Human Trafficking: Exploring the International Nature, Concerns, and Complexities

Human trafficking is a crime that undermines fundamental human rights and a broader sense of global order. It is an atrocity that transcends borders―with some regions known as exporters of trafficking victims and others recognized as destination countries. Edited by three global experts and composed of the work of an esteemed panel of contributors, Human Trafficking: Exploring the International Nature, Concerns, and Complexities examines techniques used to protect and support victims of trafficking as well as strategies for prosecution of offenders.

Topics discussed include:

• How data on human trafficking should be collected and analyzed, and how data collection can be improved through proper contextualization
• The importance of harmonization and consistency in legal definitions and interpretations within and among regions
• The need for increased exchange of information and cooperation between the various actors involved in combating human trafficking, including investigators, law enforcement and criminal justice professionals, and social workers
• Problems with victim identification, as well as erroneous assumptions of the scope of victimization
• Controversy over linking protection measures with cooperation with authorities

Highlighting the issues most addressed by contemporary scholars, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers, this volume also suggests areas ripe for further inquiry and investigation. Supplemented by discussion questions in each chapter, the book is sure to stimulate debate on a troubling phenomenon.

John Winterdyk is the director of the Centre for Criminology and Justice Research (CCJR) at Mount Royal University. He is also an adjunct professor at St. Thomas University (Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada) and the Polytechnic in Namibia (Windhoek, Namibia). He has published extensively in the areas of youth justice, human trafficking, international criminal justice, and criminological theory. John was the recent (2009) guest editor for a special issue of the journal International Criminal Justice Review on genocide. Current areas of research interest include identity theft, corrections, death in custody, prison gangs, teen courts, and crime prevention.

Benjamin Perrin

is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law. He is the author of several academic articles on human trafficking and Invisible Chains: Canada’s Underground World of Human Trafficking (Perrin 2010a). Professor Perrin has advised the Government of Canada on the human trafficking issue as a senior policy advisor and as a witness before several Parliamentary committees. He has also worked overseas with victims and assisted in the prosecution of child sex offenders. In 2009, Professor Perrin was named a Hero Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery by Secretary Hillary Clinton and the U.S. State Department; he is the first Canadian to receive this honour.

Philip Reichel

is a tenured full professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Northern Colorado and adjunct professor in the Department of Justice Studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He has lectured at universities in Austria, Germany, and Poland, participated in a panel for the United Nations University, presented papers at side events during the United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (Brazil) and the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (Vienna), and was an invited speaker at Zhejiang Police College in Hangzhou, China.