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As bad as it gets: Well being deprivation of sexually exploited trafficked women
Abstract
The International Organization for Migration has collected data on trafficked individuals. The aim of this paper is to use the sub-sample of sexually exploited women in order to explore the relationship between their well being deprivation, their personal characteristics, and their working locations. We use the theoretical framework of the capability approach to conceptualize well being deprivation and we estimate a MIMIC (Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes) model. The utilized indicators measure abuse, freedom of movement, and access to medical care. This model also allows us to estimate the effects of some covariates on this measure of well being.
... Literatürde mülteci kadınların şiddet (12), cinsel taciz, tecavüz, cinsel yolla bulaşan enfeksiyonlar (CYBE) (13), insan ticareti, prenatal, yetersiz antenatal ve postnatal bakım, riskli gebelik, doğum komplikasyonları, adölesan evililik, adölesan gebelik, istenmeyen gebelik, istemli düşükler, yüksek doğurganlık gibi gebelik ve doğumla ilgili sorunlar yönünden riskli grubu oluşturduğu belirlenmiştir (4,13,14). ...
... Seks işçiliğine zorlanan mülteci kadınlar şiddet (12), cinsel istismar, HIV / AIDS de dahil olmak üzere CYBE, istenmeyen gebelikler ve sosyal izolasyon ile karşı karşıya kalmaktadır. Kontraseptif kullanımı hakkında bilgi eksikliği olan ya da kullanmak istemeyen mülteci kadınlar, istenmeyen gebelik ve sağlıksız koşullarda düşük yaşamaktadır (13). Uluslararası Kurtarma Komitesi, göç sırasında erkeklerin kendilerini koruyacak olmaları ümidiyle kadınların cinsel birlikteliği kabul etmek zorunda olduklarını ifade etmektedir (18). ...
... Türkiye'de yapılan bir araştırmada, Suriyeli mülteci kadınların erkeğin şanı, iş gücü ve toprağın işlenmesi gerekliliği ve dini inanışlar nedeniyle çocuk sahibi oldukları belirlenmiştir (20). Mülteci kadınların sosyoekonomik düzeylerinin düşük olması, daha az prenatal bakım almaları, sağlıksız yaşam biçimleri, bulaşıcı hastalığa yakalanma oranlarının yüksek olması, şiddete maruz kalmaları, yoğun stres altında olmaları ve sağlıksız koşullarda doğum yapmaları nedeniyle (19) düşük doğum ağırlıklı bebek, preterm doğum, ölü doğum, konjenital malformasyonlu bebek doğurma, erken gebelik kaybı riski, perinatal morbidite ve mortalite oranları (4,13) diğer kadınlara göre daha fazladır. Akhavan ve Lundgren (21)'in çalışmasında, Somali ve Etiyopya gibi ülkelerden İsveç'e göç eden kadınların prenatal bakım kalitesinin İsveçli kadınlara göre daha düşük olduğu, düşük doğum ağırlıklı bebek ve ölü doğumların ise daha yüksek oranda görüldüğü belirtilmiştir (21). ...
Toplu yaşamın getirdiği zorluklar, barınma sorunları, yasal sorunlar, göç eden bireylerin sağlığını sosyal, kültürel, psikolojik ve fiziksel açıdan olumsuz etkilemektedir. Kadınlar, toplumsal statü, toplumsal cinsiyet ve düşük sosyo-ekonomik düzey gibi nedenlerle erkeklere göre daha fazla etkilenmekte ve sağlık hizmetlerinden yaralanmada daha dezavantajlı konumda olmaktadır. Tüm bu sorunlar mülteci kadınların, üreme sağlığı sorunları açısından riskli gruplar içinde yer almasına neden olmakta ve şiddet, cinsel taciz, tecavüz, cinsel yolla bulaşan enfeksiyonlar, gebelik ve doğumla ilgili üreme sağlığı sorunları ortaya çıkmaktadır. Ayrıca mülteci kadınlar, dil problemi, sağlık kurumlarına ulaşımda yaşanan zorluklar, sağlık sigortasının olmaması, göç alan bölgelerde yeterli sağlık kuruluşu ve nitelikli personelin ve tercümanın olmaması gibi nedenlerle sağlık hizmetlerine ulaşmada sorun yaşamaktadır. Mülteci kadınların artan sağlık problemleri içerisinde üreme sağlığı hizmetlerine yönelik gereksinimleri giderek artmaktadır. Bu doğrultuda mülteci kadınların, üreme sağlığı sorunları ve sağlık hizmetlerini kullanma durumlarının öncelikli ele alınması, değerlendirilmesi ve sorunlarına kalıcı çözüm getirilmesi için üreme sağlığını geliştirme programlarının düzenlenmesi oldukça önemlidir.
... One commonly mentioned recruiter and method of recruitment is the pimp who gains trust and thus controls the woman by becoming her boyfriend and, in certain situations, by offering marriage (Crawford & Kaufman, 2008;Deshpande & Nour, 2013;Di Tommaso, Shima, Strøm, & Bettio, 2009;Hom & Woods, 2013;Verhoeven et al., 2013;Vindhya & Dev, 2011). The vulnerability of the person trafficked in these situations may be the need for affection and love (Hom & Woods, 2013). ...
... Another commonly used method of recruitment is one in which a woman is offered employment. With this method, the trafficker preys on the woman's economic vulnerability or, alternatively, simply plays into her desire to migrate (Crawford & Kaufman, 2008;Di Tommaso et al., 2009;Hughes, 2000;Jones, Engstrom, Hilliard, & Sungakawan, 2011;Silverman et al., 2007;Surtees, 2008b;Vindhya & Dev, 2011). In these situations, the recruiter may be someone the woman knows personally, such as a friend, or the recruiter could be a stranger (Di Tommaso et al., 2009). ...
... With this method, the trafficker preys on the woman's economic vulnerability or, alternatively, simply plays into her desire to migrate (Crawford & Kaufman, 2008;Di Tommaso et al., 2009;Hughes, 2000;Jones, Engstrom, Hilliard, & Sungakawan, 2011;Silverman et al., 2007;Surtees, 2008b;Vindhya & Dev, 2011). In these situations, the recruiter may be someone the woman knows personally, such as a friend, or the recruiter could be a stranger (Di Tommaso et al., 2009). In addition, this method of recruitment can occur through the Internet, TV, or newspaper advertisements (Di Tommaso et al., 2009;Hughes, 2000). ...
Female sex trafficking is a pressing concern. In this article, we provide a comprehensive overview of relevant issues regarding the concept of female sex trafficking and research in the field of human trafficking, drawing on a variety of disciplines, including economics, gender and sexuality studies, psychology, sociology, law, and social work. We discuss the debates surrounding the definition of human trafficking, compare and contrast it with human smuggling, and outline connections between female sex trafficking and the issue of sex work and prostitution. We further discuss the history and current estimations of female sex trafficking. We then outline the main actors in female sex trafficking, including trafficked persons, traffickers, clients, and service providers, and we overview the trafficking process from recruitment to identification, recovery, and (re)integration. Finally, we conclude with recommendations for future research that tie together the concepts of vulnerability, exploitation, and long-term recovery and (re)integration.
... For instance, girls who are smuggled from Nepal are usually illiterate (Simkhada, 2008), and in the Ukraine, the majority of women who have been smuggled have low educational levels (Vijeyarasa, 2012). However, we should not neglect existing research showing that there are women with high-school or college-level educations who are also victims of sex trafficking networks (Adoratrices, 2012;Di Tommaso, Shima, Strøm, & Bettio, 2009). ...
... Contrary to expectations, scientific research highlights the influence of social relationships in the recruitment process. Traffickers rely on personal relationships to make contacts that may lead to the recruitment of potential victims (Di Tommaso et al., 2009), particularly in contexts of poverty, by grooming victims or deceiving families with false promises of a better future for their daughters (Hodge, 2008). The involvement of a family member in the process of the sex trafficking of youth has also been found in studies conducted in different countries, such as the US, Vietnam and Nigeria (Sprang & Colle, 2018;Molland, 2010, Okonofua, Obgomwan, Alutu, Kufre & Eghosa, 2004. ...
The information currently available about girls and women who are trafficked worldwide for the purpose of sexual exploitation only shows us one part of the picture. In the Puigvert (2012–2014) TRATA: Life trajectories that move away or bring closer to the trafficking processes of sexual exploitation, through 25 qualitative techniques conducted with social service providers with a communicative orientation, we have identified a group of Moroccan adolescent girls between 12 and 18 years old who are particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking: the petites bonnes or young housemaids. Sexual exploitation, as well as sexual abuse that sometimes leads to pregnancy, can result in the flight or expulsion of these girls from their homes. These results unveil two recruitment elements that are used by trafficking networks: the irregular situation in which girls have arrived in a city and the circumstances of inequality in which they find themselves, including having low education levels and poor work experience. Furthermore, these elements make these girls invisible to the authorities and other professionals who could assist them. Based on these results, we conclude that tackling these challenges requires primary prevention measures that will increase the financial viability of the social groups at risk, establish programs that ensure successful educational trajectories for girls in their places of origin, and raise the awareness of people about this reality in their environments.
