Measuring Human Trafficking : Complexities and Pitfalls

Ernesto U. Savona and Sonia Stefanizzi The need to tackle the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings and, as part of this, the sexual exploitation of foreign women and children, has been increasingly recognized in recent years by many institutional, international and national agencies - as the copious documentation on the subject demonstrates. Yet, beyond all the interventions and provisions that have been made, the links: prostitution-migration, poor countri- rich countries, demand for sex from men in rich countries met by women from poor countries, still exist in all their starkness despite all counter-measures. These measures include, among others, information and prevention campaigns, enhanced co-operation between the various national and international police forces to combat the criminal organi- tions and the promulgation and implementation of new legislative pro- sions. Any analysis of the phenomenon shows with increasing clarity that even if the terms “clandestine immigration” and “trafficking in human beings” define in principle two different activities, each of them cons- tently becomes closely intertwined with the other. They are both, in fact, segments of a new immense area of criminal activity, generated by the migrants’ aspirations for a better life for themselves and their families, on one hand, and the obstacles which the immigration authorities put in the way of their realization, on the other.