Week 3: Human Trafficking and Oppression

Always Victimizers, Never Victims (Herbert, 2016)

  • Argument: research reinforces popular stereotypes on trafficking

  • Media portrays women as always victims, ignoring the fact that women can also benefit/perpetuate trafficking

  • Women = HT started w/ the panic over white slavery

  • Equating prostitution with trafficking leads to the female stereotype

  • LGBT victims not commonly promoted by Republicans and feminists

  • Law focuses on sex trafficking as the most common form of trafficking

  • UN definitions of slavery focus on the relationship (FFC) btwn the victim and offender

  • Global Report on the Trafficking of Persons: 79% of all trafficking is identified as sex trafficking

    • Sex trafficking tends to be more public facing

    • Sexual exploitation more reported and documented

  • Recent research: 68% of trafficking is forced labor

    • 55% of victims are female

    • 74% are adults

    • 56% trafficked in their home country

  • Methodology: content analysis of 651 articles to understand how researchers evaluate trafficking and victims

  • Limitations: only English-language, only searched certain databases

  • Results

    • 46% focused on sex trafficking themes

    • 11% on child soldiers

    • 11% nonsexual forced labor

    • 22.4% on general themes

    • Most articles stated sex trafficking is the most common form of trafficking

    • 36% acknowledged the trafficking of both sexes

    • In child soldiering, boys are more likely to be the focus

    • Specifically mentioned women/girls, used general terms for male trafficking

    • 3% focused on males specifically

    • Most authors use a US statistic from the mid-2000s, stating 80% of victims are women/girls

      • Some state 98% of victims are female

    • “most victims are victims of labor trafficking, but sexual exploitation of women/girls is the worst”

    • Women are not a monolith

    • Men and women face a variety of social pressures that lead them to trafficking

    • Research doesn’t focus on the role of gender in male trafficking victims

    • Female victims brings in a stereotype of a male savior

    • Some try to flip the script and erase the victimhood of women

  • Suggestion: focus more on nonsexual labor trafficking and men/victims of all genders to reflect the real distribution of victimhood


Qs: Has there been any research conducted on the demographics of users of trafficking victim services?


Price 8 &9


Price 10-15

Is educational achievement a protective factor against trafficking?

In-Class 4/14

  • Labor trafficking doesn’t have a gender bias for sentencing, some with sex trafficking

    • Labor traffickers are typically white men; beneficiaries are hard to profile

  • LT victims: tend to be able-bodied, strong men

  • Victim identifications

    • Victim identified as offender → Go to trial/plea or diversion program → victim has a record, diversion progrma may prevent future trafficking → continued cycle of violence and incarceration

    • Victim identified as a victim→ Activates services, asked to cooperate w/ services → noncooperation may result in removal of resources

    • No action taken → continued victimization or running away

  • Bacha Bazi: “boy for play,” dancing boys of Afghanistan

    • Old practice, common in Afghanistan

    • The taliban bans this

    • Young boy exploited by an older man, may be sold or enslaved

    • Form of pedastry, often the kids are forced to cross-dress, dance

    • Victims are street orphans or kids from poor families

    • 15 million kids in Afghanistan living in extreme poverty

    • Bacha Bazi is about dominance, wealth, and power rather than sexual attraction

    • Outside investigators were largely unsuccessful in their investigations, Afghan citizens are distrustful of outsiders due to their history of occupation

    • One successful conviction in Afghanistan in 2019: victim did get monetary compensation

    • Largely exists outside of the main cities where there is less Taliban presence

Question 1:

I think Bacha Bazi clearly qualifies as trafficking because it involves the forced, sometimes illegal, actions of minors for an adult’s benefit, enforced via force, fraud, or coercion. Throughout the documentary, victims of bacha bazi describe fears of physical violence if they do not comply with their traffickers, and some may go with the older men under false pretenses, believing they will get a legitimate job or education. The boys can not choose to leave, nor get an equitable profit from their labor. While some forms of performance dancing could be legal, sexual abuse of a minor is clearly illegal.

Question 2:

Firstly, I believe that if people see it as only dancing, it could be innocent, and the sexual abuse is an aberration of the Bacha Bazi practices. With further analysis, even the dancing is sexual and inappropriate for children, and sexual abuse is critical to its practice. Additionally, the extreme poverty in Afghanistan may lead people to think of it as a job opportunity and better than starving to death.

Question 3:

Poverty, low education, rural area