Vulnerability to Human Trafficking among the Roma Population in Serbia: The Role of Social Exclusion and Marginalization

Abstract

This paper examines vulnerability to human trafficking among the Roma population in Serbia. The inquiry is situated within the larger framework of discourse on human trafficking and seeks to analyse vulnerability and risk of victimization among members of a socially excluded, marginalized group. The inquiry also explores the potential for victimization to go unnoticed/unaddressed as a result of a number of factors, including structural/formal and informal mechanisms that reinforce cultural expectations and normalizations. The discussion is informed by the dynamics and complexities of victimization, including shifting patterns of victimization, the potential for participation in victimization and the role of resilience. The paper is sensitive to contested meanings of ‘victimhood’ and the role of agency, yet seeks to focus on vulnerability and risk of victimization among members of the Roma population in Serbia. The use of ‘victim’ in this paper is meant to be consistent with contextual power and agency.

Keywords:

• Human Trafficking
• Vulnerability
• Social Exclusion
• Marginalization
• Ethnicity
• Roma

Notes

1. The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplementary Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children, is commonly referred to as ‘the Palermo Protocol’ for brevity. To access the document, please go to: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/treaties/CTOC/.

2. Increased attention to the needs of victims is evidenced in the call for more rigorous research on the development of interventions that prioritize benefits to victims and guard against potential harm, particularly in light of the introduction and exploration of technology-based interventions to combat human trafficking. To this end, the authors collaborated with a team of researchers on a briefing to the White House on this. See http://www.danah.org/papers/TechnologistsCSEC.pdf.

3. The recent conflicts of FR Yugoslavia in which Serbia took part include the following: 1991 in Slovenia; 1991 through 1995 in Croatia; 1992 through 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina; 1999 in Kosovo.

4. Serbia and Montenegro remained united until 2006; Kosovo declared independence in 2008.

5. According to official statistics, Hungarians make up the largest national minority.

6. See Decade in Brief at http://www.romadecade.org/about-the-decade-decade-in-brief#.

7. This report identified 94 victims who were underage during the period 2002–2003, out of which 40 victims were of foreign origin, 34 were Roma and 20 Serbian (non-Roma). The victims were mostly female with an unspecified number of male victims.

8. Interestingly, the same report identifies only two Roma male adult victims of human trafficking among 342 male adult victims.