort from them extremely high interest rates, because it was a friend. It was like that among
and are even able to escape if they so decide: women from Colombia, we would just help each
"The woman [pimp] said that if I wanted I could other, because there were a lot of us who wanted
go back home but that I had to give back money to come. Now I don't know if it's still like that…
(€45,000) first. What could I do? I gave her half maybe it's changed because there are a lot of
the amount she asked, then I escaped because I people who are envious, who just want to take
was determined not to fuck all these men while she advantage… Here in Catania people don't take
was comfortably sitting and eating at home."29
advantage, you work for yourself.
Focus Point
▪ 74 ▪
I remember once they [the police] got me.
They sent me to my country, so I was there with
no money, I didn't know how to come back to
Italy. A friend of mine told me she knew a person
who would lend me money which I could give
back once I was in Italy… The amount that I had
to give back was double, a lot…the guy made a
lot of money like that. So yes I suppose I was a
victim of this moneylender, I had to pay a lot of
money…However I chose it, I consented to be a
victim…I worked the first year to pay this money
back…"32
What another Colombian interviewee
who works alongside Nigerian women in the
roadways of the Catania outskirts has to say about
debt illustrates the complexity and diversity of
debt: "That's also the case for South American
women. It's true. They get indebted to come to
Italy. If we have a house we have to mortgage
it, or we have to get indebted with the bank. It
costs €3,000/4,000 to come to Italy, because if
you don't have documents other people have to
provide papers for you…It's things that you can't
say, but it's like that, it's life… There is corruption.
But I want to be clear. It's the white-collar people
who work in the various embassies who are really
corrupt, not those who try to leave to support their
families…it's the bureaucracy, the politicians
who are corrupt… we are only atoms, we have no
power, can't do anything and don't have anything
to do with them. When I think about Africa, about
those hungry children, the sick women, I think
this is corruption, like those girls from Africa I
see working in the streets with me…"33
Conclusions
The study of migrant women's migratory
experience and engagement in sex work reveals
some of the problems implied in theories about
choice and free/unfree labour and how they
are often abstracted from social, economic and
political contexts. Their accounts show how in
the context of "sex trafficking" we may well be
confronted with Dawson's paradox about consent,
which I mentioned in the introduction to this
article. This means that the use of the slavery
metaphor for these migrant women in social
and economic terms presents the same problems
and contradictions found in traditional accounts
of slavery as "social death,"34 and that, as Julie
Saville points out, "only as abstract symbols,
wrenched from social contexts, can slavery and
freedom be construed to denote unrelated or
opposite conditions. Whether analysed as a global
phenomenon, as a social process, or as a model
of power relations, the history of slavery and
freedom is a matter of interrelationships rather
than fixed antagonism."35
The interview data I have explored in this
article also indicate that the discourses on debtrelated slavery and trafficking are inadequate in
explaining the conditions of migrant women who
engage in sex work in Italy. On the one hand,
narratives provided by key actors working in
social protection programmes reflect a conception
about "new slavery," as elaborated over the last
decades in the media and in the voluntary social
sector as well as in the academia, that focuses
on the trafficking/forced migration of people
from poor countries to the rich/western regions,
on transnational crime, and on prostitution as a
special site of abuse and slavery-like practices
whose victims are overwhelmingly women
and girls. This view, I argue, is based on a
fundamental dichotomy between rich/civilised/
western/democratic/modern countries and poor/
uncivilised/non-western/undemocratic/traditional
countries. Field material on key actors'views
about trafficking, slavery, prostitution, and debt
reveal a similar interpretation of contemporary
exploitation of migrant labour in terms of the
above said dualisms.
Interview data from migrant women
themselves, however, suggest on the whole that
migrant women do not experience their prostitution
as "slavery" in either an economic (labour
exploitation) or social sense, or as "social death,"
in Patterson's sense. While migrant prostitute
women are stigmatized socially as undocumented
migrants, as prostitutes, and as individuals who are
often racialised as members of "inferior" cultures,
empirical evidence suggests that prostitution, far
from being the central problem facing migrant
▪ 75 ▪
Patrizia Testaì
women, is a means which in many cases, and
sometimes at a high price, allows women (both
those still in prostitution and those who exited
it through social protection programmes) to
change their material circumstances both in their
destination country and back home, by opening
opportunities for their children and themselves.
Focus Point
▪ 76 ▪
Notes
Robert Steinfeld, Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 14.
Ibid., 15-16.
3
Ibid., 25.
4
Orlando Patterson (1982) observes, for example, that, while debt-slavery has to be distinguished from true slavery, "the fact remains that in all
societies where debt-slavery existed, the possibility of the debt-slave falling into permanent slavery was always present." See Orlando Patterson,
Slavery and Social Death. A comparative study (Cambridge, M.A.: Harvard University Press, 1982), 124.
5
Toyin Falola and Paul E. Lovejoy, "Pawnship in Historical Perspective," in Pawnship, Slavery, and Colonialism in Africa, ed. Paul E. Lovejoy and
Toyin Falola. (Trenton and Asmara: Africa World Press, 2003), 2.
6
Toyin Falola, "Slavery and Pawnship in the Yoruba Economy of the Nineteenth Century," in Pawnship, Slavery, and Colonialism in Africa, Ed. Paul
E. Lovejoy and Toyin Falola (Trenton and Asmara: Africa World Press, 2003), 130-131.
7
Jean Allman, "Rounding up Spinsters: gender chaos and unmarried women in colonial Asante," in "Wicked" Women and the Reconfiguration of
Gender in Africa, ed. Dorothy L. Hodgson and Shirley A. McCurdy (Portsmouth, Oxford, Cape Town: Social History of Africa, 2001), 145, n. 18.
8
Judith Byfield, "Women, Marriage, Divorce and the Emerging Colonial State in Abeokuta (Nigeria) 1892-1904," in "Wicked" Women and the
Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa, ed. Dorothy L. Hodgson and Shirley A. McCurdy (Portsmouth, Oxford, Cape Town: Social History of Africa,
2001). See also Falola and Lovejoy (2003).
9
Viviane Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 200-201.
10
Ibid., 201.
11
Ibid., 204.
12
Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 1976).
13
Ibid., 255.
14
Alessandro Dal Lago and Emilio Quadrelli, La Città e le Ombre. Crimini, criminali, cittadini (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2003).
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Female Psychologist3, International Organization for Migrations (IOM), Rome.
18
Male officer1, Carabinieri Army Unit, Rome.
19
Female project coordinator1, Catania (Eastern Sicily).
20
Male police officer1, Lecce (South-Eastern Italy)
21
Male police officer2, Lecce.
22
Female Police Officer1, Catania.
23
VoT1, Palermo (Sicily)
24
IOM, Trafficking in Women to Italy for Sexual Exploitation (Budapest: Migration Information Programme. International Organization for
Migrations, 1996).
25
SW4, Catania.
26
Liz Kelly, "The wrong debate: reflections on why force is not the key issue with respect to trafficking in women for sexual exploitation," Feminist
Review 73 (2003), pp. 139-144, 141. See also by the same author "The perils of inclusion and exclusion: international debates on the status of trafficked
women as victims," International Review of Victimology 11 (2004), pp. 33-47.
27
Kelly, 2003, 141.
28
Ibid., 143.
29
VoT3, Catania.
30
Julia O'Connell Davidson, Children in the Global Sex Trade (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), 77.
31
Alison Murray, "Debt-Bondage and Trafficking. Don't Believe the Hype," in Global Sex Workers. Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, ed. Kamala
Kempadoo and Jo Doezema (New York and London: Routledge, 1998), 57.
32
SW1, Catania.
33
SW2, Catania.
34
Patterson, op. cit.
35
Julie Saville, "Rites and Power: Reflections on Slavery, Freedom and Political Ritual," Slavery & Abolition 20 (1999), pp. 81-102, 81.
1
2
▪ 77 ▪
Patrizia Testaì
Trafficking in Human Beings in the
Post-Communist States of the Balkan Area
George Dorel Popa
Karina Paulina Marczuk
The fall of the bipolar order and the conflicts in former Yugoslavia provoked
a spread of the trafficking in human beings phenomenon in the Balkans. The
aim of this article is to show the existing situation regarding this problem
and to point out the existing measures to protect and promote the rights of
victims of trafficking in persons. Finally, the authors present the regional
cooperation of the Balkan states against trafficking of people.
The Balkans: the Outcast of Europe?
O
January 1st 2008 Slovenia was
the first European post communist
state of the Balkan region to took the
presidency of the European Union
(EU). Furthermore, the case of Slovenia should
be more appreciated because of its participation in
the international initiative of the Human Security
Network (HSN). Additionally, last year Ljubljana
held once again the position of the HSN Chair.
Because of this, the former Slovenian Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Dimitrij Rupel, pointed out during
the 9th Human Security Network Ministerial
Meeting in Ljubljana on May 2007 that: "In
the past year, the Network has strived to draw
international attention to the emerging threats to
people's safety, security and well-being and to
n
advance human security issues at all levels."1
The prevention and fight against trafficking
in persons in the post-communist Balkan area
is a serious challenge for the regional as well
as European and international authorities and
organizations. Moreover, this issue refers to the
in statu nascendi process of the implementation
of the human security doctrine by the individual
Southeast European countries. By establishing
this concept we understand the adoption by the
local governments of either the Japanese (socalled freedom from want) or Canadian (freedom
from fear) approach to human security.2 Thus,
trafficking in human beings—a question which
is linked directly with human basic safety—
constitutes an important point of interests for
further studies on human security conceptions.
Above-mentioned splendid success of Slovenia
Karina. Paulina Marczuk graduated from the Institute of International Relations, Warsaw University (MA) and the National
Defense University, Warsaw (MA). She also has a PhD in Political Science and works on internal and human security issues
as well as security policy in the Mediterranean and Balkan countries.
George Dorel Popa has a bachelor in Law and a PhD in Economics (The Romanian Academy of Sciences). He is the author
of numerous studies and articles on penal offences and trans-border organized crime.
Focus Point
▪ 78 ▪
as well as the acceding of Romania and Bulgaria
to the EU in 2007 could be considered as an
example of close relations of post communist
Balkan states with the Western European
countries. For centuries the Balkan region was
perceived as "the gun-powder barrel" of the
European continent. For instance, World War I
as well as numerous revolutions or regional wars
began in this sensitive area, caused mainly by the
exceptional geopolitical location of that region.
On the other hand, the geographical position of
the Balkan countries brings them considerable
benefits–—they are situated at the crossroads of
the European and Asian routes, so they could
easily develop intense relationships with Asian,
and also Caucasian, states. The Balkan area
consists of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey
(see map of the Balkans). On February 17th 2008 a
new country joined this group: Kosovo.
However, these strategic Euro-Asian ties
of the Balkans supply this region with not only
substantial advantages, but also the reputation
of an area of trafficking in human beings on a
large scale. Moreover, "the bandit tradition in the
Balkans (…) is a model that has led to modern
bandits or criminals and organized crime,"3 as well
as trafficking in human beings. "The trafficking
routes run from Moldova, Ukraine and other
former Soviet Republics—the main countries
of origin—via Romania (…) and Bulgaria to
the countries of the Former Yugoslavia, Italy,
Turkey, Greece and Western Europe."4 Thus,
another phenomena, which is strongly connected
with trafficking of people and caused mainly by
a special location of the Balkan area, is illegal
immigrants transit and smuggling.
"The Balkans is seen as a permanently
disturbed region on the margins of Europe"5
Map 1: The Balkan Peninsula
Source: Balkan Political Club, <www.balkanpoliticalclub.net/page.php?page=31>.
▪ 79 ▪
Marczuk & Popa
observed Tom Gallagher, a famous researcher
on political history of that region. The end of the
Cold War and the collapse of the bipolar world
order as well as the fall of Former Yugoslavian
and the Kosovo conflict in the 1990s led to the
spread of the people trafficking phenomena, which
could develop easily in the Balkan's unstable
security environment (security gap). Moreover,
the above-mentioned factors generated a low
economic and social level of life of the people
in the Balkans, which had a measureable effect
also on the development of trafficking in persons.
The television and radio transmissions, which
showed and described the Yugoslavian tragedy
in detail "(…) implanted a negative stereotype
in perhaps a majority of the world`s inhabitants
who have a glancing knowledge of international
affairs. 'Balkanization' is now one of the most
negative paradigms in international relations."6
Unfortunately, the problem of human beings
trafficking was not a good advertisement for the
Balkan region. Bearing in mind all these factors,
should we agree with a provocative statement by
Tom Gallagher in the title of his book: "Outcast
Europe. The Balkans, 1789-1989?"
Certainly the Balkan Peninsula is an integral
and important part of Europe from a geographical
and political point of view, and it seems that an
explanation for the negative image suffered by
the Balkans could arise from the diverse dealings
which the West and Russia (later the Soviet
Union) have had with the Southeast European
region through its history. The second reason is an
"(…) adverse geographical location that [makes]
the Balkans (…) a zone of troubles."7 Anyway,
contemporary policy of Balkan states, such as a
political will of integration with the EU, led to
conclusion that they were trying to strengthen
their European relations. For instance, the Balkan
countries' authorities' attempt to fight bitterly
against trafficking in human beings. Moreover,
"the Balkan violence of the 1990s has run its
course. With democratic governments in all of
the former Yugoslav republics and region—wide
ambitions to join the EU and the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), there is no longer a
risk of major war between states."8
Focus Point
The problem of trafficking of people exists
in major parts of Europe, but has developed
remarkably in the Southeast post-communist
states. This crime is treated by the governments
of the Balkan states, international governmental
and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as a
very serious threat for the public safety. Because
of this fact, various European and international
conventions as well as protocols devoted to human
rights, such as The International Convention on
Human Rights or The International Convention on
the Rights of the Child were ratified by the Balkan
countries' authorities. Additionally, bearing in
mind the trafficking in human beings issue, it is
necessary to take into consideration measures to
protect and promote the rights of victims of this
illegal practice, which will be discussed later. Last
but not least, we have to point out that the Balkan
states are active members of many international
organizations, such as The International Criminal
Police Organization (INTERPOL), which focus on
the struggle against criminal and illegal practices.
Additionally, they established a unique and the
only regional organization which is devoted to
the fight against organized crime in the Southeast
Europe: the Southeast European Co-operative
Initiative (SECI) located in Bucharest, Romania.
General Legal Provisions Regarding
Trafficking of People
As far as trafficking in human beings in the Balkans
is concerned, it seems that for the purpose of this
article the definition of the people trafficking
phenomenon should be explained. Laczko and
Gramegna pointed out that the term "human
trafficking" was rarely referred to in debates
about migration policy. Today, however, it is one
of the major concerns of both governments and
organizations active in the migration field and has
become a priority for those working in many other
policy areas such as human rights, health, gender,
law enforcement, and social services.9 Moreover,
trafficking in human being is often connected
with the "contemporary forms of slavery,"10 a
term which refers to involving a wide range of
modern exploitative practices.
▪ 80 ▪
According to the United Nations Protocol
in Persons, especially Women and Children,
adopted by the United Nations' General Assembly
in November 2000, the term "trafficking in
persons" "(…) shall mean the recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of
persons, by means of 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
exploitations, forced labor or services, slavery
or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the
removal of organs."11 However, it is necessary to
highlight that there is no general understanding
or acceptance of the definition of the trafficking
in human beings among the governments and the
other international relations participants. What
is for sure is that the exact number of trafficked
persons on the Balkans cannot be established. All
general assessments are hard to verify and vary
according to context and source of information.
Governments, international agencies and NGOs
provide different kinds of data, which are often
not comparable.12
In their permanent efforts to limit and
decrease the number and effects of trafficking
in human beings, the countries of Southeast
Europe adopted a sequence of legislative,
administrative, educational, social and cultural
measures. However, the implementation of the
above-mentioned procedures could be difficult,
especially in the legislative and administrative
domain. It is necessary to point out that improving
the national legal system should permanently
focus on human rights, because the trafficking in
human beings constitutes a new form of slavery, a
grave violation of human rights and an offence to
the dignity and the integrity of human beings.
For the first time since the fall of the communist
system in the Balkan area an urgent need to apply a
comprehensive international legal system focused
on the protection of the rights of victims has
emerged. For instance, the EU post-communist
member states in this region—Bulgaria and
Romania—are still developing comprehensive
legal systems offering to law enforcement
agencies the possibility to prevent and fight against
trafficking in persons, according to the European
acquis communautaire. Moreover, the EU rules
and regulations oblige Bulgarian and Romanian
authorities to protect the victims as well as the
witnesses and to ensure effective investigation and
prosecution. Montanaro-Jankovski highlighted
that securing stability in the Balkans, which is
plagued with criminal networks, is therefore a
major challenge for the European Union.13
However, it is possible to state that the legal
systems of the Balkan countries seem vary in this
domain. An ideal legal system should promote
international cooperation on action against
trafficking in human beings, but the systems of
the Balkan countries have not yet been effective
enough in this field.
Furthermore, it seems that the adoption by
all the Balkan states of the definition established
by the Council of Europe Convention on Action
against Trafficking in Human Beings from May
16, 2005, could be treated as a crucial step in
the process of preventing and fighting against
trafficking in human beings.14 In our opinion, the
acceptance and implementation of this definition
in each national legal system may offer the law
enforcement agencies a basic legal instrument
in the fight against trafficking of human beings.
Moreover, the concerned definition is quite similar
to the previous concept, which was presented by
the above-mentioned United Nations Protocol
in Persons, especially Women and Children,
developing in that way the standards contained
therein.
The Legal Measures Adopted by the
Balkan Post-Communist Countries
The evolution of different European legal
systems (especially in the Balkan area) should
not affect assumed obligations derived from
▪ 81 ▪
Marczuk & Popa
other international agreements and instruments,
regarding preventing and fighting against
trafficking of human beings; on the contrary, it
should contain legal provisions, which ensure
wider protection and assistance for victims of
trafficking.
Another important issue is that, at the time
being, not all countries from the Balkan area
are punishing the same criminal offences. The
procuring or the providing of false documents
and retaining, removing or destroying a travel or
identity document of another person in order to
traffic a human being are some of many examples.
This fact facilitates criminal activity and favors
the increasing of the number of trafficking cases.
Despite the growing number of cases in the
trafficking of people over the last 18 years (it
means the period after the fall of the communism)
not all the states of the Balkans have adopted
legislative and technical measures to ensure
that the criminal offences related to trafficking
of people are punishable by penal law (through
deprivation of liberty, extradition, financial
sanctions, confiscation of the properties obtained
through trafficking of people and related crimes).
Also, not all these countries took the necessary
legal and administrative procedures to guarantee to
non-governmental organizations and other bodies,
which are aimed at fighting against trafficking in
human beings or protection of human rights, the
possibility to assist and support the victims at
their request during criminal proceedings.
To sum up, an increasing number of trafficked
people during post-communist times in the Balkan
region led to the conclusion that new measures
to establish and enhance national coordination
between governmental authorities and different
bodies of civil society should be constituted
immediately. The policies and projects in this area
should be focused particularly on such countermeans as: research, information, education
campaigns, social and economic initiatives
and training programs, especially for potential
victims.
Furthermore, the sensitive issue of migration,
connected with trafficking, has to be treated with
due consideration allowing this phenomenon
Focus Point
to take place legally, particularly through
the supervision of specialized national and
international institutions. From this point of view
such institutions as FRONTEX15—the EU agency,
which was created as a specialized and independent
body tasked to coordinate the operational
cooperation between the EU members in the field
of border security—should extend its prerogatives
and activities from a simple coordination of the
operational activities to creation of mid-term and
long-term programs and projects for the tackling
of illegal immigration, in close cooperation with
third countries (non-members of the European
Union, which often are the sources of the illegal
immigration and organized crime). Cooperation
with non-governmental bodies should be promoted
and enhanced—for instance a closer cooperation
with the International Organization for Migration
(IOM) could be more than welcome in this area, as
well. The state authorities and public officers are
expected to take necessary steps to cooperate with
non-governmental organizations, other relevant
organizations and members of civil society, in
order to establish a strategic partnership in the
area of trafficking in human beings.
Taking into consideration the above-mentioned
problem of illegal migration, the Balkan countries
should enhance legislative, administrative,
educational, social and cultural efforts to
discourage all forms of exploitation of trafficking
of people in this respect. Among priorities should
be included:
▪ 82 ▪
• the permanent research of best practices and
methods, concerning long-term strategies;
• enhancing the responsibility and importance
of news-media and civil society in identifying
and fighting the trafficking of human beings;
• launching information campaigns involving
public society, authorities and political and
social leaders;
• training for the relevant officers from the postcommunist Balkan states in the prevention of
and fight against trafficking in human beings;
• the human rights education in school and
other educational institutions would be an
optimal solution.
This kind of teaching may be agency-specific
and shall, as appropriate, be focused on:
modern methods used in preventing trafficking,
prosecuting the traffickers and protecting the
rights of the victims, as well as protecting the
victims from the traffickers. Cooperating together,
the authorities of Balkan states should use all the
available instruments, including arrangements
and the provisions of national and international
law. Regional cooperation should aim towards
three specific aspects: preventing and combating
trafficking, protecting and providing assistance
to the victims, carrying out investigations or
judicial proceedings in order to convict the
traffickers. A necessary monitoring mechanism,
engaging different groups of experts on action
against trafficking in human beings, would be
appreciated.
