Palermo at 20: A Retrospective and Prospective

2020 will mark the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, also known as the Palermo Protocol. The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) will also be 20-years old in 2020. This anniversary presents an opportune moment to take stock of what the anti-trafficking field has accomplished over the past 20 years and assess the challenges that lie ahead.

The Palermo Protocol was a result of two years of negotiations at the UN Centre for International Crime Prevention in Vienna. The Protocol was the target of heavy lobbying by religious and feminist organizations, on the one hand, and human rights advocates, on the other hand. These two groups represented two opposing views of prostitution. The Human Rights Caucus saw prostitution as legitimate labor, while the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), representing religious and feminist activists, saw all prostitution as a violation of women’s human rights (Doezema, 2005). The Coalition argued that trafficking should include all forms of recruitment and transportation for prostitution, regardless of whether force or deception took place (Goldscheider, 2000). Meanwhile, the Human Rights Caucus, which supported the view of consensual prostitution as work, argued that force or deception was a necessary ingredient in the definition of human trafficking. The Caucus also maintained that the term “human trafficking” should include trafficking of women, men, and children for different types of labor, including forced sweatshop labor, agriculture, and prostitution (Human Rights Caucus, 1999). The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) also made a distinction between forced prostitution and voluntary sex work. GAATW called for decriminalization of prostitution and argued that anti-trafficking efforts must focus on forced prostitution and other forms of abuse and exploitation. GAATW’s position was supported by the International Committee for Prostitutes’ Rights (ICPR).

The two camps also presented differing views on the notion of consent, in particular ‘‘whether non-coerced, adult migrant prostitution should be included in the definition of trafficking’’ (Gallagher, 2001, p. 984). The CATW argued that prostitution is never voluntary because women’s consent to sex work is meaningless because they do not realize the exploitation they will experience. The Human Rights Caucus, on the other hand, stated, “No one consents to abduction or forced labor, but an adult woman is able to consent to engage in an illicit activity (such as prostitution). If no one is forcing her to engage in such activity, then trafficking does not exist” (Human Rights Caucus, 1999).

With this debate, the definition of trafficking became a battleground between those who consider it possible for sex work to be a voluntary choice and those who consider prostitution to always be forced. In the end, the signatories of the Palermo Protocol rejected the definition championed by the feminist and religious groups represented by the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) and defined human trafficking as:

[t]he 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.” (UN Protocol 2000, p. 42)

In non-legal language, the definition of human trafficking emphasized that force, fraud, or coercion must be present for a particular labor or sexual exploitation to be recognized as human trafficking. This definition was modified in relation to children. In accordance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Protocol considered any individual under the age of 18 to be a child. The Protocol stated that the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if no force or coercion was used. This definition assumes that children, even older teens, have no volition and cannot consent.

While related international human rights treaties had acknowledged the problem of trafficking, e.g., Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979); Convention on Rights of Child (1989); Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor (1999), the Palermo Protocol provided the first internationally agreed-upon definition of trafficking in human beings. To date, there are 117 Signatories and 173 States Parties to the Protocol (United Nations Treaty Collection). However, despite the international agreement, the definition of human trafficking has elements and foci that have been challenged, including what constitutes ‘exploitation,’ the difference between trafficking and smuggling, and overemphasis on trafficking of women for sexual exploitation.

The Palermo Protocol focuses on the purpose of human trafficking, namely exploitation. Exploitation is a “difficult concept, certainly never defined in international law, and subject to a variety of interpretations” (Plant, 2015, p. 154). Common sense tells us that exploitation happens when workers are treated unfairly, when they do not receive an appropriate remuneration for their labor, and when traffickers take advantage of their vulnerability to extract unfair profits. However, as legal scholars point out, the real challenge is to persuade a jury that the experiences of trafficked persons – high fees that migrant workers often pay recruitment agencies, unexplained deductions from wages, long working hours, insalubrious living and working conditions – meet the muster of criminal offenses. Plant indicates that in Europe, “there are a very small number of egregious cases, where the perpetrators are successfully prosecuted and receive heavy convictions (sometimes accompanied by a civil penalty)” for human trafficking (Plant, 2015, p. 155). The situation is very similar in the United States, where a good proportion of trafficking cases are tried on the basis of immigration violations (smuggling), not under the anti-trafficking law (Goździak, 2016; Kyckelhahn, Beck, & Cohen, 2009; Torg, 2006).

