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The ‘Groundhog Day’ of the Human Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation Debate: New Directions in Criminological Understanding

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Abstract

This paper considers the intellectual framework that is used to understand human trafficking and the limitations that it imposes on the criminological study of this phenomenon. First, there is a brief historical perspective which allows for comparisons between current debates and the moral crusades of the Victorian/Edwardian social purists. The contemporary focus on trafficking for sexual exploitation, rooted in Victorian/Edwardian construction has, the authors argue, narrowed the policy remit and the criminological investigation into human trafficking. The paper then proceeds to address the interaction between these enduring (historical) myths, the role of trans-national organised crime and the constraining effects of the contemporary intellectual framework. It is argued that in order to challenge the cyclical nature of the debates, it is necessary to make redundant the use of the term human trafficking and to widen the criminological lens through which we consider the problem. In doing so, we hope to highlight those groups whose experiences are missing or marginalised in the current construction of the problem and urge a reconsideration of the way in which criminology approaches this issue.

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Notes

  1. This point emerged from interviews with staff at the English Collective of Prostitutes.

  2. For comprehensive reviews of the impact of anti-trafficking legislation on sex workers in the UK see Doezema (1999, 2005) and in the US, Weitzer (2007) and Bernstein (2010)

  3. Note the rather puritan acronym

  4. There is a problem in estimating accurately the number of women trafficked into the UK because records are poor and prosecutions are low – See Spencer and Broad (2010) for a further discussion of this problem.

  5. We are thankful to one of the anonymous reviewers for this important point

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Acknowledgements

We wish to express our thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments.

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  1. School of Law, Williamson Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Jon Spencer & Rose Broad

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  1. Jon Spencer
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  2. Rose Broad
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Correspondence to Rose Broad.

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Spencer, J., Broad, R. The ‘Groundhog Day’ of the Human Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation Debate: New Directions in Criminological Understanding. Eur J Crim Policy Res 18, 269–281 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-011-9165-8

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