What the authors of the article propose is
that these international expert groups have to be
consisted of experts creating a multidisciplinary
expertise. They have to be highly competent in the
area of human rights, international law, assistance
and protection of victims and act objectively and
effectively in monitoring these phenomena in the
Balkan region.
Protection and Promotion of the
Rights of Victims of Trafficking in
Persons
As far as the measures to protect and promote the
rights of victims of trafficking in human beings
are concerned, it is necessary to point out that each
country has to pay attention to the adoption of
legislative or other measures, in order to provide
appropriate protection of victims and witnesses.
Practical situations show that even the members of
the family of the victims or of the witnesses often
need protection by the authorities. This concept
of protection may include physical protection,
change of residence, identity change and assistance
in obtaining a new job or occupation. Last but not
least, all the measures concerning the protection
of the rights of the victims have already been
(or should be) adopted by the Balkan countries'
authorities.
First of all, personal data regarding the victims
of the trafficking of people shall be stored and used
in conformity with the conditions provided by the
valid international legal provisions. Furthermore,
it is necessary to take measures to ensure that both
the identity and details regarding victims will not
be made public via media transmission or by any
other means. Unfortunately, for the time being not
everything in this domain is working very well.
Very often, the authorities have been satisfied
only with the taken legal measures forgetting
the human and social aspects of the trafficking
of people. The simple fact of bringing back the
victims in their country of origin and the conviction
of the traffickers does not automatically solve the
problem of trafficking of people. It is a shortage
of programs of social assistance in the Balkan
countries. The reduced number of shelters for the
victims, the absence of psychological assistance
and social re-integration favor the possibility of revictimization. The social re-integration presumes
not only psychological and medical assistance but
economic measures as well.
Very often the victims have been brought back
in their country and abandoned in precarious
conditions, without subsistence means, jobs,
shelters or material support. In these conditions,
victims have been obliged to leave their country
again shortly after their arrival and frequently
reach out once again in the hands of the traffickers.
It is obvious that the lack of social programs has
as a direct consequence on the increase in the risk
of re-victimization.
Moreover, preventing and fighting against
trafficking requires the implementation of
appropriate measures to assist victims in their
physical, psychological and social recovery. Such
assistance would include ensuring the minimum
standard of living and a secure accommodation,
psychological and material support, medical
treatment, counseling and information about
legal rights, physical safety and protection needs.
Once all these elements have been secured, the
authorities could cooperate with NGOs or other
relevant bodies. The internal system of law should
be modified to offer an adequate opportunity
to receive material compensation from the
▪ 83 ▪
Marczuk & Popa
perpetrators either through the establishment of
a compensation fund for victims or other social
measures facilitating the re-integration of the
victims within society. Protection of victims,
witnesses and collaborators with the judicial
authorities is another sensitive question.
Furthermore, the return of the victims of
trafficking to their society shall be done according
to human rights principles, that is by paying
attention to safety and dignity of the victims.
The residence country of the victim should fully
support the repatriation process, for instance by
issuing travel documents or other authorization,
which may be necessary to enable the victim
to come back home. Since the collapse of the
communist systems in the Balkan countries,
there has been a lack of programs concerning
the reintegration of the victims into society and
readmission of children in the educational system.
Because of these reasons, the reintegration process
of the victims as well as their re-including in the
education system or in the labor market was done
according to their professional skills, creating in
that way many difficulties and increasing the risk
of "re-victimization." Moreover, all the countermeasures and operations should be carried out
with maximum caution and with a full respect of
the international legal provisions.
Finally, it is necessary to remember that
the border controls might be obligatory to prevent
and detect trafficking in human beings. A method
to prevent trafficking of people is the permanent
supervision of the means of transport operated by
the commercial carriers as well as technical and
legal measures for the denial of entry or revocation
of visas of persons implicated in trafficking of
people. In our opinion, another struggle facing
the Southeast European countries is to create, or
strengthen, cooperation among the border control
polices through establishing and maintaining
direct channels of communication (participation in
the activities of international agencies, exchange
of the liaison officers, common database etc.).
Moreover, it is important to continue to ensure
that the travel or identity documents, issued by
adequate authorities, cannot be easily misused,
falsified, altered or replicated. Last, but not least,
Focus Point
a crucial element is preventing and fighting
trafficking of human beings financing. Among
other sources, money could be considered an
important financial source of this practice.16
The SECI Regional Center for
Combating Trans-border Crime
Activity: an Example of the
Trans-Balkan Struggle Against
Trafficking of People
For Balkan post-communist countries, the fight
against the trafficking of people is for the time
being an established priority of regional police
cooperation. From this perspective the activity of
The Southeast European Cooperative Initiative
Regional Center for Combating Trans-border
Crime (SECI Regional Center)17 is very relevant.
Today, the SECI Center is treated as a crucial
regional tool for fighting trafficking of people in
the Balkan area.
The SECI organization is the only trans-Balkan
instrument of counter-trafficking. However,
except for the anti-trafficking activity of Balkan
states within the SECI, some individual Balkan
countries established their national anti-trafficking
strategies, such as Serbia and Montenegro.
"Additionally, the pace [at] which Serbia and
Montenegro have adopted and implemented
legislation based on regional agreements varies.
(…) At a 2001 conference in Zagreb, all Balkan
states agreed to create a regional information
exchange mechanism, which was coordinated
through the SECI office in Bucharest with the
active cooperation of Europol and Interpol."18
Table 1. summarizes the types of institutional
mechanisms in place to adopt and implement antitrafficking policies in Serbia and Montenegro.
▪ 84 ▪
Table 1: Institutional Framework for Anti-Trafficking Strategies in Serbia and
Montenegro
National strategy
Serbia
Montenegro
Government authority
Ministry of Interior
Office of the Prime Minister
National coordinator
Police officer of senior rank
(part-time)
National Team for Combating
Trafficking in Human Beings
(2001)
Prime minister appointee (fulltime)
Inter-ministerial working group
(2004)
for combating trafficking
Implementing body
Advisory body
National referral mechanism
Council on Human Trafficking
(2004)
Advisory council (2004)
Agency of Ministry of Labor,
Employment and social Policy
(2003) and OSCE Mission
National Anti-Trafficking
Project Board (2004)
–
Source: Nicole Lindstrom,"Transnational Responses to Human Trafficking: The Politics of Anti-Trafficking in the Balkans,"
in Human trafficking, human security, and the Balkans, ed. H. Richard Friman and Simon Reich (Pittsburgh, PA: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), 73.
As it could be observed, the counter-trafficking
activities in these countries are conducted by
national government authorities, without a special
body involved into international cooperation.
This is the reason why the SECI has been created:
to provide a common platform for trans-Balkan
anti-trafficking efforts.
It is possible to state that the SECI is the most
important instrument to fight against trafficking
in human beings in the Balkan area. The SECI
initiative was established by Albania, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece,
Hungary, FYR of Macedonia, Moldova, Romania,
Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey in May of 1995 in
Vienna.19 The declared mission of this regional
organization was to support common trans-border
crime fighting efforts of participating countries
in order to improve the business environment
in Southeast Europe and make it more attractive
for investments in order to reach economic and
political stability in the region. The enhancement
of coordination efforts between law enforcement
agencies within the individual participating
states is also a priority. The organization strongly
assists member states in preventing detecting,
investigating, prosecuting and repressing transborder crime in this part of Europe.
Concerning the trafficking in human beings
counter-activity, the SECI organization supports
national efforts in order to improve domestic
cooperation between law enforcement agencies.
This organization also reduces costs for member
states: instead of sending liaison officers to 11
member states, each country can find in one place
all the representatives of all the participating
countries. Thus, the SECI currently is working
on the organized and specialized Task Force
focused on combating illegal human beings
trafficking.20 Understanding what was the main
threat represented by this practice in Southeast
Europe and in order to reach that aim, the SECI
Center established in 2000 the above-mentioned
Task Force on Human Trafficking. In the SECI's
opinion, it is the globalization and development
▪ 85 ▪
Marczuk & Popa
of both transportation and communications
which offer enormous opportunities for the
trafficking in human beings in the Balkan area.
The ease of communication, provided by modern
technologies, and the free movement of the people
within the EU in part of the Balkans (such as in
Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Slovenia) brings
a good opportunity for perpetrators to transform
organized crime (including trafficking of people)
from a national concern into a regional and
international issue.
During the years of 2002, 2003 and 2004 the
Mirage Operation project within the SECI Center,21
the largest action of the member countries dedicated
to the prevention and fight against trafficking of
people was carried out. In that time, large-scale
operations undertaking by the SECI member
countries'police forces and national prosecutors
acted together. Among the main objectives of
the Mirage Operation were the gathering of the
intelligences, apprehension and bringing charge
against traffickers as well as identification and
release of the victims of trafficking. In this
operation the greatest operations were launched
and the law enforcement bodies of all countries,
which acted as a single body, performed raids and
checks in public places (night bars, hotels, motels)
in all participating countries. At the same time,
they used information and intelligence gathered
from different sources in different countries. The
operation has been intelligence driven and the
most important decisions were taken based on
strategic analysis and through coordinating joint
investigations. The approach of the SECI Center
was not only to simply coordinate all activities,
but also to provide expertise and intelligences.
The organization proved during this operation
that it could offer a professional environment in
order to share information and organize common
actions, intelligence exchange, investigations and
trainings. The Mirage Operation validates the
idea that recruitment of the victims of trafficking
take place mainly in such countries as Albania,
Moldova, Romania, Russia and Ukraine; the
transportation—through Bulgaria, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro and
Turkey; places of destination are Greece, Turkey,
Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Romania and Slovenia. Table 2. presents results
of the Mirage Operation in 2003.
Table 2: The Mirage Operation 2003 of the SECI Regional Centre. Facts and Figures.
Victims of Trafficking
Traffickers
20,629 controlled places
(night clubs, restaurants, border crossing points and other places were checked all over the member
countries SECI region)
11,170 identified persons
463 identified victims of trafficking
595 traffickers identified
2,175 cases,
319 cases,
in which administrative measures
in which criminal procedures were undertaken
were applied (fees, interdictions, temporary
imprisonment, expelling)
65 victims assisted by the International
207 charged traffickers
Organization for Migration and other NGOs and
62 repatriated persons
Source: SECI. 2003. Operation Mirage Evaluation Report 2003
Focus Point
▪ 86 ▪
To sum up, the practical cooperation between law
enforcement agencies from the SECI countries and
non-governmental organizations of the Balkans
has been proved. Moreover, law enforcement
bodies were able to picture the composition and
modus operandi of regional criminal organizations
as well as the main routes of the trafficking of
people in this area of Europe. Thus, it was possible
to divide four main routes of trafficking of people
through the Balkan territory:
1. Serbia and Montenegro; Bosnia and
Herzegovina; Croatia; Slovenia.
2. Croatia; Slovenia; Western Europe
countries.
3. Ukraine; Moldova; Romania; Serbia and
Montenegro.
4. Ukraine; Moldova; Romania; Bulgaria;
Turkey; Greece.
It is remarkable that the use of SECI increased
the effectiveness of the struggle against the
trafficking of people because the exchange of
information takes place in the shortest period
of time possible. For instance, the distance of
thousands of kilometers between Romanian and
Turkish customs offices is reduced to a few meters
(all liaison officers are working together under
the same roof). Last but not least, the legal basis
of working was substantially simplified because
the SECI agreement ensured the necessary legal
framework for all type of cooperation in the law
enforcement field.
of security problems in whole post communist
Europe which could consequently transmute and
travel across borders.21 Additionally, the collapse
of the bipolar system and the Yugoslavian conflict
caused an increase in the trafficking of human
beings in the Balkan region. Fighting these
phenomena, the individual Balkan governments
were also able to implement adequate legal means
(national strategies against trafficking in human
beings). On the other hand, they established and
developed international and regional cooperation.
For the time being, the activity of the SECI
Regional Centre has been a unique and the most
important example of trans-Balkan efforts in this
domain. The mentioned Mirage Operation is
maybe the most relevant example of successful
cooperation between Balkan states.
International organizations, however, may
contribute in a more substantial way to preventing
and fighting the trafficking of human beings. One
of these organizations could be the International
Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL).22
INTERPOL is preoccupied by this topic and
has had a permanent presence in some Balkan
countries since the communist period. Regarding
the activity of INTERPOL, its aim is to facilitate
international police co-operation even when
diplomatic relations between Balkan countries
are not in good shape. However, the future will
show possible results of all the Balkan authorities'
efforts.
Conclusions
To conclude, recently the post communist
Balkan area has been brought closer to the
Western European states from a political and
economic point of view. Bulgarian, Romanian
and Slovenian cases are the best examples for
proving this thesis. Nevertheless, the collapse of
the communist system brought, a lot of problems
along the way for the Balkan countries. Rees
and Webber noticed that the end of the Cold War
era has meant for the Balkan states an increased
independence of their security, as well as a rise
▪ 87 ▪
Marczuk & Popa
Notes
Dimitrij Rupel, Address by Dr Dimitrij Rupel, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia at 9th Human Security Network Ministerial
Meeting (Ljubljana: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 18th May 2007): 1.
2
Karina P. Marczuk, A conceptualization of the human security doctrine in the post communistic states in Balkans, Croatian International Relations
Review 44/45 (2007). In press; Karina P. Marczuk, Development of the human security policy in the post communist Balkan states: general remarks.
Contribution for the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) Conference Security and Development Agenda of the Western Balkans, (Tirana:
AIIS, 15th March 2008).
3
Esther A. Bacon,"Balkan Trafficking in Historical Perspective," in Transnational Threats: Smuggling and Trafficking in Arms, Drugs, and Human Life,
ed. Kimberley L. Thachuk (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International, 2007): 79.
4
The United Nations Children`s Fund UNICEF. Trafficking in Human Beings in Southeastern Europe. Current situation and responses to trafficking in
human beings in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Moldova and Romania (Belgrade: UNICEF, Area Office for the Balkans; Warsaw: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, 2002): 9.
5
Tom Gallagher, Outcast Europe. The Balkans, 1789-1989. From the Ottomans to Milošević,
(London-New York: Routledge, 2001): 1.
6
Ibid, 1-2
7
Ibid, 10
8
Edward C. Meyer and William L. Nash, Balkans 2010: Report of an Independent Task Force Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations Centre for
Preventive Action (USA: Council on Foreign Relations, 2002): 2.
9
Frank Laczko and Marco A. Gramegna,"Developing Better Indicators of Human Trafficking," The Brown Journal of World Affairs 1 (2003): 179.
10
Suzanne Miers,"Contemporary Forms of Slavery," Canadian Journal of African Studies/ Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines 3 (2002): 714.
11
United Nations General Assembly, UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, 11.2000,
http://www.uncjin.org/Documents/Conventions.
12
Lucia Montanaro-Jankovski,"Good cops, bad mobs? EU policies to fight trans-national organized crime in the Western Balkans," European Policy
Centre Issue Paper 40 (2005): 5.
13
According to the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings the term trafficking in human beings should be defined in national
legislation as"the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring 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 or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, Warsaw, May 16, 2005, http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/197.htm.
14
FRONTEX, http://www.frontex.europa.eu/.
15
George D. Popa,"NATO, post communist countries and money laundry," Zeszyty Naukowe Wyższej Szkoły Informatyki, Zarządzania i Administracji
w Warszawie, 1 (2007): 305.
16
The SECI is located in Bucharest, Romania. Romania is strongly engaged in the fight against trafficking in human being. See further: P.C. Radu,"Freedom
at midnight: human trafficking in Romania," Balkan Crisis Report, 2003, http://www.iwpr.net.
17
Nicole Lindstrom,"Transnational Responses to Human Trafficking: The Politics of Anti-Trafficking in the Balkans," in Human trafficking, human
security, and the Balkans, ed. H. Richard Friman and Simon Reich (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007): 72.
18
Idea of SECI, http://www.secicenter.org/p127/Ideea_of_SECI.
19
Task Force on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling, http://www.secicenter.org/p280/Task_Force_on_Human_Trafficking_and_Migrant_
Smuggling.
20
Operation Mirage Evaluation Report 2003. Public version, http://www.secicenter.org/p172/Evaluation_Report_2003.
21
G. Wyn Rees and Mark Webber,"Fighting organized crime: the European Union and internal security," in Crime and insecurity: the governance of
safety in Europe, ed. Adam Crawford (Devon: Willan, 2002): 81.
22
About the INTERPOL`s activity see further: Paul Higdon,"INTERPOL's Role in International Police Cooperation," in International police cooperation:
a world perspective, ed. Daniel J. Koenig and Dilip K. Das (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001).
1
Focus Point
▪ 88 ▪
▪ 89 ▪
Marczuk & Popa
▪ 90 ▪
Global Images
▪ 91 ▪
La Sécurité Humaine dans le Contexte
Occidental: un Concept Relatif?
Contrôles Migratoires et Criminalisation des étrangers
Anne-Claire Gayet
La sécurité humaine est un concept pensé par les pays occidentaux pour
les pays en voie de développement. Le contexte actuel de sécurisation et de
criminalisation de l'étranger semble indiquer que les sociétés occidentales
appliquent de façon différentielle la sécurité humaine au sein de leur société,
selon les citoyens. L'auteur considère donc qu'il s'agit, dans le contexte
occidental, d'un concept relatif, lié au statut légal de l'individu.
"
O
n the Mexican border, Arizona
vigilantes are applying the law of the
AK-47.
Jack Foote says he isn't hunting
humans, but it looks like he's hunting something.
He wears combat fatigues and his private army
has weapons out of a Terminator movie: AK-47s
and A5-15s with 520 rounds of ammunition, 40centimetre knives and side-arms powerful enough
to blow a person's brains out.
"Why all this firepower, Jack?
It's dangerous out there," he says.
la chasse (au sens propre) aux immigrants sans
papiers, qu'il terrorise. Ce groupe, poursuivi en
justice en 2003 pour avoir arrêté et emprisonné
illégalement un groupe d'immigrants, a été
condamné à verser environ 1,5 million de dollars
aux plaignants.1 Si cette condamnation est
exceptionnelle, la méfiance à l'égard de ceux qui
traversent souvent au péril de leur vie le désert
ou le Rio Grande, elle, est monnaie courante.
Ces hommes armés disent défendre leurs
frontières, la sécurité des leurs et donc la sécurité
nationale, entretenant le spectre de la menace de
l'étranger et faisant la loi, à défaut d'avoir la loi
avec eux.2 Caroline Overington décrit un climat
Overington, Caroline. "Vigilantes on a frontier muster." quasi paranoïaque où la défense de la sécurité
The Age, November 29, 2003. supposément nationale se fait au détriment complet
de la sécurité humaine des étrangers. On peut
Le "Ranch Rescue" est un groupe paramilitaire arguer que les actions du Ranch Rescue relèvent
qui patrouille le long de la frontière États-Unis– d'une réalité sociale typiquement américaine,
Mexique menant une campagne d'intimidation à celle des milices armées, et qu'elles illustrent
"
Anne-Claire Gayet finit sa maîtrise en études internationales à l'Université de Montréal. Elle est coordonnatrice adjointe
de la Chaire de recherche du Canada en droit international des migrations ainsi qu'agente du domaine Justice, Police et
Sécurité du Centre Métropolis du Québec, spécialisé dans l'immigration et l'intégration des migrants.
Global Images
▪ 92 ▪
avant tout le phénomène de la privatisation du
contrôle frontalier, ancienne prérogative étatique.
Néanmoins, cette réalité est emblématique du
renforcement actuel des contrôles aux frontières
tout autant que de leur évolution. La méfiance
croissante vis-à-vis des étrangers, en particulier
des migrants, justifie la criminalisation de
ceux qui sont présentés comme de nouvelles
menaces pour la sécurité nationale–soit celle des
citoyens des pays riches–et internationale. Cette
perception, celle de la méfiance, est matérialisée
par des mesures de contrôle aux frontières,
lesquelles sont repoussées de plus en plus loin,
ou de plus en plus près des pays d'origine. Ces
mesures, dont nous tenterons d'analyser quelques
impacts, peuvent conduire à une mise en danger
de la vie de celui ou celle qui tente de traverser la
frontière, à l'instar des "dos mouillés," "wetbacks"
ou "espaldas mojadas" du Rio Grande.
Parallèlement au renforcement des contrôles
aux frontières et de la diminution de la sécurité des
personnes tentant de les braver, le Programme des
Nations Unies pour le Développement (PNUD)
a mis en place, en 1994, le concept de "sécurité
humaine."3 Pensée par les pays occidentaux pour
les pays en voie de développement, la sécurité
humaine avait une vocation universelle et était
destinée à assurer une plus grande sécurité
collective.4 Ce concept, chargé à la base et pour ses
créateurs, d'une connotation éminemment positive,
visait donc à mettre au centre des préoccupations
la protection des individus, déplaçant ainsi le
centre d'attention de l'État à la personne. Parfois
perçue comme une manière plus ou moins tacite
de garantir aux pays développés une protection
contre les fléaux du sous-développement, de la
pauvreté et de la violence qui en émane,5 la sécurité
humaine n'en restait pas moins un nouvel outil de
la panoplie des interventions internationales en
vue de promouvoir le bien-être des personnes dans
les pays en développement. Pourtant, la sécurité
humaine n'est-elle pertinente que pour les pays en
développement? Une personne, où qu'elle soit, ne
peut-elle bénéficier, en tant qu'être humain, de la
même sécurité?