The Palermo Protocol makes a distinction between trafficking and smuggling with regard to three crucial points: consent, exploitation, and transnationality. Smuggling involves migrants who have consented to being smuggled. Trafficking victims, on the other hand, have either never consented or, if they initially consented, that consent has been rendered meaningless by the coercive, deceptive, or abusive actions of the traffickers. Smuggling usually ends with the migrants’ arrival at their destination, whereas trafficking involves ongoing exploitation of the victim. It is commonly believed that victims of trafficking tend to be affected more severely and to be in greater need of protection from re-victimization than are smuggled migrants. This distinction has not been borne out by empirical data. Moreover, there remain questions as to how one would measure the severity of the exploitation and suffering of these two groups. And finally, smuggling is always transnational, whereas trafficking can occur within the country of origin of the victim.

When the Palermo Protocol was first presented to the General Assembly, it was praised for paying “equal attention to the repression of illegal conduct and the protection of the victims, fill[ing] in many gaps in international law and provid[ing] an effective instrument for international cooperation” (United Nations, 2000, p.6). The Protocol’s purpose was intended to balance the prevention of trafficking, protection of the victims, and prosecution of the traffickers (Jr. & LeRoy, 2003). Although the Protocol itself does not mention prosecution in its statement of purpose, it is encapsulated within the Protocol’s commitment to “combat” trafficking. The main goals throughout the drafting process were twofold. First, that the Protocol would define trafficking “to include all trafficking into forced labor, slavery and servitude, no matter whether it is within or across a country’s borders” and second, to “recognize the rights and meet the needs of trafficked persons” (Jordan, 2002, p. 3).

The Palermo Protocol was designed to reflect the international community’s political will to combat organized crime, rather than to combat human rights violations inherent within slavery. Anti-trafficking scholar Kristina Touzenis notes, “… the impetus for developing a new international instrument arose out of the desire of governments to create a tool to combat the enormous growth of transnational organized crime. Therefore, the drafters created a strong law enforcement tool with comparatively weak language on human rights protections and victim assistance” (Touzenis, 2010, p. 67; also see Gallagher, 2001). Some have argued that while the Protocol pays lip service to human rights, a true commitment to the human rights approach, which seeks to address the root causes of trafficking, is lacking. Moreover, at the Palermo Protocol’s introduction, a delegate to the General Assembly speaking on behalf of the European Union acknowledged how critical the implementation phase would be, stating that “[h]aving arrived at satisfactory texts is one thing, but it is quite another to ensure their entry into force and implementation. In this respect, we shall still have several important bridges to cross” (Shoaps, 2013, p. 947).

Over the past 20 years, several problems and challenges with the Protocol have arisen (Allain, 2013; Gallagher, 2012; Gallagher, 2011; Martynov, 2008; De Heredia, 2008). Protocol-ratifying countries that self-report compliance are in fact not complaint (Janur et al., 2017; Dempsey 2012; Seideman, 2015). In addition, the UN reports that “although most countries now have the appropriate legal framework for tackling trafficking crimes, the large discrepancy between the number of detected victims and convicted offenders indicates that many trafficking crimes still go unpunished” (UN Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2016, p. 12). Some critics have argued that the Protocol’s overall emphasis on protecting women and children has led to shortcomings in addressing protection and prevention for male and LGBTQI victims of trafficking (Shoaps, 2013). In addition to a gendered approach, several countries have tended to focus more on sex trafficking compared to forced labor. The International Labor Organization (ILO) notes the complexity of this problem, “Based on the Palermo Protocol, the extension of the definition of THB [trafficking in human beings] to labor exploitation requires additional skills, knowledge, and awareness for effective investigation and prosecution, and for the identification and assistance of victims of this form of THB” (Rijken, 2011). Furthermore, others have noted that the Palermo Protocol requires states to criminalize human trafficking but does not contain any mandatory provision under which nation-states are required to protect the victims or conduct prevention initiatives. Finally, although the mandate to prosecute has been carried out in national legislation, it is sometimes at odds with victim protection. All of these issues, and others, point to disconnects between international law and the implementation and enforcement of the law at the local and national levels (Barrick, Lattimore, Pitts, & Zhang, 2014; Britton & Dean, 2014; Amahazion, 2014; De Berardinis, 2013; Gueraldi, 2013; Avdeyeva, 2012; Carr, 2012; George, 2012; Parucca, 2011; Bump, 2009). The rise of migration has also posed new challenges for combatting human trafficking (Kempadoo, Sanghera, & Pattanaik, 2011; Mallia, 2010; Taylor, Torpy, & Das Boca Raton, 2013; Anderson, 2012; Chacón, 2010). The complexity of the transnational criminal element involved in various aspects of human trafficking, coupled with its increasingly online/digital element, also pose new difficulties for national and international law enforcement efforts (Coen, 2014; Dixon & Judge Herbert, 2013; Elliott & McCartan, 2013; Newton, 2012; Kneebone & Debeljak, 2012; Shelley and Park 2011; Moldovan, 2011; Lee, 2010; Amar, 2009; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2009).

