Sex Trafficking and Modern Slavery: The Absence of Evidence

The second volume of Sex Trafficking: International context and response

Human trafficking and modern slavery have captured the imagination and attention of the international community. This book builds on the authors’ first volume, Sex Trafficking: International context and response. Much has changed since the first volume was published, not least the shift away from sex trafficking to modern slavery as the dominant focus in policy and advocacy. Yet, as the authors argue, little has changed with regards to how nations respond. This volume re-examines the international counter-trafficking scholarship and policy response, to offer an analysis based on original and new data. This book lays the ground for specific forms of research and inquiry that are necessary to better understand and respond to the range of exploitative practices and conditions that give rise to human trafficking.

This book offers a detailed analysis of the dominant response to human trafficking, which is framed by the criminal justice process. Examining the identification of victims, the investigation of cases, victim support, prosecutorial decisions and repatriation practices, the authors draw upon original research from Australia, Serbia and Thailand: three diverse nations that, like nations across the globe, have invested heavily in criminalisation as the dominant response to counter trafficking. They argue that exploitation sits at the nexus of global migration patterns and emphasise the importance of speaking to those directly affected by counter-trafficking policies and those directly involved in their implementation in order to produce empirical data to inform how we make sense of the numbers that are produced, the outcome of the policies and how we ought to determine success in this context.

An empirical, criminologically informed opportunity to reconsider the dominant ways of understanding and strategies of responding to human trafficking, this multi-disciplinary book will be of interest to those engaged in criminology, sociology, law, political science, public policy and gender studies.

Marie Segrave is an Associate Professor in Criminology at Monash University and leads the Traffi cking and Labour Exploitation research agenda of the Border Crossing Observatory.She is also an ARC DECRA Fellow researching unlawful migrant labour, exploitation and regulation (2014–2018).

Sanja Milivojevic is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at La Trobe University. Her primary research interest is migration and borders. Sanja’s latest book Sexting and Young People is published by Palgrave (with Crofts, Lee and McGovern).

Sharon Pickering is Professor of Criminology and Head of the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. She is co-director of the Border Crossing Observatory and author of 14 books.