Dans la mesure où la sécurité humaine
s'intéresse à l'individu, il nous semble intéressant
de questionner son application dans les sociétés
qui l'ont conçue. À cet égard, la situation des
non-citoyens aux frontières des pays développés,
telle que décrite au début de notre réflexion, ne
serait-elle pas un signe que la sécurité humaine,
aussi positive dans sa conception initiale fût-elle,
a produit des effets contraires aux objectifs de
départ? L'écart entre la théorie et la pratique de
la sécurité humaine est sans doute permis par la
multiplicité des définitions du concept. Toutefois,
la malléabilité du concept ne justifie sans doute
pas le fait que la sécurité humaine fasse l'objet
d'une application relative selon le statut légal et la
nationalité de l'individu. Notre hypothèse est que
les sociétés occidentales, dont quelques-unes se
pavanent d'être championnes pour la promotion
de ce concept à l'étranger (c'est le cas du Canada),
appliquent de façon différentielle la sécurité
humaine au sein de leur société, selon qu'il s'agit
de citoyens ou d'autres. La sécurité humaine dans
le contexte occidental serait donc un concept
relatif, lié au statut légal et à la nationalité de
l'individu.
Quatorze ans après le lancement de ce
concept–de la même façon qu'on lance une mode,
nous aimerions évaluer ses effets et sa pertinence
dans le contexte occidental. Après une revue des
définitions du concept, nous tenterons de montrer
comment le discours de la sécurité étatique, au
nom de la sécurité des citoyens, a dans certains cas
repris celui de la sécurité humaine, et comment,
dans nos sociétés occidentales, cela se fait souvent
au détriment de la sécurité des non-citoyens.
De la Sécurité des états à Celles
des Individus: Quelques Principes de
Sécurité Humaine
Le concept de la sécurité humaine résulte des
bouleversements politiques et sociaux qui ont
marqué les années 1990 et d'une évolution
historique plus longue qui ont rendu caduque la
traditionnelle conception de la sécurité, restreinte
jusqu'alors à la notion de sécurité nationale.6
Initialement, la sécurité faisait avant tout écho
à la sécurité de l'État. Telle que théorisée par
Thomas Hobbes, la sécurité est un attribut de
▪ 93 ▪
Anne-Claire Gayet
Source: http://www.americanpatrol.com/ABP/PHOTO-OF-THE-DAY/061004.html
À cinq milles de la frontière mexicaine en Arizona, après la traversée du désert, un groupe d"immigrants clandestins a été
repéré par les agents frontaliers américains. En état d"arrestation, ils sont encadrés par des garde-frontières pour être sans
doute conduits au poste. Cette photo a été prise le 4 octobre 2006 par The American Border Patrol.
l'État qui est à la base du contrat social.7 C'est en
échange de l'abandon par les hommes de leur état
de nature–dans lequel l'absence de limites conduit
à une insécurité permanente–que le Léviathan
assure leur sécurité. L'abandon général des libertés
dans les mains du Prince ne connaît qu'une seule
réserve d'après Hobbes: le droit à la sûreté, c'est-àdire l'interdiction des arrestations et des détentions
arbitraires, seul droit que les individus conservent.
La sûreté est "la garantie de la sécurité juridique
de l'individu face au pouvoir," qu'elle constitue "la
protection avancée de toutes les libertés" et qu'elle
"permet leur exercice paisible."8 En revanche,
selon l'analyse de Sylvia Preuss-Laussinotte,
la sécurité est conceptuellement opposée aux
droits fondamentaux: dans l'ensemble "des textes
internationaux de protection des droits, la sécurité
Global Images
est toujours entendue comme autorisant l'État à
restreindre les droits et libertés."9 Ce rappel du
sens originel de la sécurité met en lumière la
possible contradiction intrinsèque du concept de
"sécurité humaine," et vise à mettre en garde visà-vis d’un discours sécuritaire qui se justifierait
en vue de la protection des droits fondamentaux.
La sécurité nationale fait également écho
à la sécurité des frontières de l'État. Michel
Foucher, dans Fronts et frontières, un tour
du monde géopolitique, analyse l'origine
des frontières actuelles et l'évolution de leur
signification depuis leur fonction de remparts
face aux armées ennemies. Il aborde également
la question des nombreux conflits liés aux tracés
des frontières (et aux implications sur le plan des
ressources naturelles). Face à la permanence et
▪ 94 ▪
à l'intangibilité des frontières, Foucher constate
aussi l'affirmation de leur dépassement dans le
cadre d'une recomposition des relations entre
États. Ce n'est pas un "sans frontière" qui doit
être affiché car ces contours gardent leur vertu
de code d'identité nationale, mais un "au-delà des
frontières."10
La recomposition des relations étatiques,
notamment à travers des organisations régionales
à l'instar de l'Union Européenne (UE), souligne
une évolution de la sécurité nationale. "L'idée
classique et restreinte de sécurité nationale,"
envisagée comme protection des frontières
étatiques, semble donc avoir perdu de son acuité
face à la mondialisation, aux flux virtuels et
matériels de toutes sortes qui outrepassent les
frontières.11 La diversification des sources de
menaces pour la sécurité des États, comme la
dégradation de l'environnement, la croissance
démographique ou la violence sociale accrue, en
particulier dans les quartiers urbains défavorisés
des grandes villes des pays du sud, ont en outre
conduit les gouvernements à faire le lien entre
sécurité et développement.12 Il fallait donc
repenser la notion de sécurité afin de prendre en
compte ces changements.13
Le concept de la "sécurité humaine," introduit
dans le vocabulaire politique en 1994, visait donc
à incarner la nouvelle dimension de la sécurité,
prise dans le sens hobbesien de la "sûreté." Face à
la définition restreinte de la "sécurité nationale,"
la sécurité humaine offre une définition prolixe—
et nous sommes conscients de l'oxymore. Un
recensement effectué par Taylor Owen en 2004
faisait d'ailleurs état de l'existence de vingt et
une définitions distinctes du concept de sécurité
humaine au sein de la doctrine.14 Certaines se
caractérisent par la négative ou "l'absence de."
Ainsi, Jean-François Rioux définit la sécurité
humaine par l'absence "[d]'insécurité comme
l'ensemble des menaces politiques, économiques,
sociales, environnementales et culturelles
qui confrontent les individus dans leur vie
quotidienne."15 D'autres définitions conçoivent
la sécurité humaine dans sa dimension de
protection; c'est notamment le cas de celle que
promeut le ministère des Affaires étrangères et
du Commerce international du Canada (MAECI).
En effet, le MAECI intègre officiellement, parmi
les enjeux internationaux dont il se préoccupe,
la sécurité humaine, qu'il décline à travers cinq
priorités: les transitions démocratiques, les
droits de la personne et la protection des civils,
la prévention des conflits, la primauté du droit
et la responsabilisation, la sécurité publique.16
La multiplicité des définitions proposées pour
la sécurité humaine montre que, manifestement,
le concept de la sécurité humaine est porteur et
mobilisateur, au moins sur le plan des idées. Sur
le plan financier, les moyens mis en œuvre pour
soutenir le succès de ce concept17 ne sont sans
doute pas étrangers à l'engouement actuel pour
tout ce qui a rapport à la sécurité en général, au
sens hobbesien du terme.
Comment interprétons-nous ce concept?
Fen Hampson a identifié trois dimensions qui
sous-tendent la sécurité humaine: la sécurité
des personnes; la justice sociale et l'équité; et
l'État de droit. Ce sont trois approches distinctes
mais complémentaires qui correspondent à des
interprétations plus ou moins larges de la sécurité
humaine et qui l'envisagent comme une réponse
à différentes menaces.18 Ainsi, la sécurité des
personnes, aussi désignée par "freedom from
fear," fait référence à un contexte de conflit dans
lequel il s'agit de protéger les droits des civils,
soit les non-combattants; elle correspond à une
définition "minimaliste" de la sécurité humaine,
réduite à la protection contre les violences.
L'approche de la justice sociale et de l'équité,
aussi appelée "freedom from want," intègre la
notion de développement durable et s'intéresse à
des menaces non-militaires imputables à l'homme
(dégradation
environnementale,
disparités
économiques, problèmes de sécurité affectant
les groupes d'individus comme la drogue…).
C'est sans aucun doute la définition qui adopte
l'interprétation la plus large de la sécurité humaine,
puisqu'elle considère l'environnement social et
économique de l'individu comme des facteurs
déterminants. Elle adopte un discours sur les
besoins. Enfin, l'approche juridique de la sécurité
humaine part du principe que la plus grande
menace vient du déni des droits fondamentaux et
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Anne-Claire Gayet
de l'absence d'État de droit. Dans cette perspective, its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The
le respect des droits de l'homme est garant de la fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated
paix et de la sécurité internationales; la sécurité into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of
humaine incarne alors—et de façon paradoxale si armaments to such a point and in such a thorough
l"on se remémore les analyses de Sylvia Preuss- fashion that no nation will be in a position to
Laussinotte—le discours des droits fondamentaux commit an act of physical aggression against any
neighbor—anywhere in the world."20
individuels.
L'intégration de la conception de l'État de
Au-delà de ces différences, ces trois approches
de la sécurité humaine ont des points communs. Le droit dans la sphère de la sécurité humaine dans
premier élément fondamental est le changement les années 1990 constitue un apport important
de référent:19 nous sommes passés d'une sécurité à la vision de Roosevelt. Nous pourrions même
étatique orientée vers l'extérieur à une sécurité interpréter l'ajout de l'approche juridique comme
dans laquelle l'individu est central, et ce dans l'illustration d'un enthousiasme accru des États—
les trois conceptions de la sécurité humaine. En relatif toutefois—pour la "culture des droits de
outre, cette sécurité s'applique désormais tant l'homme."21 Celui-ci se manifesterait à travers des
à l'extérieur des frontières qu'à l'intérieur des engagements sur la scène internationale comme
frontières. La sécurité humaine, résumée par la ratification de la Convention contre la Torture
l'expression "vivre à l'abri de la peur et à l'abri et autres peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains
du besoin," est donc une notion intégrante qui ou dégradants ou l'élaboration de la Convention
envisage de manière plus large l'éventail des des Nations Unies sur la protection des droits
menaces qui peuvent affecter les individus afin de des travailleurs migrants et des membres de leur
pouvoir les prévenir et d'ainsi garantir une sécurité famille.22
L'adoption de la sécurité humaine comme
individuelle et collective plus grande.
La sécurité humaine, dans deux de ses principe de politique extérieure, comme l'a
acceptions, apparaît comme une réactualisation, notamment fait le Canada,23 pourrait aussi
indiquer la reconnaissance
40 ans plus tard, de la vision
les États de leur devoir
nord-américaine de l'après"La sécurization (...) est le par
envers
les
individus,
guerre telle que présentée
processus
dans
lequel
les
devoir basé non pas sur
par Franklin Roosevelt.
sphères
de
sécurité
intérieure
leur nationalité mais sur
L'approche juridique ne
et
extérieure,
autrefois
leur humanité. Ce serait la
faisait pas partie de cette
opposées
et
ayant
très
peu
du respect
vision à ce moment-là, sans
en commun, convergent concrétisation
de la "personne humaine"
doute pour son caractère
plus contraignant pour jusqu'à se confondre parfois." ou "personhood" tel que
conceptualisé par Harvey.24
les États. Ainsi, dans son
discours tenu le 6 janvier 1941, en plein dans la Et l'échelle d'application de la sécurité humaine
Seconde Guerre Mondiale et onze mois avant serait le monde. Ainsi, disponible sur le site du
l'entrée des États-Unis dans le conflit, Roosevelt Ministère de la défense du Canada, la présentation
mentionnait quatre libertés. Nous en retrouvons du concept de sécurité humaine par Walter Dorn
deux, mot pour mot, dans la définition de la sécurité insiste sur son caractère universaliste: "Like
humaine: "The first is freedom of speech and its sister concepts, human security has the
expression—everywhere in the world. The second characteristic of universality: it is applicable to
is freedom of every person to worship God in his individuals everywhere."25
Pourtant, les auteurs qui se sont penchés
own way—everywhere in the world. The third is
sur
la sécurité humaine ne perçoivent pas
freedom from want—which, translated into world
terms, means economic understandings which will nécessairement dans ce concept la "générosité"
secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for des États occidentaux vis-à-vis des individus des
Global Images
▪ 96 ▪
pays en voie de développement. Au contraire, le
fait que la sécurité humaine ne soit pensée que
dans une perspective internationaliste et qu'il
ne soit pas envisagé "d'appliquer le concept à
l'intérieur même des pays occidentaux"26 pose
question. La sécurité humaine serait-elle un
nouvel outil politique pour justifier l'imposition
de modèles occidentaux?27
Ces interrogations sont légitimes, de même que
la réticence à utiliser conjointement les termes de
"sécurité" et "humaine." Il n'en reste pas moins
que ce concept a le mérite de comporter plusieurs
notions essentielles, dont le fait que l'individu
est central. Par conséquent, il nous semblerait
important que chaque individu puisse faire valoir
son "droit à la sécurité humaine," interprétée dans
le sens hobbesien et repris dans l'Habeas Corpus
anglais, du "droit à la sûreté," sans y être toutefois
limitée.28 En quoi consiste donc la sécurité
humaine appliquée dans le contexte occidental?
La Sécurité Humaine dans le Contexte
Occidental: la Criminalisation de
l'étranger et le Retour à la Sécurité
étatique d'abord?
La création du concept de sécurité humaine
résulte d'un changement de point de vue et de
discours: serait-ce une rupture avec la perspective
réaliste "qui a toujours souligné les différences
entre les États qui se perçoivent davantage
comme des concurrents voire des ennemis?"
La sécurité humaine s'inscrirait alors dans la
perspective libérale qui dépasse l'opposition
viscérale des Etats et souligne au contraire leur
besoin de coopération. Dans cette perspective, la
liberté individuelle de mouvement est reconnue
et la perception de "la frontière comme une porte
fermée" est partiellement abolie. En Europe, la
tendance libérale qui reconnaît à l'individu le droit
à la mobilité (et le besoin de l'économie d'avoir
des travailleurs immigrés) s'est matérialisée dans
l'espace Schengen. "La distinction réaliste citoyen
vs. étranger se serait donc t-elle estompée?"29
Pas tout à fait. Aux discours libéraux de
liberté de mouvement et de sécurité humaine
s'est superposé un discours de retour à la sécurité
étatique et à la sécurité des citoyens occidentaux.
La "sécurisation de la sphère publique"30 depuis
deux décennies a conduit au maintien de la
différenciation citoyen vs. non-citoyen aux
frontières extérieures des États occidentaux.
Ceux-ci ont ainsi réaffirmé, dans le contexte de la
mondialisation, le rôle de la frontière comme "le
symbole traditionnel et tangible de la souveraineté
nationale,"31 faisant de la politique migratoire et
des contrôles aux frontières "le dernier bastion de
leur souveraineté."32 Ce retour à la sécurisation
des frontières fait partie d'un agenda sécuritaire
antérieur au 11 septembre 2001. Dunn et Palafox,
dans "Border Militarization and Beyond: The
Widening War on Drugs," l'attribuent en partie
au changement des rôles de l'armée et des autres
forces militaires dans la période post Guerre
Froide.33 La sécurisation, comme l'expliquent
Crépeau et Nakache, est le processus dans lequel
les sphères de sécurité intérieure et extérieure,
autrefois opposées et ayant très peu en commun,
convergent jusqu'à se confondre parfois.34 Ainsi,
les Etats—et leurs agences de sécurité extérieure,
chargées auparavant exclusivement de la lutte
contre un ennemi de l'étranger—ont identifié
de nouvelles menaces comme la criminalité
internationale, le terrorisme et le chômage,
lesquelles convergent vers l'image du migrant.35
Ayse Ceyhan met en évidence la coexistence
paradoxale, préexistante au 11 septembre, de la
mondialisation et du renforcement des contrôles
aux frontières, de même qu'elle corrobore le
fait que la sécurisation s'opère au détriment
des "indésirables:" "Depuis les années quatrevingt, on assiste aux États-Unis, tout comme
dans l'Union Européenne, à la production de
deux discours contradictoires: d'une part, un
discours de mondialisation des échanges, de
l'autre, un discours sécuritaire. Si le premier
implique l'affaiblissement physique de la
frontière, le second propose la restauration de la
fonction de sécurisation de celle-ci, c'est-à-dire
le renforcement des contrôles afin d'empêcher
l'entrée des 'indésirables' dans le pays."36
Le discours sécuritaire existant avant le 11
septembre a été toutefois entièrement légitimé
par les attaques contre les tours du World Trade
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Anne-Claire Gayet
Centre. Les événements du 11/09 ont ainsi
entravé la promotion de l'agenda de la sécurité
humaine sur la scène internationale en redonnant
davantage d'importance aux enjeux traditionnels
de la sécurité.37 Cette date charnière a favorisé
la mise en lumière d'un continuum des menaces,
lequel a mis à profit des dangers connus pour
identifier d'autres menaces, en particulier celles
que représentent les migrants: "The professionals
in charge of the management of risk and fear
especially transfer the legitimacy they gain from
struggles against terrorists, criminals, spies and
counterfeiters towards other targets, most notably
transnational political activists, people crossing
borders or people born in the country but with
foreign parents."38
Ne faisant pas partie du "nous," le migrant
est "[l]'ennemi non désigné des États."39 Le
renforcement des contrôles aux frontières et le
discours sécuritaire qui stigmatise les migrants ont
rendu plus difficiles les voies d'accès légales aux
États occidentaux, créant ainsi un environnement
davantage propice à la traite humaine ("human
trafficking"), au trafic d'êtres humains
("smuggling") et à l'immigration irrégulière.40
Tenu de satisfaire des critères de plus en plus
stricts et exigeants, le migrant est réduit, quand
il ne répond pas aux attentes des Etats, à prendre
des risques accrus pour changer de vie. Dès lors,
pouvons-nous parler de sécurité humaine pour les
migrants indésirables?
Le Renforcement des Contrôles
Frontaliers: une Logique de
Discrimination
L'Exemple de la Politique Européenne
des Visas Schengen
Le renforcement des contrôles frontaliers se
matérialise sous plusieurs formes: il peut s'agir
de mesures préventives qui interviennent avant
l'arrivée du migrant dans le pays ou de mesures
dissuasives qui sont utilisées par l'État en présence
d'un étranger déjà sur le territoire, en vue de
dissuader d'autres candidats à l'immigration.41
Parmi les mesures préventives, nous trouvons
notamment les visas,42 les sanctions pour les
Global Images
transporteurs privés (compagnies aériennes,
ferroviaires, maritimes) faisant entrer des
personnes avec une documentation insuffisante
ou frauduleuse et les mécanismes d'interdiction
et d'interception à l'étranger, particulièrement
efficaces selon les données du Ministère des
Affaires étrangères et du commerce international
canadien.43 Quant à elles, les mesures dissuasives
recouvrent
notamment
l'élimination
des
possibilités de faire appel après le refus d'une
demande d'immigration (c'est le cas de la Section
d'appel des réfugiés inscrite à l'article 151 de la
Loi sur l'immigration et la protection des réfugiés
au Canada qui n'a pas été mise en œuvre),44
l'augmentation de la détention pour manque
d'information sur l'identité et la réduction de l'aide
juridique pour les migrants.45
Le renforcement des contrôles aux frontières, soidisant effectué au nom de la sécurité des citoyens
et des migrants "désirés," a toutefois conduit à des
effets inverses que ceux officiellement escomptés.
Parmi ceux-ci, il faut mentionner l'effritement du
droit d'asile. En effet, les personnes en besoin de
protection internationale, soit d'obtenir le statut de
réfugié, sont de plus en plus contraintes à utiliser
des canaux illégaux pour rejoindre l'Europe, ce
qui accroît encore davantage leur vulnérabilité.
Morrison et Crosland l'analysent ainsi: "Much of
existing policy-making is part of the problem (of
increasing human trafficking and smuggling) and
not the solution. Refugees are now forced to use
illegal means if they want to access Europe at all.
The direction of current policy risks not so much
solving the problem of trafficking, but rather
ending the right of asylum in Europe, one of the
most fundamental human rights."47
La sécurité humaine, parfois schématisée
sous un triangle, prétend garantir aux individus
la sécurité ou "sûreté" de leur personne (pôle de
la protection contre les violences), la protection
contre le besoin et les inégalités (pôle de la
protection des droits sociaux et économiques
ou du développement) et la démocratie (ou
le pôle des droits humains, de l'Etat de droit).
L'effritement du droit d'asile en Europe pose
question quant à la réalité du premier pôle dans
le contexte occidental: si les politiques actuelles
▪ 98 ▪
de resserrement des frontières augmentent la
vulnérabilité des demandeurs d'asile en réduisant
l'accessibilité de la protection internationale, il
est à craindre en effet que la protection contre les
violences ne soit pas pleinement mise en œuvre.
Nous aimerions illustrer la situation des deux
autres pôles à travers l'exemple de la politique
"La sécurité humaine semble (...) être
interprétée différemment selon qu'il
s'agit de citoyens, d'étrangers, de
sécurité nationale ou internationale."
européenne des visas Schengen.
L'espace Shengen, qui réunit aujourd'hui 22
Etats membres et deux associés,48 se caractérise
par la libre circulation des personnes en son
sein, et par une politique commune de visa à
l'attention des ressortissants d'un certain nombre
de pays d'origine. Ces dispositions lient le pôle du
développement (et des inégalités) et la dimension
des droits fondamentaux, c'est pourquoi il nous
semble intéressant d'analyser la logique de cette
politique européenne et de voir dans quelle mesure
la sécurité humaine de ceux qui doivent obtenir
un visa est honorée.