... Alternatively, in a more novel fashion, women are tricked into falling in love with incognito recruiters, whose real intentions are only revealed once sexual exploitation begins (Coster van Voorhout 2009;Reid 2016). It is also often documented that victims' families may push them to accept offers to work abroad (Aghatise 2004;Skilbrei and Tveit 2008), or that victims themselves meet their recruiters because of their own initiatives, or while inquiring through relatives, friends, and acquaintances about pathways to work abroad without necessarily being aware of what exactly awaits them (Di Tommaso et al. 2009;Englund et al. 2008;Lebov 2010). Nonetheless, the underlying motivations of victims for accepting offers to work abroad vary, depending on push factors such as political instability, poverty, unemployment, sexual discrimination, and domestic abuse (Duong 2014;Hoefinger 2016) and pull factors like adventure, brighter future and quality of life, or simply better working conditions and salary (El-Cherkeh et al. 2004;Vandekerckhove et al. 2001). ...
... On the other hand, the study findings converged with research that demonstrates that usually recruitment of victims is achieved within highmigration areas wherein recruitment costs are low and opportunities to recruit vulnerable women are high (Mahmoud and Trebesch 2010). Most importantly, the findings were consistent with other studies which affirm that victims themselves meet their recruiters-who often "instill a sense of loyalty" in their victims (Moore et al. 2017, p. 3)-upon their own initiatives, while inquiring through friends and acquaintances into pathways to work abroad, without necessarily being aware of what exactly awaits them (Andrijasevic 2004;Cyrus 2005;Di Tommaso et al. 2009;Englund et al. 2008;Lebov 2010;Zimmerman et al. 2003); with the recruiters being usually nationals of the origin countries (Eurostat 2014;UNODC 2014). ...
While the preponderance of delineation, exploration, and analysis of human trafficking concentrates on the victimization of trafficked people, the offenders’ criminal partaking is often left unexplored. That said, this study aims to examine the conundrum of human trafficking by exploring the traffickers’ demographics, tactics, connections, and collaborations. In order to accomplish this, data are drawn from the content analysis of 102 police interviews (Cyprus Police) with victims of trafficking and the study of police files of 18 persons convicted for human trafficking and sexual exploitation. In short (and contrary to widely held beliefs), the findings point out that human trafficking in Cyprus is not premised on well-established criminal syndicates with deep roots and solid networking, nor is dominated by cruel tactics actuated by meticulous crooks, linked to corrupt officials.
... The literature widely points out that the vulnerable position of women in society is a powerful push factor of human trafficking outflows (Bettio & Nandi, 2010;Clawson & Layne, 2007;Danailova-Trainor & Belser, 2006;Di Tommaso, Shima, Strøm, & Bettio, 2009). Human trafficking is apparently gender-based violence, the majority of victims being females exploited in the sex industry (UNODC, 2006;IOM, 2012). ...
... The IOM CTM provides enriched information on the characteristics of victims; however, this dataset is not suitable for a macro-analysis given that it is micro-survey data without a reference to the magnitude of the problem at the country level.3 Akee et al. (2010Akee et al. ( , 2012Akee et al. ( , 2014,Bales (2007),Belser (2005),Bettio and Nandi (2010),Cho (2013),Cho et al. (2013),Clawson and Layne (2007),Danailova-Trainor and Belser (2006), Di Tommaso et al. (2009), Frank (2011, Jac-Kucharski (2012), Jakobsson and Kotsadam (2013),Mahmoud and Trebesch (2010), ...
This study aims to identify robust push and pull factors of human trafficking. I test for the robustness of 70 push and 63 pull factors suggested in the literature. In doing so, I employ an extreme bound analysis, running more than two million regressions with all possible combinations of variables for up to 153 countries during the period of 1995–2010. My results show that crime prevalence robustly explains human trafficking both in destination and origin countries. Income level also has a robust impact, suggesting that the cause of human trafficking shares that of economic migration. Law enforcement matters more in origin countries than destination countries. Interestingly, a very low level of gender equality may have constraining effects on human trafficking outflow, possibly because gender discrimination limits female mobility that is necessary for the occurrence of human trafficking.
... Such framework leads to the specification of two systems of equations. Following Krishnakumar and Ballon (2008) and Di Tommaso et al. (2009), their formalization is the following: ...
... See the seminal examples ofKuklys, 2003;Krishnakumar, 2007;Di Tommaso, 2007;Di Tommaso et al., 2009; Krishnakumar and Ballon, 2008. 5 In the wider formulation of such models is also possible to include a system of causes for the indicators; this would allow better approaching the individual heterogeneity in converting resources into well-being achievements. ...
... Di Tommaso et al. (2008) further added that impacts of the remaining indicators of socio-economic background are similarly fragile, but more in line with a priori prospects. The constantly negative mark for the marginal effect of supposed economic position of the original family proposes that coming from a non-poor background lowers the danger of the worst violations, although statistical significance attains only for entrance to medical care. ...
... Por último, el factor Número de clientes se tomó de Hubbard (1997) y de di Tommaso et al. (2009), que distinguieron entre el trabajo de gama alta y el de gama baja. Se consideraron dos niveles: (a) encuentros ocasionales con clientes seleccionados o (b) encuentros diarios con muchos clientes. ...
... In addition to the harms survivors experience, they often suffer economic hardships as a product of wage left, fraudulent credit that is taken out in their name, lack of employment history, accumulating criminal histories, and so on [27,56]. Part of acknowledging these long-term, harmful consequences, therefore, includes ensuring survivors have access to compensation or support to address these hardships, including lost wages, actual damages, court costs/fees, and punitive damages (e.g., Tennessee §39- [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. ...
Human trafficking is an egregious violation of basic human rights that has reached global proportions. Despite the gradual proliferation of social science research and policy endeavors, a contemporary understanding of state human trafficking statutes has received limited discussion. Existing commentary tends to underserve survivor experiences in the law. Using a database of 982 human trafficking state statutes, this study seeks to describe the landscape of how the law acknowledges survivors. In doing so, we found that states acknowledge survivors through 1. formal agency guidelines, 2. survivor rights and services, and 3. education and awareness for the general public. Findings suggest that the nation’s human trafficking statutes are best characterized as a patchwork of laws. We conclude by making recommendations for future legislative reform.
... For example, Scoular (2010, p. 20) reports a drop in prices caused by the de- cline in demand in Sweden, which gives reason to anticipate the effects de- scribed in Proposition 1: Voluntary sex work diminishes and might be re- placed by forced sex worker. Moreover, it is to be feared that the remaining sex worker might have to take more risks and suffer from worse working conditions (ibid., Di Tommaso et al. (2009)). Hence, we cannot rule out that the good intentions with respect to the introduction of the regulation produces an unintended evil. ...
Internationally, there is no consensus concerning the legal and moral judgment of sex work. Nevertheless, there is an overwhelming agreement on the need to fight against forced sex work. We analyze how a law-introduced to punish clients of commercial sex services-affects market outcomes. More specifically, we examine how the so-called 'neo-abolitionism' or 'Nordic' prostitution regime impacts forced sex work. The theoretical analysis reveals that this effect is ambiguous and crucially depends on the size of the deterrence effect and on local properties of the market demand. In addition, we highlight the conditions under which the composition of clients changes towards more risk-seeking individuals. Policy implications that arise are identified and discussed.
... Thus, trafficked individuals may present with this symptom. Dissociation is a psychophysiological process that triggers a unique form of consciousness, which is present in all individuals to a greater or lesser degree (Putnam, 1993 (Choi et al., 2009;Di Tommaso et al., 2009;Holmes, 2007) contribute to fatigue, incapacitating physical pain, disfiguring and disabling injuries, and increased risk of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (Bauer, 2007;Bauer & Ramírez, 2010;Dharmadhikari, Gupta, Decker, Raj, & Silverman, 2009;Huffman, Veen, Hennink, & McFarland, 2012). ...
... In this context, the general well-being of trafficked and exploited workers (Di Tommaso et al., 2009), creation and sustenance of illegal immigration and bonded labor (Epstein et al., 1999), specific implications of minimum wage on illegal immigration (Epstein and Heizler, 2007;Tapinos, 1999Tapinos, , 2000, ban on prostitution (Akee et al., 2009), migration reforms and amnesty (Espstein and Weiss, 2001;Chau, 2001;Karlson and Katz, 2003) and debt contract and persistence of exploitation (Friebel and Guriev, 2006) have been discussed. Importantly, Rogers and Swinnerton (2008) develop a model on how (in their case) child workers and employers deal with the subject of information regarding exploitation at the workplace and whether legal sanctions are welfare reducing. ...
