ABSTRACT

The theme of this chapter, trafficking in human beings, initially seems to fit extremely well with the title of the book: Sex as Crime?. However, on second thoughts both parts of the title need to be reflected on thoughtfully in order to see the wider context of this type of trafficking. First, the sex angle. It has been shown that trafficking in human beings occurs not only into the sex industry but also into a long list of ‘other industries’ (ILO 2005; Anderson and Rogaly 2004; van Ellemeet and Smit 2006; van den Anker 2006a). The most recent international law therefore refers to both the sex industry and other industries and places a duty on governments to harmonise their laws in the area with the Palermo Protocol. 1 Some of the industries in Europe in which cases of trafficking were found recently include construction, shipping, agriculture, food packaging, hospitality, domestic work and care, prostitution and criminal activities such as forced begging. 2 The attention for trafficked persons in other industries is well below the level of attention paid to trafficking for sexual exploitation. This is probably due to a set of factors, including the construction of women trafficked into the sex industry as ‘deserving victims’, separating them from sex workers who ‘freely’ opted for this type of work as well as from ‘cunning deceivers’ who come into the country illegally to work without permit in all kinds of other industries. As we will see later, ‘illegality’ is not always part of the story and should not be the focus of attention in cases of trafficking anyway, as the human rights violations that people experience should rather be the basis for the response of services. The separation of sex workers into categories is also unhelpful and does not reflect the complexity of personal experiences that lead to ending up in this type of work. The debate on trafficking for sexual exploitation was for a long time polarised into abolitionists and liberals; the question of how to support all trafficked persons needs to address why people's options to enter and leave a job are restricted and not whether or not it is moral for them to do the work they do.