Elspeth Guild et Didier Bigo, dans leurs articles
"La mise à l'écart des étrangers: la logique du visa
Schengen" et "Le visa: instrument de la mise à
distance des"indésirables," dressent le tableau.49
La politique des visas pour entrer dans l'espace
Schengen, élaborée et étendue à de nouveaux
membres progressivement à partir de 1990, résulte
d'inquiétudes liées à des flux migratoires massifs
pouvant venir de l'Est ou du Sud. Ces inquiétudes
se sont traduites dans "un texte implicite autour
de l'immigration invasion" (souligné dans le
texte). L'obligation d'obtenir préalablement
un visa pour rejoindre n'importe quel État de
l'espace Schengen a donc été imposée aux "pays
considérés à risque," définis par trois critères très
généraux que sont les relations internationales,
l'ordre public et l'immigration clandestine. Les
pays visés par les visas sont ceux "où il existe des
minorités considérées comme dangereuses par
d'autres pays," de même que les pays à fort taux
migratoire.
La carte établie par Guild et Bigo montre que
les 44 États qui ne sont pas soumis au visa sont
pour la plupart des pays développés, des futurs
membres de l'UE ou issus des Amériques (une
partie seulement de ce sub-continent d'ailleurs).
Les 133 pays (États et entités territoriales)
dont les ressortissants doivent demander un
visa correspondent au contraire à l'Afrique, au
Moyen-Orient (à l'exception d'Israël) et à une
large partie de l'Asie. La corrélation entre pays
riches—absence de visa et à l'inverse, pays en
développement— obligation du visa, est assez
claire: "les critères de danger en matière de sûreté
de l'État, danger lié au terrorisme et au crime
sont, sans pudeur particulière, associés au danger
migratoire."50
Selon Guild et Bigo, la politique des visas nie
la valeur intrinsèque de l'individu. Celui-ci est
désormais "perçu comme un collectif, comme un
flux déstabilisant (et est) souvent déshumanisé
avec les terminologies de masse, de foule ou même
de flux." L'individu n'est reconnu et jugé que par
"son appartenance à une catégorie prédéfinie." La
politique des visas, "délocalisation virtuelle de
la frontière qui la place avant le voyage—et non
pendant ou après—," est problématique sur le plan
de la sécurité humaine des individus qui doivent
s'y soumettre: l'individu n'est pas le référent
dans la prise de décision du visa. L'individu est
compris dans un groupe, mais ce même groupe
est lui-même évalué sur des critères très larges qui
condamnent d'emblée les individus malchanceux
cumulant tous les "défauts" (être issu d'un pays
en développement, être pauvre, ne pas être blanc,
venir d'un pays au taux migratoire négatif, etc.).
Or, comment juger à l'avance le risque d'illégalité
d'un individu? De quel droit le soupçonner d'être,
comme certains de ses compatriotes, un volontaire
à l'immigration clandestine?
"Si la légitimité de refuser l'entrée sur le
territoire à des criminels est forte, elle s'affaiblit
sérieusement lorsque l'on évoque la gestion des
flux migratoires et devient évanescente lorsque
l'on refuse à quelqu'un, une première entrée sur
le territoire en fonction de son appartenance à un
profil de groupe à risque migratoire. Priver des
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Anne-Claire Gayet
individus pauvres de retrouver leur famille sur
le territoire européen ou de simplement venir le
visiter ne se justifie pas."51
Cette négation des individus par leur prise
en compte seulement en tant que membres d'un
groupe social précis avec un comportement
prédéfini rejoint l'analyse que Sylvia PreussLaussinotte fait à propos des techniques de
fichage plus généralement, dans son article
"Bases de données personnelles et politiques
de sécurité: une protection illusoire?"52 Selon
elle, par l'incorporation de toutes les données
dites personnelles dans les fichiers informatisés,
notamment l'identité, le corps, les relations,
les mouvements, les connexions, les goûts, les
préférences des individus, etc., les bases de
données sont devenus "le moyen d"anticipation
des comportements 'à risque' et de tentative de
prédiction du futur dans un monde incertain."
La politique des visas Schengen va à l'encontre
de l'approche juridique de la sécurité humaine qui
reconnaît des droits fondamentaux aux individus,
parmi lesquels nous trouvons notamment
l'égalité de tous devant la loi et le principe de
non-discrimination (article 2 de la Déclaration
universelle des droits de l'homme). Il est en effet
indiqué que:
1. Chacun peut se prévaloir de tous les droits
et de toutes les libertés proclamés dans la
présente Déclaration, sans distinction aucune,
notamment de race, de couleur, de sexe, de
langue, de religion, d'opinion politique ou
de toute autre opinion, d'origine nationale ou
sociale, de fortune, de naissance ou de toute
autre situation.
2. De plus, il ne sera fait aucune distinction
fondée sur le statut politique, juridique ou
international du pays ou du territoire dont
une personne est ressortissante, que ce pays
ou territoire soit indépendant, sous tutelle,
non autonome ou soumis à une limitation
quelconque de souveraineté.53
En outre, la politique des visas constitue une
entrave significative à l'immigration légale
puisqu'elle rend le processus long et coûteux,
Global Images
sans garantie finale de l'obtention.54 Si elle vise à
décourager l'immigration depuis les pays ciblés,
elle remet surtout en question la notion de sécurité
humaine dans sa dimension juridique (le respect
des droits fondamentaux) en établissant de claires
distinctions entre les citoyens des Etats membres,
libres de circuler dans l'espace Schengen, les
citoyens des États développés qui sont les
bienvenus dans cet espace (pas de visa requis),
et les autres. Cette politique conduit les candidats
à l'immigration "au mauvais profil" à prendre
des risques accrus, souvent au péril de leur vie.
Les illustrations des conséquences ne manquent
pas, que ce soit dans le contexte européen ou
nord-américain. Nombreux sont les Africains qui
échouent devant la forteresse Europe, que ce soit
sur les plages espagnoles ou dans des containeurs;
les Latinos Américains arrêtés par les autorités
américaines à la frontière Mexique–Etats-Unis le
sont aussi.55
Conclusion
Notre réflexion visait à penser le concept de
sécurité humaine dans le contexte occidental. La
sécurité humaine, depuis son énonciation en 1994
dans le cadre du PNUD, n'a pas fait l'unanimité:
ni sur sa définition, ni dans son utilisation par les
acteurs, gouvernementaux ou non. Un élément
central réunissait toutefois l'ensemble des
interprétations et a priori les initiatives visant
à appliquer le concept de sécurité humaine: la
position centrale de l'individu. Or, l'analyse du
contexte—celui de la mondialisation, doublé
de la sécurisation et de la criminalisation du
migrant—ainsi que des pratiques renforcées des
contrôles migratoires, à travers l'exemple du visa
Schengen, tend à mettre en évidence la priorité
réaffirmée de la souveraineté étatique et de la soidisant protection des citoyens, au détriment des
non-citoyens. La sécurité humaine semble donc
être interprétée différemment selon qu'il s'agit
de citoyens, d'étrangers, de sécurité nationale ou
internationale. Le concept universaliste, partout
et pour tous, se révèle plutôt dans sa relativité.
Pourtant, les droits fondamentaux existent
pour tous et la sécurité humaine prise dans sa
▪ 100 ▪
dimension juridique semble devoir les incarner.
Le concept de sécurité humaine, dans le contexte
occidental comme ailleurs, ne devrait donc pas
souffrir de relativité. La sécurité humaine devrait
s'appliquer à tous également, indépendamment du
statut légal, et rejoindre ainsi la notion centrale
des droits de l'homme telle que qualifiée par
Stackhouse: "[The central notion of human rights
is] the implicit assertion that certain principles are
true and valid for all people, in all societies, under
all conditions of economic, political, ethnic and
cultural life…These principles are present in the
very fact of our common humanity."56
Dans la mesure où le concept de sécurité
humaine serait appliqué à tous également, nous
aimerions suggérer une autre interprétation de la
sécurité humaine, qui viendrait englober les trois
dimensions définies par Hampson.57 La sécurité
humaine constituerait la version moderne de
l'article premier de l'atemporelle Déclaration
universelle des droits de l'homme selon lequel "tous
les hommes naissent libres et égaux, en dignité et
en droits." La sécurité humaine constituerait alors
"le fondement de la liberté, de la justice et de la
paix dans le monde."58
▪ 101 ▪
Anne-Claire Gayet
Notes
Leiva v. Ranch Rescue. Case Number: CC-03-77. 229th Judicial District, Jim Hogg County, Texas. 26 June of 2003. http://www.splcenter.
org/legal/docket/files.jsp?cdrID=44&sortID=3
2
Ces milices armées agissent sans mandat légal, même si le droit de porter des armes est inscrit dans la Constitution américaine (voir le
deuxième amendement: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.")
3
UNDP. Human Development Report 1994: New Dimensions of Human Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
4
Stéphane de la Peschadière, "La sécurité humaine: état de l"art et repères bibliographiques." Revue de Sécurité Humaine / Human Security
Journal, Issue 1. April 2006.
5
Amitav Acharya, "Human Security: East versus West," International Journal, 56(3), 2001.
6
Peschadière, Stéphane (de la). 2006.
7
Thomas Hobbes, Le Léviathan."Traité de la matière, de la forme et du pouvoir ecclésiastique et civil." (1651).
8
Jean Rivero, Les Libertés publiques, t.2,"Le régime principal des libertés." (Paris: PUF, coll. "Thémis," 2003), 21.
9
Sylvia Preuss-Laussinotte, "Bases de données personnelles et politiques de sécurité: une protection illusoire?," §"La sécurité, concept
juridique contesté?" Cultures & Conflits, 64. 2007. http://www.conflits.org/index2133.html.
10
Michel Foucher, Fronts et frontières, un tour du monde géopolitique (France: Fayard, 1991), 544.
11
Stéphane de la Peschadière (2006).
12
Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (Zed Books, 2001).
13
Pour les sources de menace liées à l"environnement et à la croissance démographique, voir en particulier Homer-Dixon, Thomas. Environment,
Scarcity and Violence (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1999). Pour les violences sociales, voir notamment Zanotelli, Claude. "L'espace
des homicides et l'espace socioéconomique: l'agglomération de Vitoria-Brésil." Cultures et Conflits, n°59, 2005, 117-148.
L'actualité a d'ailleurs montré que ces violences n'étaient pas circonscrites aux villes des pays dits en voie de développement.
14
Taylor Owen, "Human security. Conflict and Consensus: Colloquium Remarks and Proposal for a Threshold-Based definition." Security
Dialogue, September 2004, 35 (3), 374.
15
Jean François Rioux, La sécurité humaine: une nouvelle conception des relations internationales. Paris: Harmattan. 2001.
16
Ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Commerce international. La sécurité humaine dans "Les Enjeux internationaux." http://geo.
international.gc.ca/cip-pic/cip-pic/humansecurity-fr.aspx
17
De nombreuses ressources sont disponibles en particulier au Canada. Voir notamment le Programme Glyn Berry pour la paix et la sécurité,
autrefois connu sous le nom de Programme de la sécurité humaine qui fait partie du Fonds pour la paix et la sécurité mondiales (FPSM)
mis en place par le MAECI (contribution jusqu'à 500,000 CAN$), http://geo.international.gc.ca/cip-pic/cip-pic/aboutthegbp-fr.aspx, ou le
Ministère des Ressources humaines et Développement Social Canada (financement à hauteur de 200 000$). Il existe également un fonds des
Nations Unies pour financer des projets de sécurité humaine, the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security,
http://ochaonline.un.org/TrustFund/tabid/2107/Default.aspx.
Il est à noter en revanche que la Commission européenne n'a pas inclus dans son budget 2007-2013 le financement de projets de sécurité humaine
proprement dits; la priorité est donnée à la sécurité stratégique, à des projets de lutte contre la pauvreté, au commerce et à l'élargissement et
aux relations avec les pays voisins. Voir pour ce point: Commission des Communautés européennes, COM (2004)101. Building our common
future: Policy challenges and Budgetary means of the Enlarged Union 2007-2013. Bruxelles, 10 février 2004.
18
Fen Hampson, Madness in the Multitude. Human Security and World Disorder. Canada: Oxford University Press. 2002.
19
20
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, The Four Freedoms. 77th Congress. January 6, 1941.
http://usinfo.org/facts/speech/fdr.html
21
François Crépeau et Delphine Nakache. "Controlling Irregular Migration in Canada. Reconciling Security Concerns with Human Rights
Protection." Immigration and Refugee Policy, Vol. 12, n°1. February 2006: 6.
22
Haut Commissariat aux droits de l"homme. La Convention contre la Torture et autres peines ou traitements cruels, inhumains ou dégradants
a été adoptée et ouverte à la signature par l'Assemblée générale dans sa résolution 39/46 du 10 décembre 1984; elle est entrée en vigueur le 26
juin 1987. http://www.unhchr.ch/french/html/menu3/b/h_cat39_fr.htm
La Convention sur la protection des droits des travailleurs migrants et des membres de leur famille a été adoptée par l'Assemblée générale
dans sa résolution 45/158 du 18 décembre 1990, mais elle est toujours en attente de ratification par les Etats occidentaux. Ceci met en lumière
la réticence étatique actuelle à signer des engagements internationaux de protection des droits de l'homme quand il s'agit d'accorder des droits,
non pas à leurs citoyens mais aux autres, en particulier sur leur territoire. http://www.unhchr.ch/french/html/menu3/b/m_mwctoc_fr.htm
Voir sur ce point notamment: Eugénie Depatie-Pelletier, " Abolition des pratiques analogues à l'esclavage: le Canada a-t-il fait ses devoirs?"
Éditorial pour la Chaire de recherche du Canada en droit international des migrations. 18 février 2008. http://www.cdim.cerium.ca/Abolitiondes-pratiques-analogues
23
Lloyd Axworthy, La sécurité des individus dans un monde en mutation. Déclarations et discours, Ottawa, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères,
1999. Lloyd Axworthy, alors ministre des affaires étrangères du Canada, a d'ailleurs donné sa propre définition de la sécurité humaine comme
"la protection des individus contre les menaces, qu'elles s'accompagnent ou non de violence."
24
Colin Harvey, Seeking Asylum in the UK – Problems and Prospects (London. Butterworths, 2000). Cité dans Crépeau, François et Delphine
Nakache (2006),6.
25
Walter Dorn, "Human Security: an Overview" (présentation préparée pour les cours du Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, 2001). Disponible
sur le site du Ministère canadien de la Défense Nationale, page du Royal Military College of Canada. http://www.rmc.ca/academic/gradrech/
1
Global Images
▪ 102 ▪
dorn24_e.html
26
27
Amitav Acharya (2001).
28
Sylvia Preuss-Laussinotte (2007).
29
Toutes les citations du paragraphe sont tirées de Guild, Elspeth et Didier Bigo. "La mise à l'écart des étrangers: la logique du visa Schengen.
Conclusion: les relations entre acteurs, les tendances technologiques et les droits des individus." Cultures & Conflits n°49,1, 2003, 124-135.
http://www.conflits.org/document939.html
30
François Crépeau et Delphine Nakache (2006).
31
Ibid.
32
Catherine Dauvergne, "Sovereignty, Migration and the Rule of Law in Global Times." Modern Law Review 67, 2004, 588-615. Cité dans
François Crépeau et Delphine Nakache (2006).
33
Tim Dunn et Jose Palafox. "Border Militarization and Beyond: The Widening War on Drugs." Border Lines 8 (4), 2000.
34
François Crépeau et Delphine Nakache (2006), 4.
35
Ibid.
36
Ayse Ceyhan. "Contrôles: frontières, identités. Les enjeux autour de l'immigration et de l'asile. États-Unis: frontière sécurisée, identité(s)
contrôlée(s)?" Cultures & Conflits, n° 26-27, 1997, 235-254. http://www.conflits.org/document373.html
37
Organisation internationale de la francophonie, Délégation aux Droits de l'Homme et à la Démocratie. "Sécurité humaine: clarifications du
concept et approches par les organisations internationales. Quelques repères." Document d"information. Janvier 2006, 1.
38
Didier Bigo, "Security and Immigration: Toward a critique of the Governmentality of Unease."Alternatives 27 (Special Issue). 2002: 63.
Nous avons souligné dans le texte.
39
Elspeth Guild et Didier Bigo (2003).
40
Pour la question de la traite et la distinction entre traite et trafic, voir notamment Oxman-Martinez, Jacqueline et Jill Hanley. La traite des
personnes. Guide trilingue. Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la violence familiale et la violence faite aux femmes. National Library
and Archives of Quebec (2007). Pour la question de l"immigration irrégulière voir Crépeau, François et Delphine Nakache (2006).
41
Crépeau, François et Delphine Nakache (2006), 12.
42
Une étude comparative de la politique des visas dans les pays occidentaux (par exemple UE, Australie, Canada, EU) pourrait utilement faire
l'objet d'une recherche ultérieure.
43
Selon le Ministère canadien des Affaires Etrangères et du Commerce International, plus de 40 000 personnes auraient été interceptées depuis
1999 par le réseau "Migration Integrity Officers" situé dans 39 lieux-clés à l'étranger. Voir Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade (DFAIT). Backgrounder. "Canada's actions against terrorism since September 11."
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/anti-terrorism/canadaactions-en.asp
44
Pour consulter la loi, voir la Commission de l"Immigration et du Statut du Réfugié. Loi sur l'Immigration et la Protection du réfugié. 2001.
(10 décembre 2007)
http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/fr/ausujet/publications/lipr/index_f.htm
Pour la suspension de la mise en œuvre de la section d'appel, voir les commentaires du Haut Comité des Réfugiés des Nations Unies."Le
HCR est déçu par la décision de reporter la création de la Section d'appel des réfugiés." Avril 2002. http://www.web.net/ccr/unhcr.html (10
décembre 2007).
45
François Crépeau et Delphine Nakache (2006), 14-18.
46
Dans le contexte occidental actuel, les migrants désirés sont généralement des travailleurs qualifiés et hautement qualifiés, et de préférence
riches.
Voir notamment sur ce point: Anne-Claire Gayet, "Linguistes et millionnaires: de bons candidats à l'immigration?." Éditorial pour la Chaire
de recherche du Canada en droit international des migrations. 24 janvier 2008.
http://cdim.cerium.ca/Linguistes-et-millionnaires-bons
47
John Morrison et Beth Crosland. "The Trafficking and Smuggling of Refugees: The End Game of European Asylum Policy?" Independent
Expert Report/ UNHCR Working Paper 38. 2001.
48
Consulter notamment le site Europa sur "Les activités de l'Union Européenne. Synthèses de la législation européenne." http://europa.eu/
scadplus/leg/fr/lvb/l33020.htm (Consulter le 23 février 2008).
49
Elspeth Guild et Didier Bigo, "La mise à l'écart des étrangers: la logique du visa Schengen. Conclusion: les relations entre acteurs, les
tendances technologiques et les droits des individus." Cultures & Conflits n°49, 1, 2003 a: 124-135. http://www.conflits.org/document939.
html et "Le visa: instrument de la mise à distance des 'indésirables.'" Cultures & Conflits, n°49, 1, 2003 b: 82-95. http://www.conflits.org/
document933.html
50
Ibid (l'auteur a souligné dans le texte). 2003 b.
51
Ibid. 2003 a.
52
Sylvia Preuss-Laussinotte, "Bases de données personnelles et politiques de sécurité: une protection illusoire?" Cultures & Conflits, 64, 2007.
http://www.conflits.org/index2133.html.
53
Organisation des Nations Unies. Déclaration universelle des droits de l'homme. 1948. http://www.un.org/french/aboutun/dudh.htm
54
Le site consulaire français à Montréal nous renseigne sur le prix du visa, environ 90 CAN$ (voir http://www.consulfrance-montreal.org/
spip.php?article395).
Le site Schengen visa services nous informe que la demande de visa, déjà payée, peut être acceptée ou refusée (voir le point 6 des
▪ 103 ▪
Anne-Claire Gayet
procédures,
http://www.schengenvisa.cc/download_application.html.)
55
Il est à noter qu'en vertu de l'ALENA (Accord de libre-échange nord-américain), les Mexicains n'ont pas besoin de visa pour entrer aux
Etats-Unis ou au Canada. Depuis la fin 2006, un nombre croissant de Mexicains arrivent en tant que"touristes"au Canada où ils demandent
finalement l"asile.
56
Max L. Stackhouse, Creeds, Society and Human Rights: A Study in Three Cultures. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing,
1984. Cité dans François Crépeau et Delphine Nakache. 2006.
57
Fen Hampson (2002).
58
Organisation des Nations Unies. Déclaration Universelle des Droits de l'Homme (Préambule), 1948. http://www.un.org/french/aboutun/
dudh.htm
Global Images
▪ 104 ▪
▪ 105 ▪
Anne-Claire Gayet
Sex, Race and Globalization:
African Prostitution and the Politics of Exclusion in France
Pauline Bandelier
In the last decades, African women have migrated increasingly towards
Western countries. While this global movement is assimilated to a problem
of immigration in European political discourses, the media, anti-trafficking
and feminist organizations often portray migrant prostitutes as victims. The
author goes beyond the stereotypes to show how the moral discourse on
trafficking has been fuelling a sexist and anti-migratory policy.
