TRAFFICKER | Human Traffickers: The social circuits of human trafficking and transnational, organised crime

Summary
During the past two decades, millions of euros have been spent by national governments and international organisations on combatting human trafficking and on offering assistance to victims of trafficking. However, we know surprisingly little about the people who facilitate, manage and orchestrate human trafficking: the traffickers. But who are the human traffickers, if we look beyond the stereotypes? The TRAFFICKER project will answer this question and fill this knowledge-lacuna, by ethnographically investigating the business operations and social relationships of human traffickers, via the analytical concept of ‘social circuits’.
The project is based on ethnographic fieldwork in two sites, in respectively one country of origin and one destination country of the traffickers: (a) the city of Galati in Eastern Romania, and (b) in prisons in Lisbon, Portugal, among inmates that are incarcerated for human trafficking. The TRAFFICKER project builds on my extensive research and fieldwork experience within the fields of transnational crime, third-party facilitation/pimping and sex work. This background is essential to the project, since it provides access to the necessary local networks, as well as providing the needed methodological knowledge and ethical awareness.
The project illuminates:
1) How human trafficking is carried out by traffickers on the ground, and thus how national criminal networks make their illegal business transnational.
2) The ways in which the kinships relations and social relationships of human traffickers hinder or enable their transnational criminal livelihood.
3) The lives of human traffickers both during and after imprisonment and their navigation of legal and illegal work domains.
This knowledge will not only be beneficial for the academic research community on transnational, organised crime, but also for stakeholders such as NGOs, policy makers, international organisations, governments and law enforcement, as well as for the wider public.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101068833
Start date: 01-01-2024
End date: 31-12-2026
Total budget - Public funding: - 286 191,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

During the past two decades, millions of euros have been spent by national governments and international organisations on combatting human trafficking and on offering assistance to victims of trafficking. However, we know surprisingly little about the people who facilitate, manage and orchestrate human trafficking: the traffickers. But who are the human traffickers, if we look beyond the stereotypes? The TRAFFICKER project will answer this question and fill this knowledge-lacuna, by ethnographically investigating the business operations and social relationships of human traffickers, via the analytical concept of ‘social circuits’.
The project is based on ethnographic fieldwork in two sites, in respectively one country of origin and one destination country of the traffickers: (a) the city of Galati in Eastern Romania, and (b) in prisons in Lisbon, Portugal, among inmates that are incarcerated for human trafficking. The TRAFFICKER project builds on my extensive research and fieldwork experience within the fields of transnational crime, third-party facilitation/pimping and sex work. This background is essential to the project, since it provides access to the necessary local networks, as well as providing the needed methodological knowledge and ethical awareness.
The project illuminates:
1) How human trafficking is carried out by traffickers on the ground, and thus how national criminal networks make their illegal business transnational.
2) The ways in which the kinships relations and social relationships of human traffickers hinder or enable their transnational criminal livelihood.
3) The lives of human traffickers both during and after imprisonment and their navigation of legal and illegal work domains.
This knowledge will not only be beneficial for the academic research community on transnational, organised crime, but also for stakeholders such as NGOs, policy makers, international organisations, governments and law enforcement, as well as for the wider public.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01-01

Update Date

09-02-2023
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Horizon Europe
HORIZON.1 Excellent Science
HORIZON.1.2 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
HORIZON.1.2.0 Cross-cutting call topics
HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01
HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01-01 MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2021