Thus, a wide variety of challenges and developments at the national and transnational levels have emerged over the 20-year time frame to the Protocol. At the same time, trafficking of people for forced labor and sexual exploitation is believed to be one of the fastest-growing areas of international criminal activity and one that is of increasing concern to the international community. In examining trends in trafficking, it is critical to better to understand the following: Where has the Palermo Protocol been effective? Where has it been ineffective and globally unenforced? How does Palermo connect to local level practices and concerns? Beyond its international character, an analysis of trends in trafficking and efforts to combat it also has significant U.S. dimensions that are important to understand.

In the United States, trafficking became a focus of activities in the late 1990s when two separate bills were proposed in Congress. Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) sponsored a bill that included provisions to prosecute forced labor in all its forms, emphasizing that involuntary servitude was not exclusive to the sex industry but was also liable to occur in agriculture, garment, food, and many other industries. Republican Congressman Chris Smith, aided by Laura Lederer, then of the Protection Project, and Gary Haugen of the International Justice Mission, drafted an alternate bill and launched a forceful campaign against Wellstone’s proposed legislation. Congressman Smith’s bill claimed that Senator Wellstone’s “focus on a range of labor issues would distract from combating sex slavery” (Soderlund, 2005, p. 73).

In the end, Congress passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act and President Bill Clinton signed it into law on October 28, 2000. This legislation, known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), was reauthorized in 2003, 2005, 2008, 2013, and 2019 (Busch-Armendariz et al., 2018; U.S. Department of State, 2019). The law was aimed at accomplishing what originally came to be known at the “Three Ps”: prevention, protection, and prosecution. The fourth P – partnerships – came in much later. Prevention “relates to activities such as public education and job creation intended to keep potential victims out of the clutches of traffickers and away from exploitation,” developing “viable economic alternatives to their desperate migration for work” and thus getting to the root causes of human trafficking (DeStefano, 2008, p xix). Protection describes a diverse array of assistance programs – housing, financial assistance, medical care, and mental health counseling – available to victims of severe forms of trafficking who meet certain eligibility criteria. Prosecution holds traffickers accountable under criminal law and levies appropriate penalties. Partnership means collaboration between different agencies and actors to prevent trafficking in persons, protect victims, and prosecute perpetrators.

Policymakers and anti-trafficking advocates regard the TVPA of 2000 and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 as the main tools to combat trafficking in persons globally and domestically. The passage of the TVPA launched an entirely new federal bureaucracy to deal with human trafficking. The U.S. Department of State created its Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (J/TIP). Other departments – the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Justice, United States Agency for International Development, Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Education, and Department of Defense – followed and created their own programs to fight human trafficking (See DeStefano, 2007; Ryf, 2002; Wooditch, DuPont-Morales, & Hummer, 2009).

Although the TVPA of 2000 included both sex and labor trafficking in the definition of human trafficking, the US focus on sex trafficking paralleled international anti-trafficking efforts. Combating sexual slavery became a key priority in the Bush administration. In recent years, the U.S. government has identified many more cases of trafficking for labor than for sexual exploitation alone. In Fiscal Year 2014, the last year for which the U.S. government’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) provided a breakdown of statistics regarding trafficking victims, 72% of victims were trafficked for labor versus 21% for sexual exploitation (ORR, 2015), with an additional 7% trafficked for both labor and sexual exploitation. In 2006, 94% of victims were females trafficked for sexual exploitation. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) that took over the assistance to victims of trafficking in 2015, provides only total numbers of victims served, without any differentiation between foreign-born and domestic survivors.