G
lobalization has impacted on the
movement of people and of sex
workers which now takes place
on a global scale. The impact of
globalization on international migration and
prostitution is represented in the prostitution
scene in France, composed at 70% by migrant
prostitutes coming from Africa, Eastern Europe
or Russia.1 In neo-liberal discourses, this global
prostitution is often articulated in terms of
trafficking and migrant prostitutes represented
either as naive "victims" of evil traffickers or as
"outlaws" who need to be punished and deported
for their sexual deviancy. The objective of this
article is to challenge dominant discourses and
propose instead a human security approach to
global prostitution and trafficking. This approach
is grounded in the individual experiences of
migrant women, recognising the variety of their
histories and considering that prostitution can
represent a strategy for migration and survival. In
order to do this, the case study of Paris where I have
conducted interviews with African prostitutes is
included. Information gathered during interviews
with associations based in Paris and in other
French cities is also used.
The instrumental use of immigration by
European political parties and how it has
contributed to exacerbating the already precarious
living conditions of African population in Europe
and in France is further discussed. In particular,
African prostitutes have been subjected to
stigmatization, exclusion and violence,2 not only
as prostitutes but also more and more as migrant
prostitutes. This article argues that the articulation
of migrant women's prostitution solely in terms of
trafficking and international crime participates in
the perpetuation of a colonized representation of
migrant women as passive and exploited victims.
Moreover, the case study of France demonstrates
Pauline Bandelier holds a B.A. in foreign applied languages from the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, and a master in international
law from the university of Santa Cruz, California. In 2005, she obtained a master of research in International Politics from
the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She is currently working as a consultant at UNESCO.
Global Images
▪ 106 ▪
that behind the rhetoric of protection of women,
the state has been pursuing a reactionary policy
toward prostitution, coupled with an intensifying
policy agenda to repress illegal immigration.
Methodology
There are very different forms of sex work,
taking place in a variety of places, some more
visible than others. This article focuses on the
most visible form of sex work, street prostitution
when it involves "heterosexual exchanges, with
men buying the sexual services of women, within
a set of sexual relations implying unequal power
relationships between the sexes."3 Prostitution is
also considered as an institution subjected to state
control.
In order to explore the central issues of this
research, I have conducted interviews with African
prostitutes, in two prostitution areas in Paris, the
Bois de Vincennes and the Rue Saint Denis. Most
of the women I met came from French speaking
West Africa and are part of what is considered
a "traditional" African prostitution in France.
These women are generally in a legal situation
and in some cases have been in France for several
years. In the last five years, African women from
English speaking West African countries have also
entered the French prostitution scene. Because of
limitations in time and of a lesser visibility due to
the sometimes illegal situation of these women,
this form of prostitution is not addressed in detail
here.
The initial project was to rely solely on
interviews with associations and on secondary
sources. However, as I progressed through
my work and realised that one of the major
problems in the existing representations of
transnational prostitution and trafficking was
the fact that prostitutes were not given the right
to speak, I became convinced of the necessity to
include testimonies of prostitutes. For my own
comprehension of prostitution, I realised that
speaking with prostitutes was also a necessity. My
reluctance to approach these women stem from my
fear to be considered an indelicate"intruder"into
their lives, a privileged observer of a precarious
and stigmatised other. I asked a friend to come
along with me and we conducted all the interviews
together. The interviews were generally quite
short, often standing outside the van where the
woman was working or in front of a building.
While approaching these women, we did
encounter some defiance, but less than what we
had expected. Some refused to be interviewed.
Others said no at first but changed their mind
and called us back after we had already walked
away from their van. This defiance can partly be
explained by the situation of harassment these
women have suffered in the last two years, both
from the police and the media. This harassment
is directly linked to the adoption by the French
government in March 2003 of a law forbidding
passive soliciting, the Loi sur la Sécurité
Intérieure (LSI) (Law on Internal Security) which
has projected migrant prostitutes at the forefront
of public attention. The consequences of this law
for African prostitutes are discussed further in this
article. After I had explained the purpose of my
research, these women generally let go of their
guard.
I have also conducted interviews with several
associations helping prostitutes. These interviews
reflect the conflicting representations of prostitution
in the French society and the tendency to portray
women's migration and prostitution in ideological
terms.4 For the abolitionist associations l'Amicale
du Nid (The Nest Association), and Aux Captifs
la Libération (Liberation for the Captives),
prostitution is a human rights'violation, a slavery
to be abolished. In particular, all prostitution
coming from developing countries is considered
as abuse. The objective of these associations
therefore is to help women stop prostitution and
find some other work.
The other associations, Bus des Femmes
(Bus of the women), Cabiria and Grisélidis, are
community based associations, created in the
1990s in response to the AIDS epidemic. Their
action is more sanitary than social, and their
perspective on prostitution and on the support to
be given to prostitutes varies from the abolitionist
one. They believe that ending the difficulties of
prostitutes does not necessarily imply stopping
▪ 107 ▪
Pauline Bandelier
prostitution, especially since most of them The International Trade in Human Beings
do not have the desire or capacity to stop this
activity. Rather they advocate ending the stigma An aspect of this international sex trade is
generally attached to this activity and demand that the development in the last fifteen years of an
prostitutes be granted the same rights and social international traffic in human beings. Still an
advantages as the rest
amateur
business
of the population. " The instrumental use of immigration in ten years ago it
Their staffs include
is now a "global
European
countries
shows
how,
through
migrant sex workers
business, linked to
working as "cultural the political mobilization of concepts criminal networks."7
mediators."
In of sovereignty and security, certain According
to
addition to doing
the
International
AIDS
prevention, topics are constructed as threats." Organization
for
they
accompany
Migrations,
more
prostitutes in their demands for asylum, and in than four million illegal migrants every year are
all their administrative and medical procedures. victims of that traffic, now the third most thriving
I also met the association Femmes Publiques, a illegal business after drugs and arms, amounting
feminist association composed of sex workers to about $7 billion.8 Among those, approximately
and activists and which defends the rights of 120,000 women and children would be trafficked
prostitutes. The association has been particularly into the European Union every year.9 By describing
active in campaigning against the LSI.
the horrors of this "modern form of slavery," antitrafficking organizations have been instrumental
The Development of the International in raising international attention and indignation.
The following quotation amplifies these horrors:
Sex Trade, Trafficking and
"She was a virgin, and she didn't know what they
International Migrations
were talking about, but she knew it was bad, so
she refused. She was then brutally gang-raped
Under globalization anything becomes a product
to induct her into the business. For the next six
to be advertised, sold and exported and sex is no
months, she was forced to service 10 to 15 men a
exception. The sex trade now takes place on a
day. Twice she was impregnated, twice forced to
global scale, with young African women beginning
have an abortion, and twice she was back in the
their search for income at home or in neighbouring
brothel the next day. […]"10
African countries and ending up selling sex on the
Throughout the 1990s, European Institutions
streets of Paris, Amsterdam or Copenhagen. The
have also developed a wide range of policies
increasing demand among European and North
and Conventions to combat trafficking, the most
American men for sexual services of Asian, Latin
recent being the Convention on Action against
American, African and Eastern European women5
Trafficking in Human Beings adopted in Warsaw in
has favoured the development of an "exotic" sex
2005. However, the fact that in Europe trafficking
trade, through the mediation of an important
is framed as a problem of illegal immigration has
commercial sex network facilitating migration.6
often prevented the adoption of adequate measures
The sex industries in Western countries have
to protect the victims of trafficking. When such
now become an embarrassing reminder of
measures have been taken, they have in most
growing global inequalities. They also reflect the
cases been linked to the cooperation of the victim
racial and sexual division of labour operating in
in the prosecution of her trafficker. If the woman
Western societies, with the over-representation of
refuses to cooperate (often because of a fear of
migrant women in the most marginalised part of
reprisals according to NGOs), she is subjected
the industry.
to punishment and expulsion, regardless of the
Global Images
▪ 108 ▪
danger for her safety. In most cases therefore, the
protection of the laws of the state predominates
over the protection of the woman, in a "shift of
focus away from the problem of violence against
women to that of illegal entry and residence in a
European country.11
In addition to favouring the very likelihood
of trafficking for would be migrant women who
can"t enter Europe legally, these policies also
mean that victims are likely to be returned to
their country of origin and therefore to the living
conditions they were trying to escape in the first
place.12 All research conducted on trafficking
stress that in most cases, the women trafficked
got trapped during the process of migration.13
Moreover, the construction of a moral discourse
against trafficking in several European countries
has favoured the implementation of reactionary
policies around prostitution, resulting in an
increased precariousness for "voluntary"
migrant sex workers. The rest of this articles
shows the ambiguities contained in the official
European discourse on trafficking. In particular,
it demonstrates how the focus on trafficking
obscures questions about the treatment of
migrant sex workers in Europe and examines
how European immigration and asylum policies
have restricted the access of migrant women to
European countries and favoured their entry in
the informal sectors of the economy.
political anxieties about borders, crime, illegal
immigration,"14 bringing questions about borders
and the movement of people across them at the
centre European political debates. European
anxieties about immigrants have been further
aggravated by the international crisis of the mid1970s and the subsequent deterioration of the
conditions of living of European populations.15
Constructing the Migration as a Threat
A movement toward the redefinition of concepts
of "nation, nationality and citizenship"16 has
resulted from these tensions. In most European
countries, this movement has led to the closing of
national frontiers to non-European citizens and the
"ethnicization" of national membership. In France,
as in several countries of the OCDE, several laws
restricting the entry and stay of migrants have been
adopted since the 1970s. One of them, passed on
the 26th of November 2003 by Nicolas Sarkozy,
at the time French Minister of Home Affairs, the
LSI, provides for the aggravation of sanctions
against illegal immigration and the increase in
expulsions. At the European level, the enhanced
cooperation between European police, customs
and judicial systems, the setting up of a complex
system of information, the Schengen Information
System (SIS), all reflect the will to counterbalance
the abolition of European internal borders with an
increased control of people's movement inside the
Union. Through the SIS, all national data about
Migrants and European Policies:
illegal immigrants or asylum seekers is put on
Nowhere at Home?
line, with the obligation for European states to
The last decades of the twentieth century have expulse the undesirables from their territory.
been marked by several economic and political
upheavals including the end of bipolarity, the The Political Use of Immigration
creation of a global economy and the acceleration
of the construction of the European Union. The Rather than national entities, the "enemies" of
establishment of supranational entities, the Schengen take the form "of a host of transnational,
suppression of national currencies and the gradual social threats, often personified in the racialized
abolition of national frontiers have resulted in figure of Islamic and non white people."17 In
the weakening of what has been traditionally political debates, the status of immigrants has
known as the Westphalian nation-state. As increasingly changed from welcomed foreign
pointed by several authors, the move toward labour to that of a threat to the state but also to
a greater interdependence between European society, its security and its identity. Even though
nations has been accompanied by a "new set of the absence of a correlation between crime rates
▪ 109 ▪
Pauline Bandelier
and the presence of people of a foreign origin has
been largely demonstrated by critics, the security
discourse still operates. The instrumental use of
immigration in European countries shows how,
through the political mobilization of concepts
of sovereignty and security, certain topics are
constructed as threats. Concepts of sovereignty
and security however are not "instruments to
analyze social reality," but rather categories
linked to a certain form of governance, that of the
Westphalian state.18
In the three largest immigration countries,
England, France and Germany, xenophobic issues
have been successfully used by conservative
parties against social democratic governments.
Sensational representations in the media about
"dangerous floods of foreigners rolling against the
dams of English, German or French lands,"19 have
actually been relatively independent of the actual
numbers of immigrants. In these three countries
however, focusing on minorities contributed
significantly to the conservative parties or
blocs regaining power. In France for example,
immigrants were the main issue in the in 1985-86
elections that returned a conservative majority to
parliament.20 The topic of immigration was also
an important aspect of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007
presidential campaign and largely contributed
to his victory. Increasingly, immigration and its
control has become a central issue in political
debates, and is now an electoral argument used by
both right wing and left wing parties. However,
playing with such topics has a price for migrants,
and in France the laws adopted since the 1970s
have contributed to the deterioration of living
conditions for minorities staying in the country.
Sexual and Racial Division of Labour in
Europe
In this context, refugees and asylum seekers have
become increasingly associated with crime, drugs
and terrorism, rather than with democracy, human
security and human rights. On the other hand, the
labour participation of migrant women, often
invisible, now plays an increasing role in particular
sectors in several European countries,21 and more
Global Images
specifically in the domestic work and sex work
industries. In Italy, the arrival of young Nigerian
sex workers in the 1980s was a response to an
important demand among clients for very young
and foreign prostitutes. This demand was partly a
result of the aids epidemic, clients considering that
very young prostitutes would have fewer chances
to be HIV positives than their Italian counterparts,
often drug addicts.22 The types of jobs available
for migrant women in Western societies are
largely unskilled, low paid and, given the little
social and legal protection they provide, insecure.
The development of the international sex trade
therefore reflects the fact that migrant women's
entry into contemporary societies is limited both
by restrictive immigration controls and by the
racial and sexual discrimination operating within
"(...) renting one's
body for sexual use can
represent a strategy of
migration and survival."
those markets. In Spain for example, the "Line of
Investigation and Cooperation with Migrant Sex
Workers"(LICIT) has observed that in Catalane,
fifty percent of the migrants are women, coming
for the most part from Latin America. Even though
they have in many cases a level of education
superior to Spanish women and to men migrants,
two types of work are available for women who do
not have papers: domestic work and sex work.23
Migrant sex workers now represent the
majority of sex workers in the cities of Western
Europe. A research on black prostitutes in
Denmark shows that these women are often part
of a chain migration, maintaining contact with
relatives both in the country of origin and in other
countries.24 Moreover, the reduction of travelling
time permitted by globalization enables some of
them to construct several life spaces, hiding their
prostitution activity from family and friends.
However, these women have also been the
primary targets of the hostile attitude of European
societies toward migrant populations. In order
▪ 110 ▪
to understand the situation faced by migrant sex in other French cities. African prostitution has also
workers, a look at the prostitution scene in France diversified in its origins. "Traditional" African
is very useful.
women from West African French speaking
countries have been joined increasingly by women
A Look at the African Prostitution
from West African English speaking countries
Scene in France
such as Sierra Leone, Nigeria or Ghana.
This case study gathers interviews with associations
helping prostitutes as well as interviews with
African prostitutes. By interviewing prostitutes,
the aim was to understand how they had entered
the activity of prostitution and why they continued.
I also wished to know whether these women were
exercising the activity of prostitution freely or
under the constraint of a procurer. The interviews
with prostitutes and with the associations reveal
a great diversity of individual experiences. As
pointed by Françoise Guillemaut, between the
two extremes of the woman choosing prostitution
freely and the one forced into it through deception,
violence or threat, a "variety of circumstances can
be found, where women (particularly migrant)
develop various strategies of resistance or
adaptation."25 In many cases, the interviews reveal
that, in the absence of other opportunities, renting
one's body for sexual use can represent a strategy
of migration and survival.
France: a "Global" Prostitution Scene
If the focus of the media on a supposed "invasion"
of migrant women manipulated by "foreign-mendangerous-procurers"26 started around 1998-1999,
the prostitution of foreign women in France is not
a new phenomenon. During the sixties/seventies
and until the eighties/nineties however prostitution
in Paris was either Franco-French—from all the
regions of France to Paris- or Francophone—
coming from countries possessing historical links
with France such as North Africa or Sub-Saharan
Francophone Africa.27 The upheavals that have
accompanied the process of globalization and
the end of bipolarity have changed the face of
prostitution in Paris, mobilising an always greater
variety of sex workers in multiple trajectories.
From the end of the 1990s, several hundred
women from Eastern Europe arrived in Paris and
Francophone Women: Traditional African
Prostitution
Most of the French speaking African prostitutes
have arrived in France during the 1990s. In my
interviews I have met women from Cameroon,
Gabon, Togo and Central Africa. According to
Moujoud and Teixeira, Women coming from
Francophone African countries have generally
arrived in France without the intermediary of a
network and in some cases have invested in the
country of origin where they are responsible
for the care of their children. The interviews
conducted in Paris show that for these women
the entry into prostitution is often best described
in terms of the absence of alternative choices,
an adaptation to a situation marked by "distress,
poverty or violence."28 The following interviews
provide insight on the situation of these women:
"I came from Central Africa in 2000. I had
several children and I could not provide for them
anymore. My purpose for coming to France was
not to become a prostitute, it was to find work and
see if I could manage to raise my children. When
you arrive here in France life is so difficult and
what you see when you are in Africa is not what
you find here… It is harder here than in Africa
(…) I worked; when I got my papers I worked
in some hotels, during six months. You can't
imagine, you should have seen me, I looked like
someone with AIDS (…) there is so much work
and so little salary. You work and you are not well
paid. One day I thought, why don't I try and do
like the others, you can make money quite fast.
But people do not consider you well."
"I come from Cameroon...but I have been in
France for a long time. I ended up in prostitution
by force. In 1999 I lost my job because my boss
died. I had a part-time job, and I am a single
mother with four kids. And to support them and
▪ 111 ▪
Pauline Bandelier
pay the rent…"
When you do that it is not because you want
to, it is because you have looked around and
there is nothing else to do. Then you think why
not try this and see if you can get somewhere…
But you realize even by doing this you can't get
anywhere."
These interviews reveal that the social
and economic dimensions are an essential
aspect of prostitution. As argued by Lilian
Mathieu, prostitution is "one of the most
extreme manifestations of economic and social
relations." Any prostitute working on the street
has experienced some form of aggression. Some
prostitutes have been raped, others robbed,
knocked out, snatched or illegally confined…29
Thinking of these women solely as victims
however is misleading. Most of them are also
strong and courageous women who have dared
to cross borders and transgress traditional
gender roles to create better conditions of living
for themselves and their family. For the most
part, they were not aware of the difficulties
and discriminations they would find in France.
Faced with the racial and sexual discriminations
operating within the French labour market, they
have adopted strategies of survival and prostitution
has constituted one of these strategies. Some of
them want to stop prostitution but are very aware
of the difficulties they will face in their search for
another activity. One of the women who wanted to
recycle professionally was going to the association
Bus des Femmes twice a week to follow computer
training. Another woman told me she was not
ready to stop. Since the adoption of the LSI law
in March 2003, these women have been subjected
to increased harassment and persecution by the
police. Rather than moaning however, they have
organized and protested, revealing once again
their potential for resistance and action.
over the world to a social and legal punishment,
rather than to a legal and social protection.30 In this
context, whether or not they have already been
stigmatized with the term prostitute, sex work
can be the only, or the best, economic opportunity
accessible to women migrants. In the context of
the unequal relations between the north and the
south and between sexes, prostituting oneself can
represent a strategy, a way to divert structural
domination and to make a living. Several authors
have documented that many African sex workers
working in France are head of households.31 It
was the case of all the African prostitutes I met
in Paris. In this context, if service work and sex
work are unregulated work sectors, which do not
give access to social rights and therefore imply
work situations marked by precariousness and
insecurity, these are also "real" places of work
for women, which generate an income. However
prostitution can also mean criminalization,
state repression, exploitation, violence and the
possible expulsion towards a country of origin
ready to punish women for having infringed on
the so-called "rules of the state" or on tradition,
while obscuring questions about the treatment of
migrant sex workers in France.
African Prostitutes: Victims or
Offenders?
For the abolitionist associations met in Paris,
prostitution is an organization, a system that
exploits situations of distress and failure for
the benefit of procurers. Because the prostitute
is seen as a traumatised individual, suffering
either from identity problems or the victim of
procurers, her agency and what she has to say are
considered irrelevant, except when she wants to
abandon the prostitution activity. Implicit in the
abolitionist discourse is the idea that the prostitute
needs to be saved from her present condition.
Prostitution as a Survival Strategy
In particular African prostitutes are seen "kids
pushed to exile by misery and war and attracted
As pointed by Pheterson, women who transgress by false promises."32 On the other hand, the social
codes discriminatory in terms of gender, and and economic dimension of prostitution is often
particularly those which oppose the economic ignored. In the words of one prostitute: "It bothers
and sexual autonomy of women, are subjected all people to see someone prostituting, but nobody is
Global Images
▪ 112 ▪
chocked to see someone dying of hunger in front cultures."38 When looking more closely at the
of his house."33
representations of African sex workers in Western
societies, one often finds the reminiscence
Representing African Prostitutes as Victims… of earlier colonial representations of African
women. "Pretty animals that obey and custom and
As the case study of France shows, describing the instinct" during colonial times,39 African women
prostitution of migrant women solely in terms of are now often portrayed in the French media as
trafficking is problematic for several reasons. As "totally submissive to traditions" and "culturally
pointed by Picku, this term is rather ambiguous conditioned." Stereotypical representations of
and difficult to define. It relies too often on a African prostitutes and of African women in
supposed innocence (in other words purity) of the general are also present in the discourse of antivictims,"lured," "deceived," "coerced," and above trafficking and feminist organizations. By using
all, not intending to engage in sex work abroad. the same emotional language as abolitionist, they
The reality is obviously often more complex.34 have participated to the creation of a climate where
For example a woman may voluntarily engage in the majority of sex work, and particularly sex
prostitution using the service of a procurer, but work from developing countries is seen as abuse:
find herself working under forced conditions. Or "Women are kidnapped, their papers seized, their
she may not have known she was going to enter families pressured, they are retained in special
prostitution but may have decided to continue in camps, raped, sometimes tortured."40
order to stay in the migrating country.