This paper deals with illegal immigration via two distinct activities—smuggling and trafficking of workers. A destination–source model determines economic pay-offs and a standard labor market policy works as a deterrent. Tax paid by legal unskilled workers at the destination is determined endogenously and it finances inland monitoring against illegal immigration, holding the border patrol at a given level. The tax also finances unemployment benefit to legal workers at the destination. The number of immigrant smugglers and traffickers is also determined endogenously along with employer penalty and market wage for illegal immigrants. Higher unemployment benefits may reduce illegal wages, raise traffickers’ rent and reduce flow of illegal immigrants from the source countries.
... There has been little research on how different forms of criminalization or regulation affect the working conditions of prostitutes. Di Tommaso et al. (2009) use data from the Anti-Trafficking Unit of the International Organization for Migration and find that the well-being of trafficked women is (further) worsened when having to work in secluded spaces. ...
The market for sex is a contentious one, and has often been subject to heavy regulation. This chapter goes through factors that are important with regards to the demand for and supply of prostitution. A particular focus is on the relationship between laws and the quantity of sex bought and sold. The most common way that laws have been used to affect the demand for prostitution is by outright criminalization, which may lead to less prostitution, but may also drive the activity further underground. The effect of criminalizing prostitution on trafficking is ambiguous since criminalization may also lead to a substitution effect towards more trafficked prostitutes. Scarcity of reliable data is one of the main challenges for the study of prostitution.
... In Scotland, the Prostitution (Public Places) Scotland Act 2007 came into force in October 2007; it criminalised 'loitering or soliciting in any public place for the purpose of obtaining the services of someone engaged in prostitution' (Sanders and Campbell, 2008). Campaigners are now calling for paying for sex to be made a crime. 1 Whilst the focus here is on clients, it is important to acknowledge that the effects on sex workers have been very significant: Sanders and Campbell (2008) illustrate the implications of this shift for the rights, safety and working conditions of sex workers and the increase in their stigmatisation, whilst Di Tommaso et al. (2009) found that women who are trafficked for sexual exploitation were worse off in terms of health, abuse and freedom of movement when they work in a secluded space. ...
We build on both our theoretical and empirical work on modelling the demand for paid sex (Della Giusta et al., 2009a, 2009b) and examine the demand for paid sex, considering the effects of risky behaviours and attitudes to relationships and to women on demand. We find that those who declare to have purchased sex have both different socio-demographics (older, with fewer children, more educated but with lower professional status), and different sexual and risky behaviours as well as attitudes to relationships. As expected in the light of findings in the literature (well summarised in a 2004 Urban Studies special issue and in more recent literature) a clear city effect in the sample, mostly driven by London, which goes beyond the attitudes captured in the survey and thus combines a mixture of factors related to the supply of paid sex and unobserved characteristics of city-dwelling respondents.
... Among the studies using secondary data, many have adopted latent variable modelling frameworks (e.g. Di Tommaso, 2007;Di Tommaso et al., 2009;Krishnakumar, 2007;Krishnakumar & Ballon, 2008;Kuklys, 2005). ...
How can one assess the quality of life of older people – particularly those with Alzheimer's disease – from the point of view of their opportunities to do valued things in life? This paper is an attempt to answer this question using as a theoretical framework the capability approach. We use data collected on 8841 individuals above 60 living in France (the 2008 Disability and Health Household Survey) and propose a latent variable modelling framework to analyse their capabilities in two fundamental dimensions: freedom to perform self-care activities and freedom to participate in the life of the household. Our results show that living as a couple, having children, being mobile and having access to local shops, health facilities and public services enhance both capabilities. Age, household size and male gender (for one of the two capabilities) act as impediments while the number of impairments reduces both capabilities. We find that people with Alzheimer's disease have a lower level and a smaller range of capabilities (freedom) when compared to those without, even when the latter have several impairments. Hence they need a special attention in policy-making.
... One part of the literature focuses on the impact and effectiveness of policies combating human trafficking (Di Tommaso et al., 2009;Akee et al., 2014;Avdeyeva, 2010;Simmons and Lloyd, 2010;Cho and Vadlamannati, 2012). In line with this strand of research, Cho et al. (2014) have developed an anti-trafficking policy index measuring the three main dimensions of the fight against trafficking: prosecution, protection and prevention. ...
Globalization is the tighter integration of the world’s economies and societies through trade, capital and migration flows, and diffusion of ideas. Advances in these areas pose a multitude of challenges on individuals, the nation states, as well as the international community.
The motivation to address challenges of globalization for international mobility, social welfare and environmental sustainability from an economic perspective arises from the wish to structure and understand these complex, yet poorly studied phenomena. For that reason each chapter establishes clear hypotheses which are based on economic models explaining the incentive structure of agents or the political economy of institutions. Each empirical analysis uses existing macroeconomic observational evidence to test the predictions and establish meaningful implications for the relevant actors. Taking the multitude of challenges posed by globalization into account, this dissertation contributes to the understanding of three challenges contemporary global politics is facing.
... Other studies have documented extreme trafficker-victim relationships. An analysis of questionnaires completed by 4,559 female sex trafficking victims who worked throughout Europe and Central Asia and had received assistance from field missions staffed by the International Organization for Migration revealed manifold victimization (Di Tommaso et al. 2009). Almost all (96%) were denied the freedom to choose clients, 88% were not allowed to determine the kinds of sexual services they would provide, 40% were regularly prevented from using condoms, and 9% were never allowed to use them. ...
The article begins with a discussion of definitional issues regarding human trafficking andmodern slavery and then briefly critiques some popular claims regarding each problem. Examples ofmacro-level research are critically evaluated, followed by a review of micro-level studies that illustrate tremendous variation and complexity in structural arrangements and individuals' lived experiences. These studies suggest that in this field micro-level research has at least three advantages over grand, macro-level meta-analyses-advantages that are quantitative (i.e., estimating the magnitude of the problem within a measurable universe), qualitative (i.e., documenting complexities in lived experiences), and well suited to formulating contextually appropriate policy and enforcement responses.
... The feminist movement has skillfully utilized these values not only to publicize but also to challenge the devastating effects of discrimination and exploitation on women's health and well being (Larson 1993). The lack of rights as well as experience of violence are so pervasive that the freedom from these constraints came to be expressed in terms of sexual freedom (Di Tommaso et al. 2009). The concept of sexual freedom is therefore rooted in the experience of being a woman with observable indicators of sexual exploitation and rights deprivation. ...
Protecting women’s sexual freedom has evolved as a modern value through a long process of social, economic, and institutional changes brought about by the ascend of human rights principles and societal engagements such as the feminist movement. We suggest that the concept of sexual freedom accommodates a more encompassing expression of the simultaneous demand for all aspects of personal, socioeconomic, and political resources related to the pursuit of women’s well-being. The purpose of this study is to develop a construct of women’s sexual freedom in the Mexican context. The data are from the National Survey on the Dynamics of Households Relationships, 2011. We use exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to model women’s sexual freedom and test for invariance between working and non-working women. Results indicate that women’s sexual freedom consists of four factors: reproductive rights, physical intimate partner violence, sexual intimate partner violence, and violence inflicted by others.
... Constructing a representative survey of individuals involved in commercial sex or trafficking is impossible because they constitute a hidden population whose boundaries are unknown. One can, of course, interview victims who come to the attention of the authorities, as was done in the IOM survey mentioned earlier in the article (Di Tommaso et al. 2009), but these surveys are not representative of the victim population. However, representative surveys can be done with the entire population. ...
This article examines different types of comparative research designs as applied to either prostitution or sex trafficking. I first present several comparative approaches that are found to be deeply flawed either because of the problematic assumptions of the analysts or because the data provided are insufficient to support the conclusions drawn. I then review research designs that compare two to four cases in depth and have the potential to yield stronger evidence-based findings and richer theoretical insights. The article concludes by discussing a set of methodological issues that face researchers who conduct comparative research on sex work.
... A straightforward hypothesis is that discrimination against girls and women in countries with large Muslim populations is likely to exist in tandem with disregard for anti-trafficking policies. The reason is that victims of human trafficking are usually women who are forced into prostitution (Nautz and Sauer 2008;Tommaso et al. 2009;Bettio and Nandi 2010;Omar Mahmoud and Trebesch 2010;Cho et al. 2013;Jakobsson and Kotsadam 2015). 9 Indeed, human trafficking is "a form of extreme exploitations for sexual and labor purposes and the vast majority of victims are marginalized foreign women (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2006)." ...
I investigate empirically the role of religion and political institutions in policies against human trafficking, using the new 3P Anti-trafficking Policy Index. The dataset contains 170 countries. The results show that governments in countries with Christian majorities implement stricter anti-trafficking policies than countries with Muslim majorities. The differences between countries with Christian and Muslim majorities is pronounced in dictatorships but less so in democracies. The influence of religion on the overall 3P Anti-trafficking Policy Index is driven by protection and prevention policies. As compared to prosecution policies that mainly target the perpetrators of human trafficking, protection and prevention policies mainly protect the victims of human trafficking, i.e. predominantly women. The conclusions are consistent with other empirical findings regarding the association between religion, political institutions, and human development.