As is evident, there have been a number of developments in the U.S. and international context with respect to human trafficking that provide an important point for reflection at the 20^th anniversary of the Palermo Protocol and TVPA. This special issue is designed to provoke conversation about both the accomplishments and continued challenges in these important laws, and what gaps exist in combatting human trafficking and providing robust victim protection and prevention.

In the Call for Papers (CfP) issued in preparation for this special issue we asked potential contributors to address the following critical issues:

• Analyses of existing legal frameworks, policies, and definitions of human trafficking, including the nexus of trafficking and smuggling, and trafficking and modern slavery. How do these laws, policies, and definitions measure up to the reality of human trafficking? What is missing from current anti-trafficking policies and programs? What research on human trafficking is useful even if it is not directly driven by, or related to, policy and practice goals?

• Assessments of mechanisms such as the U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP), the Council of Europe’s GRETA reports, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime UNODOC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, or any similar publications. What impact do these reports have on governments? What has been the impact of these reports on prevention of human trafficking, protection of victims, and prosecution of perpetrators?

• Reviews of existing qualitative and quantitative data on trafficking in persons, including critical evaluation of existing databases. Are these databases available to researchers for independent study? What problems exist with these databases? How might these databases be used or developed more effectively for research and to help inform policy and civil society?

• Articles assessing the state of empirical research on human trafficking, including trafficking of boys and men in various industries. Are women and children continuing to be the ‘deserving victims’ at the cost of exploring trafficking experiences of males? What about the vulnerability, identification, and treatment of LGTBQI victims or victims within other special populations (e.g., special needs, indigenous peoples, migrant populations, etc.)? What is the state of empirical research conducted with survivors of human trafficking? What are the challenges involved in conducting participatory research?

• Articles discussing the state of the nexus between the business sector and labor trafficking. What is the current state-of-the-art research on the analysis of supply chains and how it relates to identifying human trafficking? How can the business sectors be more effectively engaged in identifying and combatting human trafficking?

• Articles critically evaluating methodologies used to study human trafficking. What are the methodological challenges researchers face in studying various forms of human trafficking? How can more rigorous and robust research on trafficking be conducted? How might new data analytics techniques be brought to bear on human trafficking research?

• Articles discussing monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of anti-trafficking activities. What can be learnt from M&E studies? What are the particular challenges involved in monitoring and evaluation in the anti-trafficking sector?

The response to the CfP was moderate. We received 25 abstracts and invited 15 authors to submit complete papers or essays. After a rigorous peer-review, we accepted seven papers and five essays comprising an interdisciplinary group of writers. We obviously do not know for sure what determined this moderate response, but we can venture some educated guesses. Continued assessments of the literature on human trafficking indicate that empirical research, especially participatory research with survivors of human trafficking, is still not as robust as the interest in the issue might suggest (see Goździak, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2008). In the United States, much of the focus has been diverted from foreign-born victims of human trafficking to domestic minor sex trafficking (Goździak, this volume) and it has affected funding for research and consequently publications.

Nevertheless, we are happy to present several innovative articles and essays that look at issues neglected in the anti-trafficking literature. The collection includes several contributions focusing on labor trafficking of men, which is a welcomed change from the continued overemphasis on trafficking for sexual exploitation of women and children. Avyanthi Azis and Ridwan Wahyudi write about the lived experiences of several Indonesian fishermen and highlight the shortcomings of the Palermo Protocol when it comes to the ‘less considered’ victims (Allais, 2013) whose stories do not conform to the iconized ‘perfect victim’ paradigm (Uy, 2011). Additionally, the authors emphasize a central problem with the Palermo Protocol, namely its continued emphasis on coercion. The empirical data they present indicate that coercion is often not reflected in the most commonplace trafficking experiences of fishermen who willingly sign up for work on fishing boats not knowing in advance the level of exploitation they might experience.

