Abstract
When human trafficking survivors work as “informants and advocates,” they keep systems trying to end this horrific crime honest and open to receiving new input. Grassroots approaches can inform many of the systems survivors pass through to improve or add to policies and procedures. Survivors can reveal new dynamics of transnational criminal networks and the development of new indicators and typologies in several systems. The systems discussed in this chapter will highlight the benefits and barriers to approaching an anti-trafficking agenda through a systems theory lens. The authors suggest ways to amend the limitations of these current systems by utilizing existing grassroots methodologies more widely, such as the national referral mechanism (NRM) for human trafficking survivors and other qualitative tools in fieldwork settings.
TopIntroduction
Knowing an institution’s mission means recognizing approaches that are motivated from within and how institutions have their own motivations, which inform an anti-trafficking agenda.
To examine this, the following systems are reviewed in this chapter:
Table 1.| Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) | Enforcement/Prosecution Motivated |
| Victim Assistance Programs (VAP) | Prevention /Intervention Motivated |
| Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) | Assessment, Prevention, Intervention, Prosecution motivated |
| U.S. State Department | Assessment/Policy Motivated |
| Financial Banking Practices | Compliance Motivated/Intervention, Protective and Restitution models |
| National Referral Mechanism (NRM) | Grassroots Motivated |
Survivor lead NRM research models can provide a lens that can help to evaluate successful program outcomes and investigative insights improving the anti-human trafficking agenda.
Defining Human Trafficking
The Palermo Protocol definition has many legal interpretations and has been critiqued as presenting challenges in prosecution models (Seideman, 2015). It is important to note that this definition has been suggested as a barrier in prosecutorial models where human trafficking is defined differently legally in different jurisdictions, supporting the authors’ argument that systems influence outcomes.
While acknowledging how definitions are interpreted is more important than the definition itself, the author employs this definition for simplicity to refer to human trafficking when comparing system approaches throughout this paper.
The Palermo Protocol Definition of Human Trafficking:
The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs (United Nations Office of the High Commissioner, 2020).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Systems Theory: System theory provides a powerful method for the homeostatic systems, that is, systems in which feedback-controlled regulation processes occur. Since human goal-oriented behavior is regulated by such system processes, systems theory is very useful in psychological research.
Palermo Protocol: The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
NGO: Non-governmental organization.
Financial Indicators: The movement of funds is a strong indicator of criminal behavior.
Industry Indicators: Industries such as airlines, hotels, taxis, and bus lines can contribute greatly to identifying human trafficking victims.
National Referral Mechanism: The National Referral Mechanism (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, 2004) is a PAR-designed human trafficking rapid-assessment tool specifically designed to identify risks and prevention measures.