Mohanty reminds us that feminist scholarship,
Generalizations about the situation of African like any kind of scholarship, is a directly political
sex workers and of any migrant sex workers and discursive practice that it is purposeful and
tend to be built on an ignorance of the socio- ideological, inscribed in relations of power
cultural background of migrant women. As which it "counters, resists, or even perhaps
pointed by Sayad, such generalizations can implicitly supports."41 Since feminists believe
only produce a partial and ethnocentric view that prostitution participates to the perpetuation
of migratory phenomenon, obscuring women's of unequal relation between men and women, the
agency and search for work or political asylum.35 objective for most of them is the end of prostitution.
Moreover, these generalizations participate to the If this is a respectable position, it is also one that
perpetuation of stereotypes generally attached often relies on essentialising the prostitute as the
to migrant sex workers, among them that these victim of a system of exploitation, whether or not
women are "passive and exploited victims."36 It the prostitute adheres to this vision of herself as
is often assumed that African women working a victim. Here Mohanty is useful again when she
in prostitution come from rural areas, which says that some feminist writings "discursively
makes them easy preys for trafficking. However, colonize the material and historical heterogeneities
researches carried out among African sex workers of the lives of women in the third world, thereby
in several European countries reveal a variety of producing/re-presenting a composite, singular
social origins. Referring to African sex workers 'third world woman' an image which appears
working in Denmark, Marlene Spanger says "that arbitrarily constructed, but nevertheless carries
all in all, the women have social backgrounds, with it the authorizing signature of Western
reflecting a wide and complex group of humanist discourse."
women."37
In the entry into prostitution is often the result
As pointed by Mohanty, the relations of a situation marked by social vulnerability, for
between women as historical subjects and the French as well as migrant prostitutes, Marlene
representation of women produced by hegemonic Spanger's research on black prostitutes in Denmark
discourses is not a relation of pure identity, but confirms that these women cannot be reduced to
rather "an arbitrary relation set up by particular their status of victims. In particular, she shows how
▪ 113 ▪
Pauline Bandelier
black prostitutes have used Danish stereotypes
about coloured women's "wild" or "natural"
sexuality to earn their money and to hide their real
identity. In the context of the international debate
on trafficking, the migrant prostitute may also
exploit representations of migrant sex workers
as victims of international traffic to gain asylum
status or other kind of assistance. According
to Anne Souyris from the association Femmes
Publiques, migrant women produce a particular
discourse when interacting with an abolitionist
association, describing situations of violence or
torture in the country of origin. As pointed by
Throbek, migrant prostitutes can also be seen as
entrepreneurs, not just victims.42
…Or Criminals
The position adopted by France on prostitution is
abolitionist: since it is not explicitly forbidden or
even defined in the French law, it cannot therefore
be considered an illegal activity because of the
principle in French law that "what is not prohibited
by law cannot be prevented."43 However, in the
neo-liberal and security discourse adopted by
the former French Minister of Domestic Affairs
Nicolas Sarkozy, migrant prostitutes have
increasingly been represented as offenders. This
discourse has in turn acted as a justification for
the hostility of city inhabitants and of French
prostitutes toward migrant prostitutes.
Following a presidential campaign dominated
by the theme of "insecurity" in May 2002, Nicolas
Sarkozy announced that "those responsible for
actively or passively soliciting will be liable to
systematic removal from French territory and to
a definitive withdrawal of all rights of residence
when they are of a foreign nationality." This
declaration was followed by the adoption on the
18th of March 2003 of the LSI, which prohibits
"passive soliciting." The LSI states that the person
considered guilty of passive soliciting may be
subjected to two months of jail and to a €3750 fine,
a condemnation which includes expulsion when
the person is a foreigner. The LSI law enables the
police forces to call in, keep in detention, judge and
deport any person considered to be a prostitute. It
Global Images
facilitates expulsions and has since 2003 resulted
in a multiplication of controls. The law also
provides for the reinforcement of the fight against
traffickers and networks exploiting human beings.
Sarkozy argued that the law would permit to fight
procuring and indirectly to protect prostitutes
by tackling the profits generated by prostitution.
Migrant prostitutes can be considered victims
of traffic if they denounce their trafficker and be
granted a renewable three months green card;
otherwise they are treated as offenders and illegal
immigrants and are subjected to deportation.
Supposedly designed to fight against trafficking
and procuring, the French law on passive soliciting
has been denounced by several associations as
targeting primarily prostitutes and more specifically
migrant prostitutes, independently of the fact that
some of these women are in a legal situation and
have been in France for several years. As pointed
earlier, most of the French speaking West African
prostitutes working in the Bois de Vincennes are
working independently. Moreover, they work in
vans in special areas of the Bois de Vincennes
and therefore do not represent a "disturbance" to
public order. However, all the prostitutes working
in the Bois de Vincennes report situations of
verbal abuse and harassment by the police.
"The police threatens us, in a way they do their
work but there are also some abuses. The Sarkozy
law was not meant for traditional girls like us. It
was meant for girls working with a procurer. Me
I work simply to earn my life. The two issues are
confused."
According to David le Pabic, from the
association Femmes Publiques: "Prostitutes from
Cameroon are part of the 'traditional' prostitution.
They have been in France for a long time and
are integrated in the French society. They are in
a very different situation than the Anglophone
prostitutes who arrived more recently. They
generally have papers renewable every ten years.
They are particularly targeted by the 'Sarkozy'
laws, much more than the French prostitutes.
They (the police) generally wait for the expiry of
their papers and they don't renew them."
These testimonies show the discriminatory
and arbitrary application of the LSI law and the
▪ 114 ▪
double stigma attached to African prostitutes, as
prostitutes but also as migrant women. Corrine
Monet, who works in Lyon for the association
Cabiria, reports that: "The harassment of the
police is constant; women, particularly foreigners,
are regularly placed in custody."44 According to
an African prostitute: "Everybody has been hurt.
Particularly foreigners. In France there is no
room for foreigners in prostitution [….] But we
are hotheads, we have a strong mind. Otherwise
if we had to do like the French state expects there
would be no black women left in the Bois de
Vincennes… You go to the roundabout in Château
de Vincennes. You will see white prostitutes in a
van. In the middle of the road but nobody says
nothing. But you try to change place just a little
bit and they tell you no. It is not correct. You have
more problems than them. Sometimes when the
police expels you they ( the French prostitutes) are
here working [….]. There is no physical violence
but things are said: 'go back to your country.'
Those words hurt."
The LSI has also resulted in increased
tensions between prostitutes. French prostitutes
regard migrant prostitutes as responsible for the
dislocation of traditional solidarities between
prostitutes and the increasing precariousness that
they face, a vision often encouraged by the French
police forces. Migrant prostitutes are accused of
breaking the prices, and of accepting practices
generally refused by French sex workers.45
According to a traditional French prostitute: "Its
every women for herself. It is if I can shop you, I
shop you, it is anarchy, it is really every woman
for herself. It is money, it is mentalities, it is kids
who arrived on the streets and who haven't been
trained."
In addition, this law creates a situation where
the prostitution activity of migrant women is
considered either as the "fault of the woman" or
as the fault of criminal agents. If the woman is
considered guilty, she is subjected to the state's
punishment and to a possible expulsion. Otherwise
she may be afforded a temporary right of residence
if she accepts to identify and to testify against
alleged traffickers, often migrant men, which are
held responsible for her offence. In the first case
she is considered an outlaw, and in the second one
a victim. This juridical device and its application
by the police Pheterson says, contrasts with the
tolerance applied to the owners of saunas, massage
salons or leisure clubs which generate important
profits—public, private and criminal—from the
sex work of migrant prostitutes. The regular
expulsion of these women corresponds perfectly
to the demand among clients for regular renewal
in the "exotic" sexual supply.46
Finally, most of the associations stress the limited
effect of the law in tackling procuring since most
of the repression has targeted prostitutes. Rather
than contributing to the diminution of prostitution,
most associations argue that the LSI law has
simply resulted in an increased precariousness for
prostitutes. Forced to leave traditional prostitution
areas, they have moved to new territories, on
the outskirts of the cities, industrial wasteland,
in the woods, in parking, caves; in areas where
prostitutes are even more likely to be subjected to
abuses, outside of the reach of the police in case
of aggressions. Since March 2003, prostitutes and
associations denounce a new spell of aggressions,
murders and disappearances of prostitutes, as
well as the increased violence of policy forces.47
According to Amély Koh James, "the laws passed
as part of the fight against prostitution are so
repressive that they have simply contributed to
making prostitution more clandestine and to the
displacement of prostitutes […] it feels like the
minister simply wanted to clean the streets to
please the city residents, an operation of seduction
for a potential electorate…"
The case study of France reflects how, in
several European countries, the emergence of a
moral discourse on trafficking and the distinction
between voluntary and forced prostitution has
been used by governments to justify increasingly
restrictive policies against migrant women
"voluntarily" engaging in sex work. However, as
argued by Doezema, if it is recognized that the
majority of those in the sex industry who end up
in debt bondage or slavery like conditions were
already working as sex workers, it is not possible
to avoid the conclusion that it is prostitutes whose
human rights are violated on a large scale.
▪ 115 ▪
Pauline Bandelier
Conclusion
With the movement towards a global political
economy, female bodies have become increasingly
instrumentalised, and female sexuality rapidly
incorporated within the global division of labour.
The development of this "global economy of
desire" is reflected in the growing demand among
North American and Western European men for an
"exotic" sexual supply. The demand for migrant
women's labour in the service and sex industries
has participated in the last fifteen years to the
development of exclusively feminine forms of
migration from Latin America, Africa or Eastern
Europe. The sex industries in Western European
countries are now composed by a majority of
migrant sex workers of increasingly diversified
origins.
In political debates migrant prostitutes have
been treated as scapegoats and labelled as trouble
makers. On the other hand, structural efforts
are made to condemn trafficking in women.
The tendency however is in the reduction of the
question of migration to a problem of trafficking,
which often puts migrant women in a de facto
status of victims. In France, the fight against
trafficking has been part of a more general attempt
to control prostitution in general, and in particular
the number of migrant prostitutes working in the
country. The interviews with the associations
and with prostitutes show that the police has
deliberately exploited tensions between French
and migrant prostitutes to prevent the formation
of solidarities and the organization of prostitutes.
The LSI therefore might be part of a more general
attempt to keep migrant's labour, and particularly
the labour of migrant women, as docile and
invisible as possible.
For women victims of trafficking and fearing
persecutions if they return to their home country,
real strategies of support should include giving
them refugee status and the possibility to stay and
work on the French territory, for a temporary and
renewable period. These rights should be granted
independently of the woman's collaboration
against her traffickers, especially since in most
cases the women will not talk because she fears
Global Images
reprisals. For all migrant prostitutes, strategies of
empowerment need to go beyond victimization
and criminalization to consider the agency of
these women, their search for autonomy and
their capacity to make choices and to transgress
traditional codes of gender.
▪ 116 ▪
Notes
F. Guillemaut and L. Caixeta, Femmes et Migrations en Europe, Stratégies et Empowerment (Lyon: Le Dragon Lune, Cabiria Editions, 2004), 28-29.
G. Pheterson Le Prisme de la Prostitution. Paris: l"Harmattan, 2001.
3
J. Outshoorn,"Introduction: Prostitution, Women and Politics,"in The Politics of Prostitution, ed. J. Outshoorn (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 3.
4
F. Guillemaut and L. Caixeta. Femmes et Migrations en Europe, Stratégies et Empowerment. Lyon: Le Dragon Lune, Cabiria Editions, 2004.
5
G. Pheterson, Le Prisme de la Prostitution (Paris: l"Harmattan, 2001), 149.
6
M. Wijers, "Women Labor and Migration, the Position of Trafficked Women and Strategies for Support" in Global Sex Workers Rights, Resistance and
Redefinition, ed. K. Kempadoo and J. Doezema (New York and London: Routledge,1998), 71.
7
J. Dumond, "Une Véritable Traite des Femmes," Le Parisien, 23 juin 2002, 4.
According to the OCRETH, trafficking in human beings has experienced a 400% increase since 1990.
8
"Le trafic d'êtres humains, une activité très rentable" Libération, 30 novembre 2000, 8.
9
J. Demir, "The Trafficking of Women for Sexual Exploitation: a Gender Based and Well-Founded Fear of Persecurtion" New issues in Refugee Research,
Geneva: UNHCR (2003), 80
10
"Trafficking: a Global Problem," (2 June 2005) http://www.iabolish.com/today/trafficking/global.htm
11
J. Freedman, "Selling Sex: Trafficking, Prostitution and Sex Work Amongst Migrant Women in Europe," in Gender and Insecurity: Migrant Women in
Europe,ed. J. Freedman (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003 ), 125.
12
J. Freedman, "Selling Sex: Trafficking, Prostitution and Sex Work Amongst Migrant Women in Europe," in Gender and Insecurity: Migrant Women in
Europe,ed. J. Freedman (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003) 119-136.
13
J. Bindman, "An International Perspective on Slavery in the Sex Industry," in Global Sex Workers Rights, Resistance and Redefinition, ed. K. Kempadoo
and J. Doezema. New York and London: Routledge, 1998.
J. Demir, "The Trafficking of Women for Sexual Exploitation: a Gender Based and Well-Founded Fear of Persecurtion" New issues in Refugee research,
Geneva: UNHCR, 2003; J. Bindman,"An International Perspective on Slavery in the Sex Industry," in Global Sex Workers Rights, Resistance and
Redefinition, ed. K. Kempadoo and J. Doezema, New York and London: Routledge, 1998; N. Moujoud and M. Teixeira, "Migration et trafic de femmes,"
in La prostitution à Paris, ed. M. Handman and al, Paris: la Martinière, 2005.
14
W. Walters, "Mapping Schengenland: Denaturalizing the Border," Environment and Planning: Society and Space, Vol. 20, (2002): 561.
15
A. Tsoukala, "La criminalisation des immigrés en Europe," in Pratiques et discours sécuritaires, la machine à Punir, ed. L. Bonelli and G. Sainati,
(Paris: l"esprit frappeur, 2004) 314-387.
16
C. Raissiguier, "Gender, Race and Exclusion. A New Look at the French Republican Tradition," International Feminist Journal of Politics, (1:3 Autumn
1999), 435.
17
C. Raissiguier, "Gender, Race and Exclusion. A New Look at the French Republican Tradition," International Feminist Journal of Politics, (1:3 Autumn
1999), 435.
18
Didier Bigo, "Sécurité et Immigration: vers une Gouvernementalité par l'Inquiétude," [accessed 4 September 2005] http://1libertaire.free.fr/bigo5.
html
19
D, Thränhardt, "The Political Use of Xenophobia in England, France and Germany," in Immigration into Western Societies, ed. E. Ugazer and D.
Puebala, (London: Pinter, 1997), 175.
20
Ibid., 175-189.
21
J. Freedman, "Introduction: a Gendered Analysis of Migration in Europe" in Gender and insecurity: migrant women in Europe, ed. J. Freedman
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)
22
N. Moujoud and M. Teixeira, "Migration et trafic de femmes," in La prostitution à Paris, ed. M. Handman and al, (Paris: la Martinière, 2005), 11.
23
F. Guillemaut and L. Caixeta. Femmes et Migrations en Europe, Stratégies et Empowerment, ( Lyon: Le Dragon Lune, Cabiria Editions, 2004), 39.
24
M. Spanger, "Black Prostitutes in Danemark," in Transnational prostitution changing global patterns, ed. S. Thorbek and al, (New York, London: Zed
books, 2002), 121-137
25
F. Guillemaut, Femmes et Migrations en Europe, Stratégies et Empowerment, ( Lyon: Le Dragon Lune, Cabiria Editions, 2004), 78.
26
F.Guillemault, "Traffic et Migrations de femmes, une hypocrisie au service des pays riches," Hommes et migrations 1248 (2004), 76.
27
N. Moujoud and M. Teixeira, "Migration et trafic de femmes," in La prostitution à Paris, ed. M. Handman and al, (Paris: la Martinière, 2005)
28
L. Mathieu, "Se prostituer? Jamais par plaisir," Manière de voir Monde Diplomatique, 68: Femmes rebelles (2003), 51
29
D, Pourette, "Les Violences," in La Prostitution à Paris, ed. M. Handman and al, (Paris: la Martinière, 2005), 323-343.
30
G. Pheterson, Le Prisme de la Prostitution (Paris: l"Harmattan, 2001), 53.
31
N. Moujoud and M. Teixeira, "Migration et trafic de femmes," in La prostitution à Paris, ed. M. Handman and al, Paris: la Martinière, 2005;
32
A. Tavernier, "La principale filière étrangère" Le Parisien, May 14, 2002, 16.
33
Mehdi "Ca dérange de voir les gens faire la pute, mais ça ne derange personne de voir quelqu'un crever de faim en bas de chez soi," in, B. Lénaig, "les
galériens du trottoir," L"Humanité, September 25,2002, 21.
34
F, Picku, "Deconstructing Trafficking in Women: the Example of Russia," Millenium, 27:4, (1998), 996.
35
A. Sayad, "Les 'trois âges' de l'Emigration Algérienne en France," Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, (1977), 59-79
36
J. Doezema, "Forced to choose Beyond the voluntary v. Forced prostitution dichotomy," in Global Sex Workers Rights, Resistance and Redefinition, ed
K. Kempadoo and J. Doezema, (New York and London: Routledge, 1999), 34-47.
37
M. Spanger, "Black Prostitutes in Danemark," in Transnational prostitution changing global patterns, ed. S. Thorbek and al, (New York, London: Zed
books, 2002), 122
38
C. Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. C. Mohanty
1
2
▪ 117 ▪
Pauline Bandelier
and al, ( Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1991, 53.
39
R, Bloul, "Other Women in French Sexual Politics," in Embodied Practices, Feminist Perspectives on the Body, ed. K. Davis, ( London: Sage
publications, 1997), 99.
40
J. Doezema, "Forced to choose Beyond the voluntary v. Forced prostitution dichotomy," in Global Sex Workers Rights, Resistance and Redefinition, ed
K. Kempadoo and J. Doezema, (New York and London: Routledge, 1999), 42.
41
C. Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. C. Mohanty
and al, ( Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1991, 53.
42
S. Thorbek, "Prostitution in a Global Context: Changing Patterns," in Transnational Prostitution Changing Global Patterns, ed S. Thorbek and al,
(New York, London: Zed books, 2002), 1-11.
43
J. Verdier, "La loi pour la sécurité intérieure: punir les victimes du proxénétisme pour mieux les protéger?," in La prostitution à Paris, ed. M. Handman
and al, (Paris: la Martinière, 2005), 121
44
C. Monnet in Prostitution, sous les coups de la loi, F. Raynal, Transversal, 24, (2005), 1-3.
45
A. Koh James, La Prostitution Africaine en Occident, (Paris: Ccinia Communication), 2004
46
G. Pheterson, Le Prisme de la Prostitution (Paris: l"Harmattan, 2001), 151
47
GISTI, "LSI et prostitution: Lettre Ouverte à Monsieur Jacques Chirac, Président de la République," http://www.gisti.org/doc/actions/2005/lsi/index.
html, (Acessed 13 of July 2005)
Global Images
▪ 118 ▪
▪ 119 ▪
Pauline Bandelier
▪ 120 ▪
From Field
the
▪ 121 ▪
Itinéraire de Trafiquant:
Le Réseau Malais au Sud de Singapour
éric Frécon1
Dans le cadre de son doctorat, l'auteur a eu l'occasion de rencontrer
quelques aventureux Indonésiens, lointains héritiers des thalassocraties
indianisés et des sultanats malais, qui perpétuent les liens pluriséculaires
entre les deux rives du détroit de Malacca. Il revient ici sur le cursus de ces
trafiquants sumatranais, depuis les rizières asséchées où naissent le besoin et
les vocations, jusqu'aux petits villages où les contrebandes s'organisent.
Prologue à Tanjung Pinang, sur l'île
de Bintan, au cœur de l'archipel
Indonésien des Riau
C
chaque fin de semaine, le
port s'anime en soirée. Des touristes
singapouriens débarquent en masse
après une heure trente de ferry à travers
le détroit de Malacca. Quarante-huit heures durant,
tous viennent s'encanailler dans cette arrière-cour
du miracle asiatique, dans les bas-fonds de la
cité-Etat; au programme: karaoké, bière, karaoké,
fruits de mer, karaoké, prostituées. C'est en effet
la spécialité locale; ces "papillons de nuit"—kupukupu malam—occupent par exemple Batu 24 et
Pulau Babi (la bien nommée "île aux Cochons"),
deux villages desservis par bus directement
depuis le port. "Welcome to Tijuana, tequila, sex
and marijuana" chantait Manu Chao au sud des
Etats-Unis; il en va de même au sud du triangle de
omme
croissance SIJORI (Singapour, Johor, Riau) qui
associe depuis 1989 les capitaux singapouriens à
la main d'œuvre malaise. Ici point de mur mais
un détroit pour séparer "l'Empire et les nouveaux
barbares"2 made in Asia: Welcome to Indonesia,
bier, sex & marijuana…
Sur une jetée voisine, dans le même port, des
Indonésiens accostent eux aussi, têtes basses.