Supang Chantavanich also writes about the fishing industry. Using the case of some 80 Rohingya kept captive for ransom in a camp near the Thailand-Malaysia border, she unpacks the problematic interpretation of ‘exploitation,’ particularly as related to extortion, slavery, and forced labor, and the inadequacy of the Thai anti-trafficking legislation–the 2008 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Act, modeled after the Palermo Protocol–to cases at the nexus of smuggling and trafficking and their complex relations with mixed-migration flows and transnational organized crime.

Focusing on Serbian workers in Slovak electronics supply chains, Rutvica Andrijasevic and Tonia Novitz explore how the transnational recruitment of labor via temporary work agencies (TWAs) for globally organized production generates heightened forms of exploitation and unfree labor relations. The authors show that such exploitation occurs in a regulatory framework consisting of various instruments ranging from the Palermo Protocol specific to trafficking, to EU law addressing the mobility of workers, and corporate codes of conduct aimed at guaranteeing worker rights within supply chains. They conclude that, paradoxically, despite an overregulated field, existing instruments fail to offer a straightforward avenue for redress. They suggest that this failure is an outcome of the current legal and corporate regulatory matrix that allows market competition through work practices that violate basic labor standards and produce the conditions that enable and sustain unfree labor relations while normalizing exploitation in supply chains.

In his exploratory study, Jeremy Norwood analyzes indicators of labor exploitation among migrant farmworkers in Western Michigan and the ensuing risks for human trafficking. His empirical research is informed by interviews with professionals who work with migrant farm workers as well as with migrant farmworkers. Norwood identified four dimensions where risks for human trafficking were most prominent: (1) the migratory process where the presence of violence, the lack of economic and social networks, and the lack of secure employment put migrant workers at risk for trafficking; (2) the road to employment where the path to the place of employment, the access to familiar and reliable transportation to the workplace, and the nature of the contractual arrangement constituted potential risks for trafficking; (3) the living and working conditions where the presence of force, fraud, or coercion, the existence of “gaps” in employment, the pay, hours, working conditions, and the extent to which breaks, bonuses, and housing were available also increased trafficking risks; and (4) the level of control over their circumstances, including restrictions on mobility, the role of employers, crew leaders, and recruiters, and the reluctance of reporting, also put migrant workers at risk for trafficking. This analysis is important in terms of understanding how trafficking for labor exploitation might be prevented.

Anne E. Fehrenbacher, Jennifer Musto, Heidi Hoefinger, Nicola Mai, P.G. Macioti, Calogero Giametta, and Calum Bennachie’s article provides an ethnographic account of the trafficking experiences of another under-researched group of exploited people, namely transgender individuals. Fehrenbacher et al. find that most transgender individuals who reported exploitation did not self-identify as trafficking victims nor were they identified by law enforcement or anti-trafficking organizations as victims. Their research finds various discriminatory law enforcement practices involving profiling by gender, race/ethnicity, and immigration status, that has led to the exclusion of transgender individuals from protection services, and has also contributed to their being abused and charged with crimes. The authors also find that most anti-trafficking organizations express openness to transgender clients but do not effectively reach them. The presented research shows how various categories of marginalized persons in society are not yet adequately protected by international or domestic laws on human trafficking. Anti-trafficking laws also do not address the various forms of structural inequalities that these individuals have endured that make them vulnerable to trafficking.

The collection also includes analyzes of national anti-trafficking legislation provisions and other domestic policies that sometimes work at cross-purposes. Irina Molodikova’s paper follows changes in Russian legal and migration codes since anti-trafficking laws were introduced into the Russian Criminal Code. Molodikova’s article shows various accomplishments, as well as shortcomings in Russia’s attention to combat human trafficking over the past 15 years. She illustrates how changes in: (1) federal authorities to oversee the combat of human trafficking; and (2) domestic trafficking laws intersecting with other domestic laws, including migration policies, can create new vulnerabilities to trafficking. Although legislation may exist, as well as numerous structures and institutions that should support its implementation, specific socio-political-economic contexts hamper effective implementation of these laws in practice. Her study shows how more attention needs to be placed on the synergies (or lack thereof) between national anti-trafficking laws and other kinds of domestic policies.

