Female Perpetrators in Internal Child Trafficking in China: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Through an empirical study, this article explores the overall profile of female traffickers of children in China and their role and performance in the trafficking processes. Its contribution to the human trafficking literature lies in its focus on female perpetrators in particular. The article provides an overview of the international literature on female traffickers as well as contemporary knowledge about internal child trafficking in China. Empirical data from incarcerated traffickers suggest that portraying female traffickers as active players of criminal networks obscures the structural problems affecting female child traffickers. The short-term result is that the problems of female offenders are ignored, and the long-term impact is policy-making that is disconnected from the lived experiences of an important population. From a gender perspective this study suggests that female child traffickers are offenders as well as victims of social and gender inequalities in China's reform era. This study also proposes that internal child trafficking in China should be brought in the international and Anglo-American debates surrounding human trafficking.

‘Being Affluent, One Drinks Wine’: Wine Counterfeiting in Mainland China

“…However, in the market economy, entrepreneurial activities-including illegitimate business practices-are marketdriven. That is to say, as long as neoliberalism continues in China, it is hard for the state to effectively intervene and stop illegal money-making methods, even where harsh penalties are available (Shen 2016b).…”

Análisis descriptivo de sentencias sobre trata de personas: Un estudio de casos judiciales entre 2011 y 2019

“…Los datos demuestran que los supuestos que llegan a juicio oral se corresponden con grupos criminales más bien reducidos y que, además, son enjuiciados por casos aislados (en la mayoría de los casos solo se detectó una sola víctima). La mayoría de los asuntos conocidos, pues, no se corresponden con la idea de crimen organizado, tal como se ha puesto ya de manifiesto en estudios realizados en otros países (Bouhours, Broadhurst, Keo & Bouhours, 2014;Shen, 2016).…”

Representations of Transnational Human Trafficking

“…Those involved in HT are being referred to as 'traffickers' or more generically as 'perpetrators ' (e.g., Gotch, 2016;Shen, 2016). While the word 'perpetrator' is being used by some academics as a synonym or alternative word for 'trafficker', it is worth noting that neither are terms that are widely used in academic criminology, at least not in the UK.…”

“…This focus upon victims in this context is entirely justified for ethical, humanitarian, historical, economic, political, cultural, and legaljudicial reasons, and this is undisputed in this chapter. However, with a view to a better understanding and response to the plight of victims of HT, recently attention has begun to shift to those who traffic and/or enslave other human beings-commonly and henceforth referred to specifically in the context of human trafficking as 'traffickers' or more generically as 'perpetrators ' (e.g., Gotch, 2016;Shen, 2016). Despite the slippages and complexities of the meanings of these two terms (also discussed in this book's Chap.…”