Mustapha et son oncle racontent; tous deux sont
respectivement avocat et ingénieur mais contraints
de vendre des brochettes, le soir, depuis leur
échoppe ambulante. D'après eux, ces passagers
d'un autre genre font partie des 300 ou 400
immigrés clandestins renvoyés chaque semaine
à leur camp de base. Avant d'être embarqué sur
ce crasseux bateau du retour, tous ont été pris
et capturés, peut-être bastonnés à croire les
rapports d'Amnesty International, voire pire:
une légende urbaine, une rumeur, colportée par
des universitaires, racontait encore récemment
éric Frécon a soutenu une thèse sur "la réaction des Etats est-asiatiques au défi de la piraterie sur les mers de l'après-Guerre
froide" (IEP Paris, 2007). Après "Pavillon noir sur l'Asie du Sud-Est: histoire d'une résurgence de la piraterie maritime"
(IRASEC - L"Harmattan, 2002), il prépare un prochain ouvrage sur le réseau de la piraterie malaise (Perrin).
From the Field
▪ 122 ▪
qu'environ 1% des prisonniers subissait des
injections puis devenait fou et malade; à ce jour,
aucune ONG n'a confirmé ces dires étranges.
Malgré ces échecs et psychoses, le trafic
d'immigrés perdure: migrations clandestines dans
un sens, migrations libertines dans l'autre… A
l'inverse des Singapouriens, de nombreux oubliés
de la croissance mettent cap au nord: ils tentent
quotidiennement leur chance quand d'autres
compatriotes préfèrent exporter illégalement
sable, granit, étain, bois ou pétrole. Qui sont-ils?
Pourquoi ces prises de risque? Quel cheminement
les a conduit aux portes du rêve singapourien ou
malaisien? Pour y répondre, rendez-vous dans
l'arrière-pays sumatranais, véritable point de
départ des trafiquants où naissent la plupart des
vocations.
glorieux. Les Sumatranais doivent plutôt compter
avec la déforestation; huile de palme, papier ou
pétrole pour la Caltex: tous les prétextes sont
bons pour raser la jungle. Et puis il y a les feux de
forêts—kabut asap—dus aux cultures sur brûlis
et aux caprices d'une saison des pluies qui se fait
attendre. Les squelettes calcinés des quelques
arbres ayant échappé aux flammes ponctuent
le plat paysage lunaire. A cette ambiance grise
et oppressante s'ajoutent la sécheresse et les
influences marines. En conséquence, seule une
récolte est possible dans les rizières de la région,
contre deux voire trois ailleurs. C'est ainsi que les
orang huta—ou hommes des bois—de la tribu
Sakaï vivent leurs dernières heures dans le petit
village de Duri 13… Quant aux habitants malais,
ils préfèrent partir tenter leur chance en ville.
Départ de Sumatra-Est
Première Escale à Palembang
Du VIIIème au XIIIème siècles, ces forêts et
mangroves ont abrité la thalassocratie de Srivijaya.
Les vassaux de ce royaume indianisé s'égrenaient
bien au-delà du détroit de Malacca, sur la péninsule
malaise. Puis l'épicentre géopolitique s'est déplacé
au XVème siècle autour du sultanat de Malacca
qui comptait fiefs et dépendances notamment à
Sumatra. Enfin, les réseaux politico-économiques
se sont constitués autour des sultanats de Jambi,
Riau, Lingga, Johor et Siak, répartis de part et
d'autre au sud du détroit de Malacca. Ainsi, depuis
treize siècles, les populations des deux rives
commercent, traitent, échangent et communiquent
avec la même langue: le melayu.
Forts de l'expérience du narcotrafic dans le
Triangle d'or—entre la Thaïlande, la Birmanie et
le Laos—certains spécialistes pensent qu'il sera
extrêmement délicat d'éradiquer ces trafics, tout
comme il est difficile d'imposer des cultures de
substitution au pavot. Qu'il s'agisse des paysans de
Birmanie et du Laos ou des pêcheurs de Sumatra,
il est impossible de négliger le poids du contexte
historique et culturel.
Cependant, ce n'est pas par goût de la tradition
que les descendants de Srivijaya et autres sultanats
perpétuent ces liens ancestraux. Aujourd'hui,
sur place, aucun vestige, nulle trace de ce passé
Cette ancienne capitale de Srivijaya et actuelle
préfecture de la province de Sumatra-est est la
deuxième plus importante ville de Sumatra avec
environ 1,5 millions d'habitants. Comme le
détroit à l'échelle régionale, la rivière Musi fait
office de frontière naturelle entre d'une part la très
respectable rive gauche, où les hôtels jouxtent
centres commerciaux et bureaux d'immeubles,
d'autre part la rive droite que regagne le petit
peuple des marchands ambulants le soir après une
journée de labeur sur Jalan Sudirman (avenue
Sudirman). Tous s'entassent à la nuit tombée
▪ 123 ▪
éric Frécon
dans leurs cabanons et
bidonvilles. A défaut
d'emplois même précaires,
les jeunes s'en remettent
au racket, notamment dans
la zone du débarcadère
de ferries fluviaux à
Boom Baru, aujourd'hui
surveillée. Le soir, à
l'ombre des échoppes
enfumées par les cigarettes
aux clous de girofle—les kreteks—des hommes
revenus de l'archipel des Riau font état de plus
gros coups quelques kilomètres au nord, dans le
détroit de Malacca. Pour les plus ambitieux—ou
nécessiteux—il est alors temps de passer au stade
supérieur et de partir trouver de plus grosses
proies. L'argent appelle l'argent. Progressivement,
c'est l'exode urbain après l'exode rural. Sur de
vieux ferries, ils descendent la rivière Musi.
Bases Logistiques à Tanjung Balai
sur Karimun, à Nagoya sur Batam et à
Tanjung Pinang sur Bintan
Comme l'expliquait Iwan, un ancien pirate des
Riau, les candidats aux trafics en tous genres
progressent dans leur cursus et gagnent les villes
côtières parmi les mangroves et marais. Ils se
retrouvent dans l'équivalent de sous-préfectures.
Parmi elles, Tanjung Pinang: 120,000 habitants
y sont recensés; en réalité, 300,000 y vivraient.
Sur place, des activités peuvent être légales: le
fort trafic maritime et la présence de sociétés
nationales ou étrangères, comme la CNOOC
(China National Offshore Oil Corporation), y
fournit des emplois. Les accords passés entre
Jakarta et Singapour, via l'Economic Development
Board (EDB) créé en 1989, laissaient augurer
de larges avantages pour Batam, Bintan et les
autres îles des Riau. Hélas, il n'en a rien été pour
une large part des populations qui ont afflué des
îles avoisinantes pour y chercher des emplois
lucratifs: 6,000 habitants en 1973, 110,000 en
1991, 196,080 en 1995; on en comptait 713,960
en 2006.3 Finalement beaucoup se sont entassé
dans des camps de travail ou de façon anarchique
From the Field
sur l'île de Batam. Le long des routes, le surplus
de main d'œuvre croupit au chômage dans quelque
40,000 logements sauvages, en particulier sur
Bukit Senyum, "la colline-qui-sourit" (sic). A ce
rythme-là, après le boom économique annoncé,
l'île frise continuellement l'explosion sociale.
Le salaire moyen y est de 40 euros par mois
pour parfois 50 heures de travail par semaine.
Il faut avoir fait l'expérience du désœuvrement,
des journées entières à tirer des bouffées sur les
kreteks en essayant de capter la bande FM de
Singapour, à attendre la sieste, puis la nuit, puis
la sieste, avachis devant les maisonnettes comme
ailleurs on squatte les halls d'immeubles l'Ipod
dans les oreilles, pour comprendre combien la
jeunesse est devenue vulnérable. Loin de goûter
au miracle asiatique promis par la mise en place du
"triangle de croissance" entre Singapour, les Riau
et Johor en Malaisie, l'objectif est de survivre, de
petits boulots en petits boulots, pas toujours très
légaux.
Tel est le cas de Adi. Ce supposé trafiquant
du village de Pongkar, sur Karimun, est venu
en 1992 de Sumatra-est pour chercher du travail
dans les Riau. Il y trouva finalement le chômage,
l'amour et une femme qui lui donna quatre
enfants. Deux sont morts en bas âge à cause du
manque d'hygiène et d'infrastructures dans son
petit village qui ne profite de l'électricité que
de 18 à 22 heures. Ironie de la topographie: les
lumières de la richissime et très proche Singapour
suffiraient presque à éclairer son kampung—petit
village sur pilotis. Dès lors, on devine volontiers
l'usage du speed-boat équipé de deux moteurs de
200 chevaux, sitôt la nuit venue, ici aux abords
du chenal Philippe: exclu de la croissance, nargué
▪ 124 ▪
par tant de richesses incarnées par les buildings de
Singapour ou les publicités occidentales diffusées
via les paraboles, chacun cherche à améliorer le
quotidien, quels que soient les moyens employés.
Tout comme les hommes d'affaires
singapouriens, quelques Chinois indonésiens ne
sont pas en reste pour recruter parmi ces parias
de la croissance. Leurs petites mafias prospèrent,
comme autrefois celle de Bobby basée à l'hôtel
Karteka et au Club 5 de Tanjung Pinang. Mais des
mesures ont été prises il y a deux ans, notamment
contre le jeu clandestin. Des établissements ont
même dû fermer, comme le Kopi Indah dans le
quartier de Nagoya, rendez-vous de toutes les
crapules de l'archipel. Résultat: des employés au
chômage et prêts à tout pour retrouver leur niveau
de vie.
La plupart se retrouvent dans les miteuses
salles de billard aux abords de l'hôtel Harmony.
Là, comme dans le détroit de Malacca ou à
Palembang, mais à plus grande échelle, une rue
sépare d'une part les pubs aseptisés, climatisés
et verrouillés, qui accueillent les occidentaux,
adipeux, en sueur, à l'affût de charmes locaux
et féminins, d'autre part de modestes tavernes
qui ne proposent dans la rue que sate et nasi
goreng, les plats locaux. Les marins sans travail
y attendent des propositions d'emplois, légaux ou
pas. Le "small business" pour transporter de nuit
n'importe quelle cargaison ne les rebute pas. Des
groupes se forment dans ces échoppes interlopes
et des combines se montent.
Camps de Base à Maras sur l'île de
Letung, à Pongkar sur Karimun et
à Kampung Tanjung sur Belakang
Padang
Ces kampungs constituent les dernières étapes
des trafiquants. Après, la préfecture au début de
l'estuaire et les sous-préfectures le long des côtes,
les trafiquants prennent leurs quartiers sur de
petites îles, à l'écart des pôles économiques mais
toujours aux abords du détroit de Malacca, face à
Singapour l'opulente.
Régulièrement, à la tombée de la nuit et
par mer suffisamment calme, des émigrés
clandestins partent ainsi de Pongkar, un village
de 1 800 habitants au nord de Karimun. Sur
une île malaisienne avoisinante, ils changent
d'embarcation et mettent le cap sur un village non
loin de Kukup, dans la province de Johor. Pour
400,000 ou 500,000 roupies, ils risquent prison et
bastonnade dans l'espoir d'un travail de quelques
mois.4
A Kampung Tanjung, au nord de Batam,
l'immigration clandestine connaît également un
grand succès. Sept kilomètres au sud de la citéEtat, ce ghetto sur pilotis abrite de modestes
pêcheurs, des trafiquants, des bordels, en plus des
pirates. Aujourd'hui, tous vivent en bonne entente
avec les habitants du village. Ainsi va la vie dans
cette cité de la banlieue singapourienne. La rue
du marché est colorée et envahie de becaks,
ces pousse-pousse à vélo dont le tintement des
klaxons accompagne la musique des karaokés.
Les échoppes, comme celle de Mas Ragil, sont
animées. Le riz y frit au milieu des T-shirts à
l'effigie de Thierry Henry ou du Che Guevara qui
supplantent peu à peu Zidane et Ben Laden. La
vie est là, simple et tranquille: on en viendrait
presque à oublier les trafiquants. Ils sont pourtant
tout proches, cantonnés à droite puis à gauche en
sortant du petit bureau de poste. Dans ce quartier
de non-droit, la police ne pénètre pas. Ici, tout le
monde se connaît; tout le monde se respecte. Les
jeunes ont grandi ensemble sur les bancs de la même
école, au sommet de la colline, face à Singapour
l'arrogante, dont la silhouette des hauts buildings
se dessine dans la brume matinale. Certains comme
Arif ont réussi à poursuivre leurs études sur une
île voisine. D'autres comme Rosa n'ont pas eu sa
patience. Très tôt, il a décidé de mettre un terme
à sa scolarité. On ne lui connaît pas de parents.
Personne ne l'a pris en charge. Aujourd'hui il vit
seul et vient de bâtir sa maison après avoir tenté
sa chance à dix-neuf ans, à Sumatra. Comme
souvent dans ce milieu périurbain—par rapport
à Batam et Singapour—l'absence d'une autorité
parentale ou d'une tutelle a nui à l'éducation et au
développement de l'enfant. Comme lui, des jeunes
sans repères errent et désespèrent. Pour survivre,
cette petite criminalité et ces trafics sans ambitions
autres que locales constituent une voie classique,
▪ 125 ▪
éric Frécon
avec ses variantes d'une île à l'autre. S'agissant de
Rosa, on le dit à présent marié et installé dans un
petit village au nord-ouest de Batam, juste en face
de Singapour. Il faudrait alors aller vérifier son
activité du moment…
"Avec le tourisme et la télévision, les jeunes
connaissent le prix de l'argent; eux aussi veulent
profiter des taux de croissance records. Tout de
suite" explique le chef du village, lunettes Alain
Delon sur le nez et mobile Motorola à la main.
Les plus audacieux versent dans la piraterie, les
autres dans les trafics. Tous les jeunes de Belakang
Padang se retrouvent en fin de journée autour
du city stade local—un simple fil sur de la terre
battue—pour pratiquer le takraw, un mélange
spectaculaire de football, volley et badminton. Le
muezzin siffle la fin de la partie pour l'appel à la
prière. Le soir, quelques-uns partiront pêcher la
crevette, selon la marée; d'autres iront trafiquer,
selon la lune. Régulièrement, des sampans à rame
ou à moteurs tentent en effet la traversée pour le
rêve singapourien. A la force des bras, deux heures
suffiraient pour franchir le détroit. Selon Yusuf, en
2002, une embarcation sur dix parvenait à accoster
à Singapour. Depuis, les autorités portuaires ont
accentué les contrôles et patrouilles. Certains
passeurs comme Otong se sont reconvertis comme
tenancier; il vous accueillera à présent sur le seuil
de son auberge pour Singapouriens ou marchands
From the Field
ambulants de passage, dans la rue du marché. Ce
n'est qu'au creux de l'oreille, après quelques tasses
de thé, qu'il admettra la poursuite de ces activités
à Kampung Tanjung, de même que le trafic de
cigarettes.
La tolérance générale vis-à-vis de ces activités
illicites résulte d'une omerta qui découle de la
peur. A Belakang Padang par exemple, en cas de
témoignages trop bavards, les villageois redoutent
les représailles de deux frères: Anto et Adi. Comme
les frères Barberousse, ils ont fait main basse
sur un fragment des côtes de la "Méditerranée
asiatique."5 Comme eux, ils contournent l'autorité
du pouvoir central pour finalement imposer la
leur. Et comme eux, l'un des frères–Anto–incarne
la sagesse: il réfléchit et soigne son image de
gentleman. L'autre—Adi Bulldog—brille par sa
brutalité. Tel un seigneur sur ses terres, il lui arrive
de circuler dans la rue du marché et de frapper les
villageois à ses yeux insolents. Il traverse l'île sur
sa moto à grande vitesse, sans crier gare. Leurs
affaires englobent la piraterie,
les trafics, deux magasins de
CD sur Belakang Padang ainsi
que cinq discothèques, soit un
bordel à Pulau Babi et quatre
établissements à Batam, sans
compter toutes les jeunes filles
qui circulent aux abords de leur
bâtisse, de leurs bureaux rue du
marché ainsi qu'à Batu Gajah,
"le rocher de l'éléphant," au sud
de l'embarcadère de Belakang
Padang. C'est à eux que profite
le crime. Ils comptent des
généraux parmi leurs relations.
Les policiers font office de
gardes du corps et sont à leurs
ordres moyennant d'importants
salaires. Sans doute est-ce pourquoi les villageois
se méfient des étrangers, préfèrent garder le silence
et nient toute existence d'activités illicites sur l'île.
Yusuf a accepté de témoigner mais chez lui, à l'abri
des regards extérieurs. Il parle de crimes commis
à Batu Gajah, de femmes enceintes battues. S'il
était repéré en train de tenir ces propos, sa maison
serait sans nul doute brûlée. Aujourd'hui, Bulldog
▪ 126 ▪
a quitté l'île pour une riche retraite dans une
maison luxueuse à Banten, sur l'île de Java.
Enfin, pour expliquer cette étonnante tolérance,
la paix sociale ne peut être éludée: ce dernier
argument explique pourquoi les chefs de village
choisissent souvent ne pas dénoncer les trafics
commis par leurs protégés—et eux-mêmes?!—
afin de maintenir le statu quo préférable à toutes
sortes de désordres ou d'émeutes.
Sur d'autres îles voisines, c'est tout un réseau
de "ports-souris" qui s'animent les soirs sans lune.
De Bangka partira de l'étain, de Karimun du granit,
de Letung du bois, parfois en échange de surplus
et de produits manufacturés invendus à Singapour.
A Combol, à l'ouest de Batam, on construit les
bateaux pour ces trafics illicites. De Bintan part
du sable. On l'extrait en mer pour permettre à la
cité-Etat de gagner sur le détroit; un quotidien
indonésien expliquait ainsi: "Les Riau peuvent
revendiquer Singapour," bâti sur des fondations
indonésiennes! On l'extrait aussi de terre pour
permettre la construction des buildings rutilants.
Mais depuis de récents contrôles, le trafic de sable
est en baisse et le prix de l'immobilier s'envole à
Singapour…
Car des mesures ont été prises: des patrouilles
navales entre les pays riverains ainsi que des dons
en matériels au profit de la marine indonésienne.
Il était temps: à Letung, les quatre marins en
charge d'une dizaine d'îlots ne disposaient pas de
bateaux! Aux abords de Belakang Padang, leurs
collègues ne possédaient qu'une petite coque
de noix incapable de rivaliser avec les sampans
surmotorisés des trafiquants. Mais en septembre
2007, la police maritime de Batam a reçu cinq
gros zodiacs de patrouilles, encore sous bâches,
financés par les Etats-Unis. Ils seront sûrement
plus efficaces que les radars offerts par la France
sous François Mitterrand afin de surveiller les
activités illicites transnationales depuis les Riau
vers Singapour ou la Malaisie. L'un d'eux avait
été installé sur le plus haut sommet de l'île de
Karimun. Outre le fait que depuis ses 400 mètres
d'altitude il ne pouvait en aucun cas déceler les
activités de contrebande menées à partir de simples
sampans, il a surtout été laissé à l'abandon à cause
du manque de moyens depuis la crise économique
de 1997.
En complément, quelques rares associations
veillent, comme ce foyer catholique géré par un
vieux missionnaire français, un de ces routards
de l'évangile qui hantent les îles et montagnes
de l'archipel. Ce Père a dû prendre la nationalité
indonésienne pour éviter l'expulsion; il accueille
de jeunes catholiques des Riau pour les préserver
de l'anarchie ambiante. En témoigne l'exemple
de Dewi, aujourd'hui séminariste et détourné des
voies du crime maritime à la différence de ses
anciens camarades de classe du quartier chaud
de Kampung Tanjung. A ce foyer s'ajoute depuis
peu la madrasa (ou pesantren selon le terme local)
de Batu Haji—Islamic Centre Al Akbar—coincée
entre des parcs industriels et des chantiers navals
au sud de Batam. Installée sur un semblant de
terrain vague, elle est gérée par une sympathique
bande d'idéalistes trentenaires venus d'Aceh.
Mais d'autres madrasas moins bien
intentionnées s'opposent plus radicalement à la
décadence morale des Riau en général et de Batam
en particulier. Ainsi en va-t-il à la mosquée située
au nord de l'île et financée par des associations
londoniennes. L'imam venu de Java propose un
islam salafiste à ses élèves envoyés au Yémen, au
sud de la Thaïlande, en Egypte et en Syrie.6 Ses
quelques poils au menton suffisent à alimenter
la psychose qui sévit à Singapour à propos d'une
hypothétique dérive terroriste chez les voisins
indonésiens. Les plus pessimistes signalent qu'une
jeunesse amère, désolée et désœuvrée, loin du
foyer familial, constitue un terreau de choix pour
d'éventuels recruteurs fondamentalistes.
Aussi la solution contre ce trafic maritime et
▪ 127 ▪
éric Frécon
ses éventuels dommages collatéraux se situe-t-elle
à terre: depuis peu, des infrastructures tentent de
désenclaver les villages et autres "ports-souris."
La route de Pongkar à Karimun est par exemple
en train d'être bitumée et sa largeur passera
bientôt de quatre à six mètres. De même, un poste
de douanes va y être construit. Des organisations
non gouvernementales pourraient tenter, à leur
tour, d'aider les autorités locales et d'améliorer
la gouvernance. Mais ces associations sont
souvent davantage préoccupées par les processus
de démocratisation, les droits de l'homme et la
liberté de presse, comme le relevait un ancien
ambassadeur indonésien. Il convient pourtant de
s'attacher à la sécurité humaine des habitants en
veillant surtout à les "prémunir contre le besoin,"
à les "libérer de la peur,"7 et à lutter contre les
drames sociaux mais aussi écologiques, facteurs
eux aussi de dérives criminelles. Pak Abo, par
exemple, habite avec ses neuf enfants sur la petite
île de Cempah, au large de Batam. Sur sa frêle
barcasse, il espère encore trouver du poisson,
de plus en plus rare à cause de la pollution et du
trafic maritime (environ 75,000 bateaux par an).