... Injuries related to violence The frequency of sexual and/or physical assault in sex-trafficked women and girls is high, ranging from 31% to 95%. 23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31 In one study, injuries resulting from physical violence were documented in 146 victims of sexual exploitation; most had been trafficked across borders and within borders of Indonesia, the Philippines, Venezuela and the United States. About 80% reported physical assault and the following injuries: vaginal bleeding in 40%, bruising in 40%, internal pain in about 33%, head trauma in 30%, mouth and teeth injuries in about 30% and other bleeding in 15%. ...
The American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) condemns human trafficking and
considers it an egregious human rights violation. While human trafficking is a global issue,
this AMWA Position Paper addresses the problem of the trafficking of women and girls for
commercial sex exploitation in the United States (US) in an effort to provide information
and recommendations for physicians and other healthcare providers who may be in a unique
position to identify and care for these victims.
... 20 Some form of 'biological markets' (Noë and Hammerstein 1994) exist also in other species but the development of exchanges yielding mutual benefits requires fairly complex communication capabilities. 21 This distinction is the basis of the excellent empirical work on the sexual exploitation of trafficked women done Di Tommaso et al. (2009) and by Bettio and Nandi (2010). 22 Other barriers range from the occupational purdah preventing some Indian women from working even in the face of starvation (Chen 1995) to the invisible cultural walls that surround many modern occupations in the world of global finance (van Staveren 2002). ...
Love, War and Culture have all played an important role in the evolution of human institutions and they have been characterized by complex relationships. War can select unselfish groups ready to sacrifice themselves for the love of their communities that they recognize to be culturally different from the others. At the same time, horizontal cultural differentiation cannot be taken for granted. Culture is the outcome of long evolutionary processes. It requires some human specific characteristics, including a large brain, that are likely to have been influenced by sexual selection and by the peculiar structure of human love affairs. Thus, if war may have generated love, also the reverse may be true: by favoring the development of human culture, love may have produced the conditions for war among culturally differentiated groups. In turn, war may have co-evolved with group solidarity only under the prevailing social arrangements of hunting and gathering economies. In general, human relations have been influenced by the prevailing features of the goods (private, public and positional) that have characterized production in different stages of history. They have been embedded in institutions involving very different levels of inequality, ranging from mostly egalitarian hunting and gathering societies to typically hierarchical agrarian societies and to wealth-differentiated industrial societies. The perspectives of the present-day knowledge-intensive economy can also be seen through the same institutional approach to human evolution. The different nature of contemporary production processes involves a new set of alternative possible arrangements that have different implications for social (in)equality and different capabilities to satisfy basic human needs.
... The literature widely points out that the vulnerable position of women in society is a powerful push factor of human trafficking outflows (Danailova-Trainor and Belser 2006;Di Tommaso et al. 2009;Bettio and Nandi 2010;Clawson and Layne 2007). Human trafficking is apparently gender-based violence, the majority of victims being females exploited in the sex industry (UNODC 2006;IOM 2010). ...
This study aims to identify robust push and pull factors of human trafficking. I test for the robustness of 78 push and 67 pull factors suggested in the literature. By employing an extreme bound analysis, running more than two million regressions with all possible combinations of variables for up to 180 countries during the period of 1995-2010, I show that crime prevalence robustly explains human trafficking prevalence both in destination and origin countries. My finding also implies that a low level of gender equality and development may have constraining effects on human trafficking outflows, contrary to expectations. The linkage between migration and human trafficking is less clear, and institutional quality matters more in origin countries than destinations.
... We therefore expect levels of prostitution legislation to play a key role in determining trafficker's choice of destination countries; these levels determine the expected payoffs from and opportunities to exploit. Several empirical studies have already explored this relationship (see Di Tommaso et al., 2009;Akee et al., 2014;Jakobson and Kotsadam, 2013;Cho et al., 2013), but there is still no consensus on the statistical significance or direction of the effect of commercial sex activity legislation and levels of trafficking. There are two diametrically opposed lines of argumentation: abolitionists and supporters. ...
... Existing statistics on human trafficking suggest that it is a gender related crime; more than 70% of victims are females being exploited for sex and domestic services (UNODC, 2006). As female legislators and political representatives tend to be more concerned about women's issues (Chattopadhyay and Duflo, 2004), they are more likely to pursue anti-trafficking policy (Bartilow, 2010), given that sex trafficking against women is the most common form of human trafficking (Di Tommaso et al., 2009). We thus include the female share in parliament as a proxy for gender representation. ...
The Anti-trafficking Protocol reflects the interests of the major countries. Due to the high costs of compliance, countries will strategically select those obligations that will satisfy the major countries most efficiently with lower costs of compliance. Among the three main obligations of the Protocol – prevention, protection and prosecution – we predict that ratification leads to the strongest effect on compliance with the prevention policy because prevention reflects the key interests of the major countries, while triggering less domestic resistance and political costs to implement. Therefore, it is the most ‘efficient’ form of compliance. We empirically test this hypothesis by employing panel data from 147 countries during the period of 2001–2009. As the theory predicts, the ratification of the Protocol has the strongest effect on the prevention policy of a member state compared to protection and prosecution.
... Currently, existing data available across countries – although reflecting fragmented information only – can be divided into three categories: characteristics of victims, trafficking routes, and country reports (Kangaspunta 2003). Extensive data on victims have been collected by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and utilized for microanalyses on the characteristics of human trafficking (Di Tommaso et al. 2009; Mahmoud and Trebesch 2010). The reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC 2006, 2009), the US Department of State (2001-2011) and the Protection Project (2002) provide information on trafficking routes; some of them being utilized in recent gravity analyses on human trafficking (Akee et al. 2010a, b). ...
This paper investigates the impact of legalized prostitution on human trafficking inflows. According to economic theory, there are two opposing effects of unknown magnitude. The scale effect of legalized prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market, increasing human trafficking, while the substitution effect reduces demand for trafficked women as legal prostitutes are favored over trafficked ones. Our empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect. On average, countries where prostitution is legal experience larger reported human trafficking inflows.
... If the role of the girl or woman is no more than to bear children and to provide satisfaction and services to males, education of girls may not enhance the perceived benefits to men, who are the "strong" and dominate the women, who are the "weak". Women can then also become objects to be purchased for use and traded (Di Tommaso et al., 2009). The uses to which women are subjected may therefore not require education. ...
We investigate empirically whether political institutions or culture and religion underlie gender inequality in education. The dataset contains up to 157 countries over the 1991-2006 period. The results indicate that political institutions do not significantly influence education of girls: autocratic regimes do not discriminate against girls in denying educational opportunities and democracies do not discriminate by gender when providing educational opportunities. The primary influence on gender inequality in education is through culture and religion. Discrimination against girls is especially pronounced in Muslim dominated countries.
Causes, Processes and Vulnerability of Sexual Trafficking in Nepal
The study begins with an assumption that an understanding of people’s vulnerability, together with recruitment and transportation processes, can ultimately lead towards prevention of trafficking. Hence, the study examines the vulnerability characteristics of female sex traffic survivors. The study adopts the livelihood asset framework to measure the livelihood assets of survivors prior to their trafficking, and the victimology framework to examine victim-perpetrator relations during the recruitment and transportation stages.
Sex trafficking is a current, severe and intense global phenomenon. Many studies have made substantial efforts to map the routes and relations between countries of origin, transit, destination, and the methods of recruitment and retention. With a focus on the role of social relationships, for this article, we conducted a literature review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) to provide further scientific evidence of the elements and processes that push victims – primarily women and girls – into sex trafficking. The findings show that family, intimate relationships, friendships and acquaintances play a critical role in the pre-entry period before sex trafficking. Among these, family violence, abandonment and abuse emerge as severe risk factors, as well as the role of fraudulent intimate relationships. We also include additional social and individual risk factors that, together with the role of family and social relationships, have impacts on potential victims, increasing the likelihood of sex trafficking.
The use of regulation of sex work is undergoing sweeping changes across Europe and client criminalization is becoming very widespread, with conflicting claims about the intended and actual consequences of this policy. We discuss changes in demand for paid sex accompanying the criminalization of prostitution in the United Kingdom, which moved from a relatively permissive regime under the Wolfenden Report of 1960, to a much harder line of aiming to crack down on prostitution with the Prostitution (Public Places) Scotland Act 2007 and the Policing and Crime Act of 2009 in England and Wales. We make use of two waves of the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL2, conducted in 2000–2001 and NATSAL3, conducted in 2010–2012) to document the changes in both the amount of demand for paid sex and in the type of clients that have taken place across the two waves, and their possible implications for policies that frame prostitution as a form of crime.