Analogous to Molodikova, Ayako Sasaki’s essay looks at the developments of Japan’s anti-trafficking efforts over the past 18 years in response to changes in Japanese legal frameworks and policies related to human trafficking, but also in responding to the criticisms and recommendations of the TIP reports. Sasaki illustrates how a limited understanding of human trafficking in Japan has made migrant workers more vulnerable to exploitation. Also, Sasaki points out that the more efforts the Japanese government has made to strengthen immigration controls in combating sex trafficking, the more foreign victim cases have been driven underground. Thus, even though Japan has adopted the definitions of human trafficking as defined in the Palermo Protocol, it is clear that national implementation of international laws still suffer from weaknesses that relate to historical socio-cultural practices related to work and understandings of what constitutes labor violations and labor trafficking, that ultimately hinder identification of the full scope of human trafficking victims in Japan.

Imrana Begum looks at shortcomings in India’s victim protection efforts, over the past 20 years, through its government-run Ujjawala and Swadhar shelter and rehabilitation programs. She draws on interviews with shelter residents and service providers to illustrate how these programs fail to have a victim-centered approach to care, with staff often possessing notions of welfare and charity and negative attitudes toward victims. Begum further argues that these programs fail to provide truly comprehensive victim services by using a limited “one-size-fits-all” approach that does not address the specific and varied needs that victims have to enable them to be fully restored to Indian society.

Sarah Elliott and Megan Smith focus on the problem of irregular mixed migration and its intersection with vulnerabilities to human trafficking. They use a novel training simulation exercise developed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to examine how multiple agencies can cooperate and coordinate to identify and respond to potential trafficking victims in migration and displacement settings. The simulation brought together a diverse group of practitioners from different countries, removed from their existing biases, attitudes, and resource constraints, and tasked them to participate in a simulation environment where they can experiment with best practices, and think about how to bring these practices back to their home countries. Their findings discuss the current empirical challenges and best practices for the protection of victims of trafficking found in mixed-migration movements.

Katharine Bryant and Todd Landman’s article looks at principles and methods of program monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment that have been used in the human trafficking field since the adoption of the Palermo Protocol. Bryant and Landman find that similar to findings of reviews of evaluations in the international development sector, evaluations of anti-trafficking programming have primarily focused on assessing the progress of project implementation and the achievement of outputs, rather than tracking the achievement of outcomes or impact. This creates a situation in which anti-trafficking organizations struggle to demonstrate impact and discern what works to combat human trafficking. Bryant and Landman are not able to say definitively “what works” through their study, but they do find several important lessons to be learned: (1) the impact of raising awareness campaigns is limited when these are not targeted to specific communities with a clear message; (2) support for governments to pass legislation can be deemed to have had impact, but only when there is national ownership and sufficient time allocated to reflect the length of time it takes to implement legislative and policy change; and (3) support for victims is effective when it is victim-centered, applies a trauma-focussed lens, and prioritizes the sense of identity of the victim.

One of us, Elzbieta Goździak, has written a reflection essay on her experiences conducting empirical research on child trafficking in the United States since the passage of the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000. Goździak writes about the challenges of conducting research by “studying up”, looking at the various policies and decisionmakers that were set up to prevent human trafficking, and later on “studying down”, by interviewing survivors of human trafficking. Through this research journey, Goździak describes, the TVPA was modified over the years to become more inclusive of the categories of victims eligible for assistance. In her essay, Goździak describes the rhetorical and policy shift to focus on domestic youth in prostitution has had consequences on the ability to combat the trafficking of foreign nationals, especially children and adolescents.

Laura Agustin also takes a rhetorical look at the anti-trafficking threat, at how the problem has been framed since the 1990s by a variety of government and non-government actors. Agustin describes how this framing of human trafficking as a hidden, enormous, dire threat, with evil perpetrators, has intentionally obscured the general plight of marginalized individuals and the more complex factors of poverty, migration, natural disasters, conflict, and crime that shape how individuals become marginalized in the first place. Agustin also argues that this rhetoric has failed to consider how individuals might choose sex work as a legitimate means of control to improve their livelihoods that can lead to empowerment. Agustin concludes with a sobering comment: “In the 20 years since the Protocols were published, nothing has improved for migrants, sex workers, or teen runaways. Things have picked up greatly for smugglers, though.”

As this collective work underscores, there is still work to be done to combat human trafficking. Through the varied perspectives of these papers, we hope that this special issue will bring high-level attention to, and catalyze new scholarly, policy, and public discussions on the issue of human trafficking post Palermo.