Aujourd'hui, il ne peut plus rivaliser avec les
bateaux de pêche venant de Singapour et équipés
de radars et autres sonars. Il est à présent endetté à
hauteur de 21 millions de roupies. Est-il alors bien
raisonnable de risquer sa vie, de nuit, sur cette
autoroute maritime, au milieu des tankers, pour
ne finalement pêcher qu'un poisson vendu deux
dollars singapouriens le lendemain au marché?
Lui se tourne vers des associations locales pour
s'en sortir, mais les autres?
Epilogue
Bintan
sur la
Jetée
de
Pak Aras
de bateaux. Les habitants le craignent et le
respectent. On raconte que les coups de couteaux
le transperceraient sans le blesser. Peu avouent
ses activités de contrebande. Pourtant, la nuit
venue, quelques-uns de ses bateaux reviendront
sans doute discrètement de la cité-Etat. Pendant
ce temps-là, un peu plus loin sur une jetée voisine,
des Singapouriens heureux de leur week-end dans
ce lupanar indonésien embarqueront. Lundi matin,
à 8 heures, leur ruche s'animera à nouveau. A la
station de métro Raffles, les employés de bureau
feront grise mine. Chemises blanches, Ipod aux
oreilles et cartables à la main, ils partiront à l'assaut
des tours de la City, du Grand building à la Shell
Tower. La semaine reprendra. Dans les buildings
singapouriens ou les kampungs indonésiens, à
chacun son business.
à
Au final, le zoom s'est resserré: parti de Sumatraest, le cursus des trafiquants malais s'achève sur
les jetées des "ports-souris." A chaque trafiquant
la sienne. A l'écart du port principal de Tanjung
Pinang, ces passerelles branlantes dépassent du
village côtier. Sur l'une d'elle sévit Pak Aras, un
vieux Bugis à la voix éraillée par le whisky et les
cigarettes aux clous de girofle. Pirate jusque dans
les années 1980, il gère aujourd'hui une quinzaine
From the Field
▪ 128 ▪
Notes
éric Frécon est également l'auteur des photos qui ont permis d'illustrer l'article. Les croquis sont l'oeuvre de Sébastien Brunel, et sont extraites d'un
projet de carnets de voyage mené par éric Frécon et Sébastien Brunel. Ces croquis sont disponibles en ligne: http://seb.brunel.free.fr/index.php?/
category/indonesie
2
Jean Christophe Rufin, L'Empire et les nouveaux barbares (Paris: Lattès, 1992).
3
Singapore, Indonesia to establish Batam and Bintan as SEZ. Channel News Asia, 4/4/2006 et Richard d'Angio et Jacques Mauduy, Les rivages asiatiques
du Pacifique (Paris: Armand Colin, 1997), 194; Batam Investment and development Authority: http://www.batam.go.id/home/data_kependudukan.php
(consulté en 2007).
4
Le 1er février 2008, 1 euro = 13 709,05 roupies indonésiennes (source Banque de France: http://www.banque-france.fr/fr/poli_mone/taux/html/2.
htm).
5
Voir Yves Lacoste, "La Méditerranée." Hérodote, n°103, 4° trimestre (2001): 3-39. Par ailleurs, Denys Lombard animait un groupe de recherche
sur l'Indonésie dans la Méditerranée sud-est asiatique au sein du groupe d'études indonésiennes Archipel, in <http://www.ehess.fr/centres/geiarchipel/
GEIArchipel.html> (consulté en 2007).
6
"Les trois grands principes de la doctrine salafiste sont:
- l'insistance sur le tawhid (monothéisme) avec trois idées principales: l'unicité d'Allah comme créateur et pourvoyeur face aux besoins de ses créatures;
tous les actes d'adoration ne sont consacrés qu'à Allah; l'acceptation des attributs et actes divins qui apparaissent dans le Coran et la Sunna sans les
interpréter de façon métaphorique.
- le retour à la religion telle que pratiquée par les prédécesseurs et la dénonciation de toutes les innovations dans les préceptes ou dans les pratiques
religieuses. Il s'agit de se tenir le plus près possible de la tradition du Prophète et d'imiter chacune de ses habitudes.
- le refus de l'identité nationale et la valorisation de l'idée de communauté islamique supranationale." Voir CEREM - IHEDN, Le salafisme: origines et
principes, septembre 2006, in <http://www.ihedn.fr/portail/cerems/travaux/cerems_travaux_2006_salafisme.pdf> (consulté en 2008).
7
Institut des Nations Unies pour la recherche sur le désarmement, La sécurité humaine, 2008, in <http://www.unidir.org/html/fr/securite_humaine.
html> (consulté en 2008); on retrouve également ces deux dimensions dans: Rajaona Andrianaivo Ravelona, Sécurité humaine: clarification du concept
et approche par les organisations internationales. (Paris: Organisation internationale de la Francophonie - Délégation aux droits de l'homme et à la
démocratie, 2006), 11.
1
▪ 129 ▪
éric Frécon
HSJ Interview*
Natalys Martin
Natalys Martin est juriste chez Amnesty International France. Elle travaille notamment auprès
des demandeurs d'asile, dans le cadre d'un accompagnement juridique des personnes en
demande de protection. Elle fait aussi partie du groupe de travail mis en place en septembre
dernier par la représentation de l'UNHCR en France (projet dit d'évaluation participative), dont
l'objet est d'étudier le lien entre droit d'asile et traite des êtres humains à des fins d'exploitation
sexuelle, afin de formuler des recommandations concrètes pour les victimes.
HSJ: Quel est le profil des femmes victimes de la
traite des êtres humains?
Natalys Martin: Sur Toulouse par exemple, il s'agit
le plus souvent de femmes issues d'Europe de l'est
(Bulgarie, Roumanie) ou d'Afrique subsaharienne
(Nigéria, Ghana).
Selon les villes d'implantation, certaines
nationalités sont plus représentées que d'autres. On
constate par exemple une majorité de personnes
originaires du Nigéria ou de la Bulgarie à Toulouse,
alors que sur Nice il s'agit plutôt de personnes
russophones. En outre, contrairement à certaines
idées reçues, on ne voit que très peu de femmes
originaires d'Albanie depuis le démantèlement de la
mafia albanaise sur Toulouse, alors qu'elles étaient
très fortement implantées auparavant.
Ces femmes sont très jeunes, parfois même
mineures. Je connais deux Bulgares qui ont été
achetées par un réseau alors qu'elles n'avaient que
douze ans…
HSJ: A quel type d'aide ces personnes ont-elles
droit?
From the Field
NM: N'oublions pas qu'elles sont le plus souvent
considérées comme des délinquantes (infraction au
droit du séjour en France; racolage…) alors qu'elles
sont avant tout des victimes de trafiquants.
Pour celles qui sont en danger immédiat ou qui
craindraient des représailles de la part des trafiquants
sur le territoire français en cas de dénonciation, il
existe le dispositif ac-sé, sous convention avec la
Direction Générale des Affaires Sociales, qui leur
procure rapidement un hébergement sécurisé, ainsi
qu'un accompagnement juridique et social.
Le travail en réseau des associations est
primordial à cet égard, afin d'apporter un
soutien aussi large et complet que possible aux
victimes: certaines associations leur offrent
un accompagnement psychosocial, et elles me
contactent pour l'accompagnement juridique dans
le cadre d'une demande de protection au titre de
l'asile.
HSJ: Comment se fait l'accompagnement de la
demande d'asile, et quelles sont les "chances" des
victimes de se voir reconnaître le statut de réfugié
au titre de la Convention de Genève?
▪ 130 ▪
NM: Il conviendrait en premier lieu de se demander
en quoi il y a un lien entre traite des êtres humains
et asile? Et pourquoi une personne victime de la
traite se retrouve dans une procédure de demande
d'asile? Il faut d'abord comprendre dans quelle
situation elle se trouve en tant que victime de
la traite et les violences qu'elle endure, parfois
jusqu'à la séquestration. Sa situation la met face
à des obstacles indépassables, et elle n'est donc
pas libre de déposer sa demande comme elle le
souhaite. C'est d'ailleurs les trafiquants qui vont
les premiers déposer une fausse demande à son
nom pour pérenniser son séjour sur le territoire
français au moins pendant quelques mois, le temps
de l'instruction (un demandeur d'asile ne peut
faire l'objet d'une expulsion du territoire français
durant l'instruction de sa demande). Elles n'ont
donc pu bénéficier de l'accompagnement social
et juridique dont peuvent normalement bénéficier
les demandeurs d'asile, notamment dans les Centre
d'Accueil pour Demandeurs d'Asile (CADA).
En conséquence, c'est souvent au niveau du
recours ou du réexamen de cette demande que
nous avons accès à ces personnes. Cette prise de
contact tardive n'est pas liée à la négligence des
personnes, mais plutôt à leur capacité d'être libre
de leurs mouvements, et de pouvoir rencontrer
des personnes qui vont les accompagner dans
leur demande de protection. Elles ne déposent
une demande que lorsqu'elles le peuvent, et pas
forcément quand elles en ont besoin. A ce stade
de leur séjour en France, la surveillance dont elles
sont l'objet de la part des trafiquants est plus lâche;
leur liberté de circuler et de parler sans contrainte
est un peu plus importante. Mais pour nombre
d'entre elles, cependant, et selon leurs origines,
des craintes continueront à les freiner dans leur
démarche: peur du rite vaudou pour les personnes
originaires d'Afrique subsaharienne ou peur des
représailles envers les membres de la famille.
Les demandes qui ont été déposées en leur nom
auprès de l'OFPRA sont donc fausses, faites sous la
contrainte et ne correspondent pas à leur véritable
histoire. Les victimes savent que ce qui a été écrit
et dit en première instance en leur nom est faux,
et pensent qu'on ne les croira plus jamais. Mais
pour la première fois, en mars 2007, la CNDA a
accordé une protection à une personne qui avait
fait sa demande sous la contrainte en reconnaissant
l'élément de contrainte. La jurisprudence évolue
petit à petit dans le bon sens.
HSJ: Vous évoquiez un "élément déclencheur"
dans la vie des victimes?
NM: Effectivement, on a tendance à considérer
ces personnes uniquement comme des victimes de
la traite, alors qu'on devrait les considérer comme
victimes ayant vu plus généralement leurs droits
fondamentaux bafoués et violés. C'est notamment
la démarche d'Amnesty International France.
C'est ainsi que l'on découvre que de nombreuses
victimes, avant leur mise en contact avec le
réseau de trafiquants, ont vécu des évènements
qui peuvent fonder une demande d'asile au titre de
la Convention de Genève de 1951 car à l'origine
des risques pour leur vie et leur sécurité en cas de
retour dans le pays. Par exemple, dans certains
pays, une jeune femme peut être mise au ban de
sa communauté parce qu'elle ne voulait pas subir
un mariage forcé ou être excisée. Fuyant son
village, isolée de son milieu, elle est d'autant plus
vulnérable qu'elle est sans ressource ni soutien. Elle
représente donc une cible parfaite pour un réseau
de trafiquants.
Autre cas que j'ai pu observer: une femme
emprisonnée pour ses activités politiques au
Nigéria a été approchée alors qu'elle était encore
en prison. Le trafiquant l'a aidée à sortir afin
de l'exploiter sexuellement. De victime de la
répression politique dans son pays, elle est devenue
victime de la traite. Pour autant, elle reste identifiée
dans son pays comme une opposante, et a de réels
risques de représailles en cas retour dans son pays,
au sens de la convention de Genève.
Il convient donc de sortir de ce cloisonnement:
une victime de la traite n'est pas qu'une victime de
la traite, elle a pu connaître d'autres violations de
ses droits fondamentaux.
Si cet évènement particulier n'existe pas, on
peut tout de même considérer que le fait d'être
victimes de la traite les exposent à des représailles,
parce qu'elles ont trahit le réseau par exemple
en s'enfuyant, ce qui pourra fonder la demande
▪ 131 ▪
Interview: Natalys Martin
d'asile.
Une sensibilisation des personnes qui sont
en contact avec les victimes me semble donc
nécessaire, que ce soit les travailleurs sociaux ou
les agents de police. Ces derniers se comportent
parfois de manière brutale avec ces personnes, en
les considérant seulement comme des délinquantes,
et non comme des victimes.
Malheureusement les institutions françaises
n'accordent majoritairement que la protection
subsidiaire (première carte de séjour valable un
an) plutôt que l'asile conventionnel.
Ce qui justifie l'octroi d'une protection, ce n'est
pas tant ce qui s'est passé mais ce qui risque de se
passer pour ces personnes en cas de retour dans
leur pays de nationalité. Il n'y a donc pas de raison
de traiter les victimes de la traite différemment des
autres demandeurs d'asile.
HSJ: Qu'en est-il du dispositif légal aujourd'hui,
hors demande d'asile?
• allongement du délai de réflexion à 3 mois
minimum (contre 1 mois aujourd'hui dans le
décret de septembre 2007);
• fin des sanctions pour des faits de racolage
qu'elles auraient commis alors qu'elles étaient
exploitées.
Toutes ces recommandations sont fondées sur
le fait que ces personnes sont des victimes, des
personnes dont les droits fondamentaux doivent
être respectés et mis en oeuvre.
* Cet entretien a été réalisé par Karima Hamadouche,
étudiante en master Affaires Internationales (Sécurité
Internationale) à l'Institut d'études Politiques de Paris.
NM: La France propose d'offrir une régularisation
(carte de séjour temporaire) aux victimes de la
traite, mais cette régularisation reste soumise à la
délivrance d'informations par la victime menant
à l'arrestation du trafiquant. Cette carte de séjour
temporaire lui est délivrée initialement pour une
durée de six mois, et limitée à la durée de la
procédure pénale.
Au vu de ces dispositions insuffisantes, Amnesty
International appelle l'Etat français à mettre en
place un certain nombre de mesures:
• mise en place d'une stratégie globale qui
permettrait l'identification des victimes de
la traite; et sensibilisation et formation des
personnes compétentes à l'identification des
victimes;
• assistance et protection des victimes qui sont
sur le territoire français, quelle que soit leur
situation administrative (accès à un logement
sûr, accès aux soins, etc...). Cette assistance doit
se faire sans condition de dénonciation;
• accès pour les victimes aux informations sur
leurs droits dans une langue qu'elles peuvent
comprendre;
From the Field
▪ 132 ▪
▪ 133 ▪
Interview: Natalys Martin
▪ 134 ▪
Between Lines
the
▪ 135 ▪
Illicit Activity and Proliferation:
North Korean Smuggling Networks
Sheena Chestnut
International Security 32:1/Summer 2007
reviewed by Julia Sieger
T
North
Korea has the capability and ambition to
transfer nuclear material or components
to other states or non state actors is
an issue that has aroused much controversy
and has motivated lengthy research in the field
of international relations and security studies.
Illicit Activity and Proliferation: North Korean
Smuggling Networks addresses this particular
question with both analytical depth, hard data and
convincing arguments.
In the first section of the article, Chestnut
presents the empirical record of the DPRK's
(the Democratic People's Republic of Korea)
involvement in illicit activities such as drug
trafficking,
currency
counterfeiting,
the
production/distribution of counterfeit products
as well as smuggling of endangered species.
Beginning in 1976, North Korea's international
debt led to their embassies being required to "self
he question of whether or not
finance" their operations. Evidence shows that
DPRK officials and diplomats were encouraged to
engage in criminal activities using their diplomatic
immunity to smuggle. Yet, increasingly, diplomatic
entities were placed under scrutiny and the central
authority was forced to look elsewhere in its
search for new proliferators. As such, they turned
to DPRK trading companies and used them as
facilitators and coordinators. The article's analysis
of the data shows that increasingly North Korea's
drug production is being handed to criminal
organizations, a trend that is growing till now.
North Korea's criminal smuggling has therefore
historically been inspired and controlled centrally
but in recent years this trend has shifted from using
state agents only to contracting with criminal
partners in the transportation and distribution
of these smuggled goods. The most problematic
consequence is that in doing so, the DPRK has
less control over the outcomes and although it has
Julia Sieger holds a bachelor's degree in political science and sociology from New York University and is currently
enrolled in the International Affairs masters program of Sciences Po. She has interned with the U.S Senate, as well as with
CBS news both as an editor assistant and a reporter assistant. She is currently a member of the Human Security Journal.
Between the Lines
▪ 136 ▪
both the potential and motivation to take part in
nuclear smuggling, it may loose the control over
its own proliferation.
According to Chestnut, the observed shift
from central authority proliferation to network
proliferation has two important consequences on
the evolution of proliferation threats. First, even
if this trend has been recorded, it is crucial that
these networks be analyzed in the light of state
tools and not solely as individual proliferators.
State sponsored proliferation should not be
overlooked. Secondly, the increasing participation
of criminals in proliferation networks implies
more opportunities for proliferation to take place
outside the control of the state, which poses yet
another challenge if nuclear states multiply.
The article pursues by pointing to how this
historical evolution of illicit activity, from
centralized to decentralized, has an influence on
the motivation to smuggle, therefore establishing
a relationship between motivation and state
control. There seems to be a correlation between
regime stability and criminal activity. Indeed, U.S
officials estimate North Korea's total income from
criminal activities at $500 million, enough to
finance their weapons program and hence enable
them to defy nuclear negotiations.
What the article's findings show is that North
Korea is motivated by financial desperation and
that it is willing to take unconventional measures
to make up for its currency's shortfalls. An evident
correlation (consistent over time) is established
between economic difficulty and illegal activity
which leads to the conclusion that North Korea
will become increasingly risk acceptant. The
DPRK claims that it would consider transferring
nuclear material "if backed into a corner." In other
words, an economic crisis or a loss of domestic
political support would increase the possibility
of North Korea's nuclear sale. Criminal activity
is likely to continue because it benefits the elites
and because although at first it responded to
the ideological pretence of the DPRK, known
as "juche," it is now a response to an economic
struggle. Moreover, the preferences of the criminal
groups may not overlap perfectly with those of
the state and hence, as some may be tempted to
freelance their smuggling, the state is no longer
aware of its own activities. According to the
author, this possible consequence constitutes one
of the greatest threats that the international scene
is faced with regarding nuclear proliferation.
After an in-depth analysis of the linkage
between government and criminal groups,
Chestnut addresses the question of how far
down the road are illicit networks involved in
North Korea's nuclear program? We are told that
networks used for proliferation are still mainly
state controlled and that to date the DPRK has
concentrated on imports rather than exports.
What is more problematic however is that North
Korea seems to be developing criminal tools and
applying criminal mechanisms to proliferation
ends. The use of middlemen, front companies
and multiple names has been witnessed in recent
years and now gives North Korea a comparable
advantage in terms of ability to compartmentalize
and camouflage its operations. The infrastructure
is therefore ready for proliferation.
The article mentions yet other problems that
would aggravate the situation and facilitate the
process. Indeed, North Korea's declaratory policy
in which North Korea has not consistently rejected
the option of nuclear export and its proliferation
history with, although not proven, allegations of its
nuclear assistance to multiple states such as Iran,
Syria are no facts to be ignored. Moreover, North
Korea's willingness to export fissile material and
nuclear components will increase proportionally
with its production. Finally, the buyer's identity is
a key issue in that the perceived risk of a particular
transfer will vary according to the customer's
identity. According to this calculation, the risk
is minimized when dealing with state actors that
already have a history of arms sales with the
DPRK, a more frightening picture is that of a sale
to terrorist group, let it be either after an initial sale
to a actor state or directly to a terrorist group.
Chestnut concludes the article by providing
some insight on how to deal with this issue. It is
stressed that pursuing nuclear talks should be at the
forefront of the U.S'policy towards North Korea,
primarily because it is the only way to eliminate the
DPRK's nuclear threat and also because counter
▪ 137 ▪
Julia Sieger
smuggling efforts are necessary but not enough
especially when considering the relatively weak
success record of interdiction policies. In term,
the winning policy is to maintain its scrutiny and
enforcement against North Korea's smuggling
capabilities while simultaneously offering viable
and substantial economic incentives to reduce
the criminal activity and slow down the nuclear
program.
So, in the end, what should one remember
from this historically rich, well thought out and
conclusive article? Firstly, that North Korea has
the smuggling capabilities developed over the
years on the base of its criminal activities and that
this activity represents a considerable hard source
of income for the state–concerns of DPRK nuclear
exports are hence solidly founded. Secondly,
although historically North Korea advanced
its nuclear program using smuggling centrally,
it is now pushed to collaborate with criminal
groups, loosing control over its actions–criminal
involvement in proliferation is now a serious
international security issue. Finally, a mitigated
vision is put forth, with a dark image of the years
to come in which proliferation networks will
increasingly be encouraged and emboldened by
criminal smuggling capabilities notwithstanding
the diplomatic solutions available to policy
makers that constitute the path towards a brighter
future.
Between the Lines
▪ 138 ▪
▪ 139 ▪

Human Trafficking - Site en construction: En travaux

Transcription

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