Human trafficking is a serious humanitarian problem. Using a nationally representative survey of Bangladeshi child sex workers and an instrumental variable model, we examine the working conditions of trafficked child sex workers and how they differ from those of nontrafficked child sex workers. We find that the victims trade sex with 190 percent more clients at a 67.8 percent lower wage and are more exposed to violence, leading to sickness, such as fever and headache. However, the differences in the prevalence of STDs and injury are insignificant presumably because the owners have an incentive to protect the victims from STDs. These findings suggest that evaluating sex workers’ working conditions by the prevalence of STDs alone may underestimate the severity of the exploitation of victims. Furthermore, conducting an empirical analysis without distinguishing between trafficked and nontrafficked workers, as performed in previous studies, leads to misunderstandings regarding the sex industry. We also contribute to the literature concerning the worst form of child labor by providing the first rigorous evidence of the working conditions of child sex workers. Finally, four implications for practitioners are discussed.
Evidence of a social gradient in health literacy has been found in all reported national population surveys. Health literacy is a midstream determinant of health but not a panacea for health inequities created by the maldistribution of opportunity and resources. It is possible to optimize the contribution health literacy makes in mediating the causes and effects of established social determinants of health. Existing interventions demonstrate the feasibility of improving health literacy among higher-risk populations, but research remains underdeveloped and effects on health inequity are largely untested. Future health literacy intervention research should focus on ( a) improving the quality of health communication that reaches a diversity of populations, especially by improving frontline professional skills and support; ( b) enabling people to develop transferable skills in accessing, understanding, analyzing, and applying health information; and ( c) ensuring that priority is proportionate to need by reaching and engaging the population groups who are disproportionately affected by low health literacy.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Public Health, Volume 42 is April 1, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Sex work was not a prominent public issue in the USA a generation ago. Law and law enforcement were fairly settled. Over the past two decades, however, a robust campaign has sought to intensify the stigmatization and criminalization of the participants involved in all types of sex work, which are now conflated with human trafficking. These efforts have been remarkably successful in reshaping government policy and legal norms and in enhancing penalties for existing offenses. The article analyzes these developments within the framework of a modernized version of moral crusade theory that includes both instrumental and expressive arguments against sex work.
In Sen’s capability approach well-being is evaluated not only in terms of functionings (what they do and who they are) but also in terms of capabilities (what people are free to do and to be). It implies that individuals with the same observed functionings may have different well-being because their choice sets (i.e. capabilities) are different. We utilise a Random Scale Model to measure the latent capability of Italian women to move based on observations of their realized choices. We demonstrate that such models can offer a suitable framework for measuring how individuals are restricted in their capabilities. Our estimations show that the percentage of women predicted to be restricted in their freedom of movement (have restricted capability sets) is 23–25%. If all women were unconstrained, our model predicts that 15–17% of them would choose to do more activities.
This chapter examines selected European prostitution and trafficking policies and law enforcement practices. I first present two analytical approaches relevant to European policy regimes, and conclude that they are severely flawed either because of problematic assumptions or because the data are insufficient to support the conclusions drawn by the analysts. I then examine (1) issues regarding sex trafficking, (2) public opinion in various European states, and (3) recent political struggles over prostitution policy in the Netherlands and Germany, which illustrates the kinds of debates that may arise after prostitution has been decriminalized.
Studies on illegal labor migration to rich countries are strongly policy driven and welfare-centric. Border control and employer interdiction are the most popular policies for controlling illegal entries. We review a large body of literature on illegal immigration in general and smuggling and trafficking of workers in particular. A policy to lower exploitation from illegal migration is discussed with the help of an analytical note.
To update and expand on a 2012 systematic review of the prevalence and risk of violence and the prevalence and risk of physical, mental and sexual health problems among trafficked people.
Systematic review and meta-analysis. Searches of 15 electronic databases of peer-reviewed articles and doctoral theses were supplemented by reference screening, citation tracking of included articles and expert recommendations. Studies were included if they reported on the prevalence or risk of violence while trafficked, or the prevalence or risk of physical, mental or sexual health outcomes among people who have been trafficked. Two reviewers independently screened papers for eligibility and appraised the quality of included studies.
Thirty-seven papers reporting on 31 studies were identified. The majority of studies were conducted in low and middle-income countries with women and girls trafficked into the sex industry. There is limited but emerging evidence on the health of trafficked men and the health consequences of trafficking into different forms of exploitation. Studies indicate that trafficked women, men and children experience high levels of violence and report significant levels of physical health symptoms, including headaches, stomach pain and back pain. Most commonly reported mental health problems include depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Although serological data on sexually transmitted infections are limited, women and girls trafficked for sexual exploitation self-report symptoms suggestive of a high prevalence of infections. Limitations of the review include methodological weaknesses of primary studies and some differences in definition and operationalisation of trafficking, which hinder comparability and generalisability of the results.
There is increasing evidence human trafficking is associated with high prevalence and increased risk of violence and a range of physical and mental health problems. Although more studies have emerged in recent years reporting on the health of trafficked men and people trafficked for forms of exploitation other than in the sex industry, further research is needed in this area. Appropriate interventions and support services to address the multiple and serious medical needs, especially mental health, of trafficked people are urgently needed.
This chapter examines two major trends in the way governments recently have dealt with sex work: intensified criminalization aimed at eradicating it and liberalization based on principles of harm reduction, labor rights, and civil regulation of commerce. It explains how such policies are influenced by the interplay of forces at the national and international levels and considers the roles played by key actors in shaping policies in three nations: Sweden, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. It explores how a spectrum of approaches to the regulation of sex work evolved in these three nations and how hese public policy outcomes have been shaped by local cultures. Finally, it analyzes the extent to which the prostitution policies of these three countries are evidence-based.
This paper uses a semiparametric latent variable transformation model for multiple outcomes to examine the effect of education and maternal education on female multidimensional well-being and proposes a procedure to build a well-being index that is less susceptible to functional form misspecification. We model multidimensional well-being as an unobserved common factor underlying the observed well-being outcomes. The semiparametric methodology allows us to alleviate misspecification bias by combining multiple indicators into a latent construct in an unspecified, data-driven way. Using data from female participants of the 1974–2010 waves of the US General Social Survey, we find that education, intelligence, and maternal education contribute positively to multidimensional well-being. However, the effects of education and maternal education on female multidimensional well-being declined steadily between the mid-1970s and the 1990s, and have not rebounded since.
Some Nigerian women entrepreneurs of the Italian sex market were trafficked women in the past who made a career in the trafficking hierarchy and its organized crime groups. The female mobility towards the organizational side of the trafficking offense represents the most striking characteristic of the Nigerian trade industry: in fact, the trafficking victims are driven by their persecutors to take an active part in the trafficking offenses over time. This criminal modus operandi explains why several difficulties arise in defining sharp dividing lines between trafficking victims and trafficking perpetrators. Facing such a distinctive issue, this paper wants to highlight the multiple roles that women hold in the trafficking industry by focusing on: a) the gray areas in the Nigerian trade industry; b) the intermediate roles that individuals hold within the victim/offender model; c) the female vertical mobility in the trafficking hierarchy. Thanks to such an analysis, the author wants to overcome dominant binary approaches (mostly based on the victim/perpetrator dichotomy) in the analysis of Nigerian trade industry.
This article develops an economic model of human trafficking and migration-debt contracts. A key feature of the theoretical model is the payment of additional sums beyond the initial contracted price to alter the trafficker's queue order. These bribes are shown to be related to the level of effort applied by the trafficker. The types of data needed to rigorously test the model are discussed, together with policy implications.
This paper has multiple objectives. I set out linkages of a causal model to portray how globalization influences international terrorist strategies. I also point to methodological and theoretical shortcomings in the literature with respect to the levels of disaggregation at which issues are analyzed, and I evaluate the opportunity–cost argument for assessing international terrorism. The paper and conclusions present perspectives on developments of terrorism in the context of globalization, including the relationship of terror to immigration.
Purpose
Drawing upon notions of agency and the body, the purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of agency as a gendered concept through a consideration of women sex‐workers. Specifically, the paper analyses how far women sex‐workers may be regarded as social agents. It then considers how far notions of agency, in relation to sex‐workers' embodied boundaries, may be gendered.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews existing literature on sex‐workers and sex‐work practices, looking at indoor sex‐work (massage parlours), outdoor sex‐work (street sex‐work) and trafficking. It considers these types of sex‐work in relation to agency, gender and the body.
Findings
The paper acknowledges the diversity of women's experience within different aspects of the sex trade. The paper recognizes claims that treating sex‐workers as “victims” could further jeopardize their social position. However, the paper finds that the “options” available to sex‐workers are severely constrained. Specifically, the lack of capacity among sex‐workers to set embodied “rules of engagement” with clients makes the notion of agency problematic. The paper contends that “agency” is itself a gendered concept not only in relation to sex‐work, but also in the context of women's work more broadly.
Practical implications
Through the idea of agency as a gendered concept, the paper offers alternative ways of exploring agency, the body and women's work.
Originality/value
The paper puts forward the notion of agency as a gendered concept. This opens up possibilities for further research on women's “choices”, and who “makes the rules” within different labour markets.
