Accessing Help and Services: Trafficking Survivors’ Experiences in the United Kingdom

“Victims of Trafficking”: The Feminisation of Poverty and Migration in the Gendered Narratives of Human Trafficking

“…The idea of a female "victim" of trafficking who is in need of "rescue" and "return" is a pervasive image that is often conjured up and negates scholarly attempts to establish a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of trafficking [21,63,64]. I deliberately problematise the word "victim", as the term simplifies the issue of trafficking and many individuals prefer to be known as "survivors" of trafficking.…”

“…While these aims are laudable, their dominance does lead to other versions of the experience being silenced. This is problematic, because it can artificially limit help and support for women who have experienced human trafficking [21]. Kelly [32] reflects that, "the good intentions of NGOs are rooted in a belief that by viewing women as 'forced', this will in turn mean they are seen as 'deserving victims' by the community, and reintegration will be unproblematic.…”

“…In the United States, the Department of State created the Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP), in order to penalise those countries who they felt did not respond to the crime of human trafficking appropriately [18]. Critics of the TIP report suggest that it is an exercise that the United States has undergone in order to list its political "friends" and to alienate those who will not co-operate with its political agenda beyond the issue of human trafficking [19][20][21][22]. However, when Israel was defined as a Tier 3 country (in 2001), NGOs used this to demonstrate to the Israeli government that there was a global perception that the State of Israel was not concerned about women's rights [23].…”

Anti‐Sex Trafficking Institutions

“…By stressing transition, it is understood that response includes measures that put an end to the sex trafficking as well as help victims to start a new life. After reviewing the UN Trafficking Protocol (UN, 2000: articles 6-8) and current research (Bernat, 2011;Jayagupta, 2009;Jobe, 2010;Segrave et al, 2009), it seems reasonable to make a distinction between four types of responses. First, legal response refers to the investigation and prosecution of the offence of trafficking in persons.…”

Global points of ‘vulnerability’: understanding processes of the trafficking of children and young people into, within and out of the UK

“…47 With other forms of trafficking such as labour exploitation, domestic servitude and forced marriage now beginning to emerge on the policy agenda, there is a danger that the sexual trafficking 'story' 48 may override these and other more hidden forms of trafficking, impacting on the evolution of the NRM and subsequent understandings of the prevalence and nature of trafficking.…”