Anti-Trafficking Review
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Trafficker Profile According to US Federal Prosecutions
Full text linkThis article presents data on defendants in US federal human trafficking prosecutions between 2000 and 2020. Through an exhaustive analysis of court documents, press releases, and news articles, it shows who is implicated in trafficking crimes, how they are connected to their victims, and at what point they become traffickers. It concludes that, while there is no universal trafficker profile, traffickers often exploit a position of trust with their victims, either by taking advantage of a child’s age or by employing coercive tactics. Cycles of such exploitation can even lead victims to begin abusing other victims
Editorial: Thinking with Migration, Sexuality, Gender Identity, and Transactional Sex
Full text linkThis article introduces a special issue of Anti-Trafficking Review that bridges the fields of queer, migration, and critical trafficking studies by examining the implications of heightened juridical recognition of sexual orientation and gender identity for debates on migration, sex work, and human trafficking. The issue proceeds from the insight that, as the legibility of queer and trans* (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and all non-binary and non-heteronormative forms of sexuality and gender identity) moves forward, it appears to de-emphasise the explicit connections that sexuality- and gender-based social movements have historically drawn between identity, governance, and material survival. In emphasising questions of survival, this issue both recuperates queer and non-cisnormative subjects within debates on transactional sex, and shows how a queer theoretical sensibility can offer new insights for established critiques in the field
The Thirunangai Promise: Gender as a contingent outcome of migration and economic exchange
Full text linkIn this paper, I track how social actors in the city of Chennai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu contested the boundaries of thirunangai identity, the preferred Tamil term for transgender women. Using a framework derived from linguistic and economic anthropology, I show how gendered personhood is a contingent outcome of the value and meaning given to migrations and economic exchanges, where migration makes new gendered subjectivities possible while curtailing others. I offer a queer analysis of migration, highlighting how social womanhood is a contingent achievement and a contested status, split along axes of class, caste, religion, language, cis- or transgenderhood, and so forth. Not all persons socially categorised as women marry, migrate or labour in the same way, and gender is never a singular or isolated axis of differentiation.  
Editorial: Traffickers
Full text linkThis article introduces a Special Issue of Anti-Trafficking Review themed ‘Traffickers’. It describes how most of the knowledge about human trafficking is generated from the accounts of victims of trafficking and people working with them, while knowledge of perpetrators of human trafficking remains limited. It further summarises the articles contained in this special issue. These articles describe one or more aspects of traffickers’ characteristics, motivations, modus operandi, relationships with victims, and treatment in the criminal justice system. Overall, the issue shows that in many cases, traffickers’ profiles are similar to those of their victims. It suggests that measures to reduce racial, ethnic and other discrimination and improve socioeconomic and educational opportunities for all would help reduce people’s vulnerability to becoming victims of trafficking as well as perpetrators
The Myth of the ‘Ideal Offender’: Challenging persistent human trafficking stereotypes through emerging Australian cases
Full text linkHuman trafficking and slavery offences are often constructed through prominent stereotypes of the ideal victim and the ideal offender. This article examines four common offender stereotypes created by representations of trafficking seen in the media, popular culture, government reports, and awareness campaigns, and challenges these stereotypes by comparing them with international and Australian research and statistics. This comparison demonstrates that the ideal trafficking offender is a myth that must be broken. To support this argument, the article explores two emerging Australian cases involving sexual exploitation and allegations of slavery and servitude that significantly depart from stereotypical representations of trafficking. This shows the limitations of offender stereotypes in explaining trafficking offences and demonstrates the need for greater emphasis on the role of coercive control in trafficking offences, the impact of trust and changing relationships, and the interrelationship of trafficking with domestic violence
Questioning the Notion of Financial Gain as the Primary Motivation of Human Traffickers
Full text linkOne common belief in the anti-trafficking field is that the primary motivation of traffickers is financial gain. This short paper describes recent examples of that belief among researchers and practitioners and suggests that it is not warranted by the available evidence. My intention is to stimulate conversation and to call for improved documentation and analysis of perpetrator motivations. I encourage a more nuanced appreciation of those motivations by policymakers and the larger anti-trafficking community
Traffickers’ Use of Substances to Recruit and Control Victims of Domestic Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation in the American Midwest
Full text linkThis paper describes how traffickers use substances to recruit and control victims of domestic trafficking for sexual exploitation, as reported by service providers working with trafficking survivors in the American Midwest. This data was derived from interviews with 15 service providers in a major metropolitan area. Findings revealed consistencies with previous literature and new insights into the trafficker- substance use dynamic. Traffickers’ use of substances with victims was pervasive when trafficking was for the purpose of sex but not other labour. There were several examples of how traffickers use substances for victim exploitation and recruitment. These include using substances to ensure a victim is in a euphoric mood prior to sex work, to reward victim sex work productivity, and to initiate withdrawal effects to demonstrate the traffickers’ supreme control. Novel findings include how and why traffickers might deny victim use of substances and how they might give substances to victims without the victim’s knowledge. Implications for how these findings can be utilised for victim treatment and for future research are discussed
Interview: Raised in Pimp City: Urban insights on traffickers, trafficking, and the counter-trafficking industry
Full text linkArmand King was involved in human trafficking for over a decade. The journal Editor, Borislav Gerasimov, and the Special Issue Guest Editor, Marika McAdam, conducted this interview with him to better understand his motivations and experiences during this period of his life as well as his views on counter-trafficking
Missing, Presumed Trafficked: Towards non-binary understandings of ‘wayward’ youth in Jamaica
Full text linkBoys and LGBTQ youth, especially those who go missing from home, have recently started to appear in mainstream anti-trafficking discourse as a group of children who are peculiarly vulnerable to human trafficking. This paper reports findings from research with Jamaicans who experienced various forms of violence and exploitation as children. Our data is consistent with the claim that boys and LGBTQ Jamaicans are amongst those who experience forms of violence and exploitation that policy makers often discuss under the heading ‘sex trafficking’. However, the same data also challenges the conceptual binaries used to frame assumptions about ‘sex trafficking’ as a significant threat to Jamaican youth and informs assumptions about missing children as victims of trafficking. In this way, the paper provides empirical support for criticisms of the turn towards including boys and LGBTQ youth as victims of ‘sex trafficking’, and of dominant discourse on ‘child trafficking’ more generally
Queering Sex Work and Mobility
Full text linkThis paper explores the intersections of sex work, mobility, and gendered sexualities through a queer lens. It is based on a study that made use of digital storytelling and WhatsApp to engage 17 migrant and mobile sex workers in South Africa. Through a queering of sex work and migration/mobility analysis, it demonstrates that because sex work is essentially about using one’s body to perform varying sexual acts with different types of people for financial gain, migrant and mobile sex workers are exposed to different ways of experiencing sexual (dis)pleasure. According to the research participants, this can then broaden the body’s erotic vocabulary and expand one’s range of sexual desires, along with their expressions, to the point where it can also have an influence on one’s gendered sexuality and choice of intimate partner. However, the respondents also stressed the integral role movement plays in this evolution of one’s gendered sexuality. Hence, this paper argues for the recognition of migrant and mobile sex work as intrinsically queer and concludes by unpacking the socio-political implications of this in relation to (sexual) citizenship