Many trafficked people suffer high levels of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. Yet, there has been limited research on the physical health problems associated with human trafficking or how the health needs of women in post-trafficking support settings vary according to socio-demographic or trafficking characteristics.
We analysed the prevalence and severity of 15 health symptoms reported by 120 trafficked women who had returned to Moldova between December 2007 and December 2008 and were registered with the International Organisation for Migration Assistance and Protection Programme. Women had returned to Moldova an average of 5.9 months prior to interview (range 2-12 months).
Headaches (61.7%), stomach pain (60.9%), memory problems (44.2%), back pain (42.5%), loss of appetite (35%), and tooth pain (35%) were amongst the most commonly reported symptoms amongst both women trafficked for sexual exploitation and women trafficked for labour exploitation. The prevalence of headache and memory problems was strongly associated with duration of exploitation.
Trafficked women who register for post-trafficking support services after returning to their country of origin are likely to have long-term physical and dental health needs and should be provided with access to comprehensive medical services. Health problems among women who register for post-trafficking support services after returning to their country of origin are not limited to women trafficked for sexual exploitation but are also experienced by victims of labour exploitation.
We investigate whether UN General Assembly voting reflects different ethical standards of political behavior in democracies and autocracies. Predictions are derived from a model in which autocratic regimes use logrolling to block censure resolutions against themselves and also vote expressively to deflect criticism to a decoy. Democracies vote self-interestedly but are sensitive to dissonance between accusations and evidence. The empirical application of the model provides support for the hypothesis that domestic ethical standards are reflected in governments' UN voting behavior. However, ethical voting by democracies is enhanced when dissonance between accusations and evidence is publicized in the media.
We develop a new index measuring governments’ anti-trafficking policies for up to 180 countries over the 2000-2010 period. We assess a country’s level of compliance in the three main dimensions of anti-trafficking policies – prosecution, protection and prevention. The results show that compliance with prosecution policy is highest, while governmental efforts to protect victims of human trafficking remain weakest. Overall, developed countries perform better than the rest of the world. We employ the new indices to investigate what determines anti-trafficking policies. We find that compliance with anti-trafficking policies significantly decreases with corruption and is higher in countries that also respect the rights of women. We also find some tentative evidence for spatial dependence in anti-trafficking policies.
There is very limited evidence on the health consequences of human trafficking. This systematic review reports on studies investigating the prevalence and risk of violence while trafficked and the prevalence and risk of physical, mental, and sexual health problems, including HIV, among trafficked people.
We conducted a systematic review comprising a search of Medline, PubMed, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and Web of Science, hand searches of reference lists of included articles, citation tracking, and expert recommendations. We included peer-reviewed papers reporting on the prevalence or risk of violence while trafficked and/or on the prevalence or risk of any measure of physical, mental, or sexual health among trafficked people. Two reviewers independently screened papers for eligibility and appraised the quality of included studies. The search identified 19 eligible studies, all of which reported on trafficked women and girls only and focused primarily on trafficking for sexual exploitation. The review suggests a high prevalence of violence and of mental distress among women and girls trafficked for sexual exploitation. The random effects pooled prevalence of diagnosed HIV was 31.9% (95% CI 21.3%-42.4%) in studies of women accessing post-trafficking support in India and Nepal, but the estimate was associated with high heterogeneity (I² = 83.7%). Infection prevalence may be related as much to prevalence rates in women's areas of origin or exploitation as to the characteristics of their experience. Findings are limited by the methodological weaknesses of primary studies and their poor comparability and generalisability.
Although limited, existing evidence suggests that trafficking for sexual exploitation is associated with violence and a range of serious health problems. Further research is needed on the health of trafficked men, individuals trafficked for other forms of exploitation, and effective health intervention approaches.
In recent decades, public health policy and practice have been increasingly challenged by globalization, even as global financing for health has increased dramatically. This article discusses globalization and its health challenges from a vantage of political science, emphasizing increased global flows (of pathogens, information, trade, finance, and people) as driving, and driven by, global market integration. This integration requires a shift in public health thinking from a singular focus on international health (the higher disease burden in poor countries) to a more nuanced analysis of global health (in which health risks in both poor and rich countries are seen as having inherently global causes and consequences). Several globalization-related pathways to health exist, two key ones of which are described: globalized diseases and economic vulnerabilities. The article concludes with a call for national governments, especially those of wealthier nations, to take greater account of global health and its social determinants in all their foreign policies.
In this article I begin with an overview of migration theory as it relates to those selling sex, including two key concepts: the feminisation of migration and labour migration. I then explore the interest that has arisen regarding the ways people leave their countries and arrive in others, in general, and then the particular concern for those who sell sex after arrival in Europe. I describe the ideas involved in the 'trafficking' discourse, the conflicts associated with efforts to define the crimes involved, the role played by the 'violence against women' discourse and the subtleties encountered in migrants' own testimonies that destabilise the rigid debate that dominates this issue. Although this subject would appear to be a major source of concern in the UK, little empirical research has been published. There is no reason to believe, however, that the situation will develop very differently from what is well established all over Europe, in diverse national and cultural contexts, and since the nature of migrant sex work in Europe is itinerant and transnational, the best way to conceive of the subject is in any case as 'European'. What and Who is a Migrant in Europe The first category in need of discussion is that of the 'migrant'. The UK has a longer history of immigration from former colonies into the mother country and a more apparently multicultural society than many other European countries, but the use of the term migrant is more recent here. Confusion arises from different usages of the word migrant in different national contexts. Although statistics show that in many areas of Europe other European migrants are still among the most numerous groups within the migrant whole, the word 'migrant' tends to be used to signify non-European. Similarly, migrants who have now been 'assimilated' and made citizens of a particular European state are sometimes included and sometimes not in popular definitions and census exercises. Official government accountings, which vary across the European Union, do not publish statistics on immigrants per se but on different states related to immigration, such as visa status, residence status, municipal registration or permission to work, in a variety of bureaucratic categories. Many people refer to the dichotomy legal-illegal, but the possibilities are far more complex, taking in workers with definite assignments, transit migrants, suitcase traders, the self-employed, 'forced' migrants, those who are to some extent hiding and those who have escaped being recorded at all. In some countries, migrants move in and out of legal status repeatedly (Singleton and Barbesino 1999: 20). Theories of migration have tended to concentrate on questions of causation— why people move to new countries. Some theorists focus on international structural conditions such as recomposition of capital (for example, in 'export
We consider a model in which one observes multiple indicators and multiple causes of a single latent variable. In terms of the multivariate regression of the indicators on the causes, the model implies restrictions of two types: (i) the regression coefficient matrix has rank one, (ii) the residual variance-covariance matrix satisfies a factor analysis model with one common factor. The first type of restriction is familiar to econometricians and the second to psychometricians. We derive the maximum-likelihood estimators and their asymptotic variance-covariance matrix. Two alternative "limited information" estimators are also considered and compared with the maximum-likelihood estimators in terms of efficiency.
Prostitution is low-skill, labor intensive, female, and well paid. This paper proposes a marriage market explanation to this puzzle. If a prostitute compromises her marriage market prospects, she will have to be compensated for forgone marriage market opportunities. We discuss the link between poverty and prostitution and show that prostitution may decrease with male income if wives and prostitutes are drawn from the same pool of women. We point to the role of male sex ratios, and males in transit, in sustaining high levels of prostitution, and we discuss possible reasons for its low reputation and implications for marriage patterns.
Muthén (1984) formulated a general model and estimation procedure for structural equation modeling with a mixture of dichotomous, ordered categorical, and continuous measures of latent variables. A general three-stage procedure was developed to obtain estimates, standard errors, and a chi-square measure of fit for a given structural model. While the last step uses generalized least-squares estimation to fit a structural model, the first two steps involve the computation of the statistics used in this model fitting. A key component in the procedure was the development of a GLS weight matrix corresponding to the asymptotic covariance matrix of the sample statistics computed in the first two stages. This paper extends the description of the asymptotics involved and shows how the Muthén formulas can be derived. The emphasis is placed on showing the asymptotic normality of the estimates obtained in the first and second stage and the validity of the weight matrix used in the GLS estimation of the third stage.
An econometric model that explores the effect of personal characteristics and attitudes of clients on their demand for prostitution is estimated on data from a survey of clients of street sex workers in the US. The results reveal that clients of street sex workers in our sample have two diametrically opposite profiles: one for clients who declared never to have been with a sex worker or to have been only once, whom we label “experimenters”, and one for the more experienced ones that we name “regulars”. The experimenters correspond to a more machist type, with negative views of women, and of sex workers (who are believed to be different from other women but condemned at the same time), and viewing prostitution as a complement to stable relationships. The regulars have more liberal view of women, and of sex workers, the more they dislike control the more they demand, they like variety. Their demand also increases with age and with having a permanent job, which may indicate a positive income effect. These appear to be men who are happy to satisfy their sexual wants through sex workers, which they prefer to relationships. The users of condoms seem to fit the profile of the regulars, whereas the non-users fit that of the experimenters.
It is by now widely appreciated that institution building is at the heart of the transition process. Without functioning institutions markets cannot work effectively and the sustainability of the economic transition process can be undermined. The crisis in Russia provided just one piece of evidence in this regard. While institutions are central to the transition process, institutional reform is not an area that is well understood by researchers and policy makers alike. In this paper we examine the determinants of institutional change using a panel dataset comprising 25 transition economies. One of the defining characteristics of our approach is that we treat institutional change as a multidimensional unobserved variable. Although we observe a number of indicators of institutional change we take explicit account of the fact that each indicator represents a noisy signal. In this respect we utilise a Multiple Indicator, Multiple Cause modelling strategy.
The research agendas of psychologists and economists now have several overlaps, with behavioural economics providing theoretical and experimental study of the relationship between behaviour and choice, and hedonic psychology discussing appropriate measures of outcomes of choice in terms of overall utility or life satisfaction. Here we model the relationship between values (understood as principles guiding behaviour), choices and their final outcomes in terms of life satisfaction, and use data from the BHPS to assess whether our ideas on what is important in life (individual values) are broadly connected to what we experience as important in our lives (life satisfaction).
This chapter focuses on models in which both manifest and latent variables are continuous. This restriction still generates a large class of models when they are considered simultaneously in several populations and when certain variables are considered fixed rather than random. The field of multivariate analysis with continuous latent and measured random variables has made substantial progress in recent years, particularly, from mathematical and statistical points of view. Mathematically, clarity has been achieved in understanding representation systems for structured linear random variable models. Statistically, large sample theory has been developed for a variety of competing estimators, and the associated hypothesis testing procedures have been developed. The applied statistician, who is concerned with utilizing the above theory in empirical applications, will quickly find that causal modeling is a very finicky methodology having many pitfalls.
AS RECENTLY AS TEN YEARS AGO, the term "human trafficking" was rarely referred to in debates about migration policy. Today, however, it is one of the major concerns of both governments and organizations active in the migration field and has become a priority for those working in many other policy areas such as human rights, health, gender, law enforcement, and social services. The organization of the largest ever EU conference on "Preventing and Combat- ing Trafficking in Human Beings," held in Brussels from 18-20 September 2002, is an example of the growing political priority being accorded to combating human traffick- ing. The conference, organized by International Organization for Migration (IOM) on behalf of the EU, brought together over 1,000 representatives of European institu- tions, EU Member States, candidate countries, and relevant third world countries, drawn from governments, international organizations, and NGOs. The conference produced "The Brussels Declaration," which outlines a set of policy recommendations for the EU in the area of human trafficking. In the United States also, trafficking has been high on the political agenda. In
In December 1998, the United Nations General Assembly established an intergovernmental, ad-hoc committee and charged it with developing a new international legal regime to fight transnational organized crime. In October 2000, after eleven sessions involving participation from more than 120 states, the ad-hoc committee concluded its work. The centerpiece of the new regime is the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, supplemented by additional treaties (protocols), dealing respectively with Smuggling of Migrants, Trafficking in Persons - Especially Women and Children, and Trafficking in Firearms. The first three of these instruments were adopted by the General Assembly in November 2007 and opened for signature in December 2000. The significance of these developments should not be underestimated. The Vienna process, as it has come to be known, represented the first serious attempt by the international community to invoke the weapon of international law in its battle against transnational organized crime. Perhaps even more notable was the selection of the highly politicized issues of trafficking and migrant smuggling as the subjects of additional agreements. This article provides an overview of the Vienna Process and its outcomes with particular reference to the issue of trafficking in persons. It summarizes the principal provisions of the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and explains the connection between this instrument and its protocols. The origins of the trafficking and migrant smuggling protocols are then examined and each instrument is described and analyzed in detail. The Article concludes with a first-hand account of the negotiations - providing an insight into the competing interests that drove the drafting process and that ultimately determined its outcome.
This article examines the adequacy of the “rules of thumb” conventional cutoff criteria and several new alternatives for various fit indexes used to evaluate model fit in practice. Using a 2‐index presentation strategy, which includes using the maximum likelihood (ML)‐based standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR) and supplementing it with either Tucker‐Lewis Index (TLI), Bollen's (1989) Fit Index (BL89), Relative Noncentrality Index (RNI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Gamma Hat, McDonald's Centrality Index (Mc), or root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA), various combinations of cutoff values from selected ranges of cutoff criteria for the ML‐based SRMR and a given supplemental fit index were used to calculate rejection rates for various types of true‐population and misspecified models; that is, models with misspecified factor covariance(s) and models with misspecified factor loading(s). The results suggest that, for the ML method, a cutoff value close to .95 for TLI, BL89, CFI, RNI, and Gamma Hat; a cutoff value close to .90 for Mc; a cutoff value close to .08 for SRMR; and a cutoff value close to .06 for RMSEA are needed before we can conclude that there is a relatively good fit between the hypothesized model and the observed data. Furthermore, the 2‐index presentation strategy is required to reject reasonable proportions of various types of true‐population and misspecified models. Finally, using the proposed cutoff criteria, the ML‐based TLI, Mc, and RMSEA tend to overreject true‐population models at small sample size and thus are less preferable when sample size is small.
INTRODUCTIONTHE LINEAR REGRESSION MODEL WITH MEASUREMENT ERRORSOLUTIONS TO THE MEASUREMENT ERROR PROBLEMLATENT VARIABLE MODELS
This paper aims to present a theoretical survey of the capability approach in an interdisciplinary and accessible way. It focuses on the main conceptual and theoretical aspects of the capability approach, as developed by Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, and others. The capability approach is a broad normative framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being and social arrangements, the design of policies, and proposals about social change in society. Its main characteristics are its highly interdisciplinary character, and the focus on the plural or multidimensional aspects of well-being. The approach highlights the difference between means and ends, and between substantive freedoms (capabilities) and outcomes (achieved functionings).
Commodities and Capabilities presents a set of inter-related theses concerning the foundations of welfare economics, and in particular about the assessment of personal well-being and advantage. The argument presented focuses on the capability to function, i.e. what a person can do or can be, questioning in the process the more standard emphasis on opulence or on utility. In fact, a person's motivation behind choice is treated here as a parametric variable which may or may not coincide with the pursuit of self-interest. Given the large number of practical problems arising from the roles and limitations of different concepts of interest and the judgement of advantage and well-being, this scholarly investigation is both of theoretical interest and practical import.
Managing migration promises to be one of the most difficult challenges of the twenty-first century. It will be even more difficult for south European countries, from which emigration has levelled off and to which immigration has become a significant economic issue. Southern Europe is close to other regions where the pressure to emigrate is intense: these regions have a high level of unemployment, above the European Union average, and a large informal sector, often 15–25 per cent of their economies as a whole. This book analyses the southern European migration case using an economic approach. It combines a theoretical and an empirical approach on the fundamental migration issues - the decision to migrate, effects on the country of departure and country of destination, and the effectiveness of policies in managing migration. It also explores the transformation due to migration of southern European countries in the 1980s and 1990s.
A structural equation model is proposed with a generalized measurement part, allowing for dichotomous and ordered categorical variables (indicators) in addition to continuous ones. A computationally feasible three-stage estimator is proposed for any combination of observed variable types. This approach provides large-sample chi-square tests of fit and standard errors of estimates for situations not previously covered. Two multiple-indicator modeling examples are given. One is a simultaneous analysis of two groups with a structural equation model underlying skewed Likert variables. The second is a longitudinal model with a structural model for multivariate probit regressions.
This paper presents estimates of the shadow economy for 110 countries, including developing, transition and developed OECD economies. The average size of the shadow economy as a proportion of official GDP in 1999–2000 in developing countries was 41%, in transition countries 38%, and in OECD countries 17%. An increasing burden of taxation and social security contributions underlies the shadow economy. If the shadow economy increases by 1%, the growth rate of the “official” GDP of developing countries decreases by 0.6%, while in developed and transition economies the shadow economy respectively increases by 0.8% and 1.0%.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that sex workers who use condoms face large income losses because clients have a preference for condom-free sex. This has important implications for AIDS policy. We estimate the compensating differential for condom use employing data from a random sample of sex workers in Calcutta. We rely on a natural experiment—the nonsystematic placement of sex workers in a safe sex information program—to identify the relationship between condom use and the price for sex. We find that sex workers who always use condoms face large losses of between 66% (FIML) and 79% (IV).
Structural equation modeling with latent variables is overviewed for situations involving a mixture of dichotomous, ordered polytomous, and continuous indicators of latent variables. Special emphasis is placed on categorical variables. Models in psychometrics, econometrics and biometrics are interrelated via a general model due to Muthén. Limited information least squares estimators and full information estimation are discussed. An example is estimated with a model for a four-wave longitudinal data set, where dichotomous responses are related to each other and a set of independent variables via latent variables with a variance component structure.
We evaluate the introduction of monetary incentives in the market for live and cadaveric organ donations. We show that monetary incentives would increase the supply of organs for transplant sufficiently to eliminate the very large queues in organ markets, and the suffering and deaths of many of those waiting, without increasing the total cost of transplant surgery by more than about 12 percent. We build on the value-of-life literature and other parts of economic analysis to estimate the equilibrium cost of live transplants for kidneys and livers. We also show that market price for kidneys will be determined by the cost of live donations, even though most organs will come from cadavers.
A theory of participation in illegitimate activities is developed and tested against data on variations in index crimes across states in the United States. Theorems and behavioral implications are derived using the state preference approach to behavior under uncertainty. The investigation deals directly with the interaction between offense and defense: crime and collective law enforcement. It indicates the existence of a deterrent effect of law-enforcement activity on all crimes and a strong positive correlation between income inequality and crimes against property. The empirical results also provide some tentative estimates of the effectiveness of law enforcement in reducing crime and the resulting social losses.
I. Introduction Since the turn of the century, legislation in Western countries has expanded rapidly to reverse the brief dominance of laissez faire during the nineteenth century. The state no longer merely protects against violations of person and property through murder, rape, or burglary but also restricts "dis crimination" against certain minorities, collusive business arrangements, "jaywalking," travel, the materials used in construction, and thousands of other activities. The activities restricted not only are numerous but also range widely, affecting persons in very different pursuits and of diverse social backgrounds, education levels, ages, races, etc. Moreover, the likeli hood that an offender will be discovered and convicted and the nature and extent of punishments differ greatly from person to person and activity to activity. Yet, in spite of such diversity, some common properties are shared by practically all legislation, and these properties form the subject matter of this essay. In the first place, obedience to law is not taken for granted, and public and private resources are generally spent in order both to prevent offenses and to apprehend offenders. In the second place, conviction is not generally considered sufficient punishment in itself; additional and sometimes severe punishments are meted out to those convicted. What determines the amount and type of resources and punishments used to enforce a piece of legislation? In particular, why does enforcement differ so greatly among different kinds of legislation?
This paper investigates how Amartya Sen's capability approach can be applied to conceptualize and assess gender inequality in Western societies. I first argue against the endorsement of a definitive list of capabilities and instead defend a procedural approach to the selection of capabilities by proposing five criteria. This procedural account is then used to generate a list of capabilities for conceptualizing gender inequality in Western societies. A survey of empirical studies shows that women are worse off than men on some dimensions, better off on a few others, and similarly placed on yet others, while for some dimensions the evaluation is unclear. I then outline why, for group inequalities, inequalities in achieved functionings can be taken to reflect inequalities in capabilities, and how an overall evaluation could be arrived at by weighting the different capabilities.
This paper aims at conceptualising the well being of children in developing countries using a capability approach and at measuring well being in a pilot study using a multiple indicator multiple causes model (MIMIC). First, the concept of capabilities for children is defined. Secondly the paper deals with issues related to measurement of functionings. The existence of multiple, inter-related functionings to measure children’s well being raises the question of how to combine them in empirical research. I use the richness of the capability approach and the information in all the indicators selected, to develop a MIMIC (Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes) model. Children well being is also assumed to be caused by other exogeneous variables like for instance gender of the child or income of the family. Lastly, I describe the data set used and provide a pilot empirical application of the MIMIC model.
This article compares current concerns about "trafficking in women" with turn of the century discourses about "white slavery". It traces the emergence of narratives on "white slavery" and their reemergence in the moral panics and boundary crises of contemporary discourses on "trafficking in women". Drawing on historical analysis and contemporary representations of sex worker migration, the paper argues that the narratives of innocent, virginal victims purveyed in the "trafficking in women" discourse are a modern version of the myth of "white slavery". These narratives, the article argues, reflect persisting anxieties about female sexuality and women's autonomy. Racialized representations of the migrant "Other" as helpless, child-like, victims strips sex workers of their agency. This article argues that while the myth of "trafficking in women"/"white slavery" is ostensibly about protecting women, the underlying moral concern is with the control of "loose women". Through the denial of migrant sex workers' agency, these discourses serve to reinforce notions of female dependence and purity that serve to further marginalize sex workers and undermine their human rights.
Drawing on data from a new survey of individual capabilities across a range of life domains, the paper explores gender inequalities in the causes, experiences and consequences of violent crime. Measuring not only experienced violence, but also feelings of fear and vulnerability to future experiences of violence, we attempt to show how these two types of variables interact and how they impact on well-being. Socio-demographic, economic, personality and environmental differences are taken into account. Key empirical findings include: the identification of a particularly vulnerable group using data for men and women separately; gender inequalities in the propensity to experience different forms of violence; gender inequalities in the impact of key factors, such as the number of dependent children, employment status, income (household and personal) and education, on the likelihood of experiencing violence; a strong link between experienced domestic violence and vulnerability to future domestic violence for women; and strong evidence of the negative impact of selfassessed vulnerability on well-being.
as an independent variable. Last in Zellner [10], it is shown that equations of simultaneous equation models can be brought into a regression form involving some observable and some unobservable independent variables. Given that regression relationstcontaining unobservable independent variables occur quite frequently, and -in' fact are a special case of "errors in the variables" models, it is important to have good methods for analyzing them. Previous analyses have almost always involved the use of an instrumental variable approach, an approach which leads to estimators with the desirable large sample property of consistency. However, it is not clear that the instrumental variable approach leads to asymptotically efficient estimators for all parameters of a model and the small sample properties of instrumental variable estimators are for the most part unknown. In the present paper, we first consider the specification and interpretation of the models under consideration in Section 2. Then in Section 3 we apply a least squares approach to generate an estimator which, with a normality assumption, is a maximum likelihood estimator. The relationship of this estimator to certain instrumental variable estimators is set forth. Then in Section 4, a Bayesian analysis of the model is presented. Finally, in Section 5 some concluding remarks are presented.
Summary This paper proposes a suitable theoretical framework for operationalizing the capability approach using the latent variable methodology. A structural equation model is specified to account for the unobservable and multidimensional aspects characterizing the concept of human development and to capture the mutual influence among different capabilities. The model is applied to Bolivian data for studying two "basic" capability domains relating to children: knowledge and living conditions. Individual capability indices are constructed from the estimation results and their empirical distributions analyzed. Our results show a strong interdependence between the above capabilities and confirm the role of exogenous factors in their determination.
This essay examines how repugnance sometimes constrains what transactions and markets we see. When my colleagues and I have helped design markets and allocation procedures, we have often found that distaste for certain kinds of transactions is a real constraint, every bit as real as the constraints imposed by technology or by the requirements of incentives and efficiency. I'll first consider a range of examples, from slavery and indentured servitude (which are much more repugnant now than they once were) to lending money for interest (which used to be widely repugnant but no longer is), and from bans on eating horse meat in California to bans on dwarf tossing in France. An example of special interest will be the widespread laws against the buying and selling of organs for transplantation. The historical record suggests that while repugnance can change over time, it can persist for a very long time, although changes in institutions that reflect repugnance can occur relatively quickly when the underlying repugnance changes.
Crime is a subject of intense emotions, conflicting ideologies. However, economists have generally explained it as a reflection of individual choice and equilibrating market forces. Two major themes of the literature are outlined: the evolution of a 'market model' to explain the diversity of crime across time and space, and the debate about the usefulness of 'positive' versus 'negative' incentives. Systematic analyses generally indicate that crime is affected on the margin by both positive and negative incentives; there are serious limitations to the effectiveness of incapacitation and rehabilitation; and optimal enforcement strategies involve trade-offs between narrow efficiency and equity considerations. Copyright 1996 by American Economic Association.
Over the past few years, there has been a steadily increasing interest on the part of economists in happiness research. We argue that reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical approximation to individual utility and that happiness research is able to contribute important insights for economics. We report how the economic variables income, unemployment and inflation affect happiness as well as how institutional factors, in particular the type of democracy and the extent of government decentralization, systematically influence how satisfied individuals are with their life. We discuss some of the consequences for economic policy and for economic theory.
Book review of Sex Work, Mobility and Health in Europe
- M L Di Tommaso
Di Tommaso, M.L., 2007a. In: Day, S., Ward, H. (Eds.), Book review of Sex Work, Mobility and Health in Europe. Feminist Economics, vol. 13, pp. 123-127.
Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns
UNODC, 2006. Trafficking in Persons: Global Patterns. UNODC, Vienna.
Tacking the Traffickers. The Guardian
- J Bindel
Bindel, J., 2003. Tacking the Traffickers. The Guardian. 12 August.
The trouble with 'trafficking
- O'connell Davidson
- J Anderson
O'Connell Davidson, J., Anderson, B., 2006. The trouble with 'trafficking'. In: Van Den Anker, C.L., Doomernick, J. (Eds.), Trafficking and Women's Rights. Palgrave
Macmillan, UK.
The Shadow Economy: Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Studies, and Political Implications
- S Schneider
- D H Enste
Schneider, S., Enste, D.H., 2002. The Shadow Economy: Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Studies, and Political Implications. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK.