Measuring the undetectable : dealing with the systematic lack of data on human trafficking and prostitution

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Measuring the Undetectable

dealing with the systematic lack of data on human trafficking

and prostitution

Master Thesis Political Science, International Relations

Jasper Kranendonk

Student number: 10006311

Supervisor: Jeroen Doomernik

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Abbreviations

CoMensha Coordination Centre Human Trafficking Eurostat European Statistics Office

ICMPD International Centre for Migration Policy Development ILO International Labour Organization

IOM International Organization for Migration

KLPD Korps Landelijke Politiediensten (Dutch National Police Services Agency) NCID National Criminal Investigation Department

NGO Non-governmental organisation PvdA Partij van de Arbeid

UN United Nations

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1. Introduction

In February 2013, the members of the Dutch parliament Myrthe Hilkens (PvdA) and Gert-Jan Segers (ChristenUnie) visited Sweden to look at Sweden’s approach towards prostitution (Trouw, 2013). The Swedish prostitution model is quite different from the Dutch prostitution model. While prostitution is legalised in the Netherlands, Sweden criminalises the buyers of sexual services (Hubbard, Matthews and Scoular, 2008: 137). Hilkens and Segers were interested in how this Swedish model is experienced by for instance the police and relevant NGO’s. Furthermore, they were interested if the Swedish model could serve as an example for the Netherlands (NOS, 2013). Both politicians were willing to change the Dutch prostitution model, although they had different incentives to do this. Segers, belonging to a Christian party, believes that prostitution is not a normal way of having sex, while Hilkens struggles with the overall ‘pornofication’ of society (Volkskrant, 2014).

After their visit to Sweden, Hilkens and Segers were heavily criticized that they were trying to change the Dutch prostitution model (Trouw, 2013). Hilkens even was harassed frequently by email, because she was thinking about the possibility of criminalising sex buyers (Volkskrant, 2013). Apparently, some people were really shocked by the thought that the Dutch prostitution model might change in the future. This example shows that prostitution is never an easy topic in the political arena. Wagenaar and Altink (2012) describe prostitution politics as a perfect example of morality politics, because it is ruled by ideological and emotional arguments. Moreover, prostitution policy tends to be resistant to facts (Wagenaar and Altink, 2012: 6). It is extremely difficult to collect facts on the number of prostitutes, because the sex work is, at least partly, an underground phenomenon and therefore is characterised by high mobility. As a result, prostitution debate is often loaded with images and symbolic numbers rather than actual facts.

One of the reasons to rethink a prostitution model is because it is connected to anti-trafficking policies. Human trafficking is globally considered a complex issue. One of the biggest forms of human trafficking is trafficking of women for prostitution (UNODC, 2014: 9). National governments try to control the trafficking of sex workers by developing prostitution policies. The criminalisation of prostitution could have two effects on human trafficking (Cho, Dreher and Neumayer, 2013: 2). On the one hand, criminalising prostitution could decrease the prostitution market, and therefore reduce human trafficking activities. On the other hand, prostitution activities could also move deeper towards an underground market. This makes it even harder to regulate prostitution and control human trafficking.

Human trafficking is considered a complex issue, mainly because it is an underground phenomenon. These underground practices are most likely present in countries that prohibit

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7 prostitution as well as in countries that legalize prostitution (Aradau, 2013: 1). However, it is extremely difficult to measure the scale of human trafficking activities. In order to measure the effectiveness of prostitution policies, one would need a solid and reliable dataset on women in prostitution and human trafficking. Yet, such a dataset is not obtainable. There exists a systematic lack of data and knowledge on human trafficking (Laczko, 2002: 1). This is mainly because human trafficking is a criminal phenomenon, and involved actors obviously want to stay out of sight from the police. The scale of human trafficking activities is thus often based on estimations. This immediately questions the solidness and reliability of the data on human trafficking.

Measuring the effectiveness of prostitution policies is important for policymakers. This can only be done by collecting reliable and consistent data (McGaha and Evans, 2009: 21). In the end, the question is how we can protect women from exploitation. This exploitation could be economically or socially. The lack of data on prostitution and human trafficking makes it really difficult for policymakers to evaluate their policies. It seems like better and more reliable data on human trafficking is needed. This is also concluded by many authors, for instance Laczko (2002), Kelly (2005), Di Nicola and Cauduro (2007) and Goodey (2008). The question is whether this is a realistic goal. It would of course be an ultimate situation if we can collect all the data on human trafficking there is. However, as long as human trafficking is an underground phenomenon, it remains extremely difficult to expose these criminal activities. Therefore, it is important to pay more attention to the interpretation of available data on human trafficking. How is this data collected, what does it mean and how reliable is this data? The biggest problem might be the way in which human trafficking data is processed and used by authorities, rather than the existence and non-existence of the data (Aradau, 2013: 5).

This thesis studies the relationship between on the one hand the need of national governments to control human trafficking and on the other hand the existence of a lack of data and knowledge on human trafficking. The aim of this thesis is to put a step forward towards an approach to deal with the existing lack of data and knowledge on human trafficking and prostitution. The Netherlands and Sweden are used as cases to study the effectiveness of prostitution policies. However, it is not the aim to decide which one of these policies is “better”. The research question of this study is: How can we measure and compare the effectiveness of national prostitution policies while there exists a systematic lack of data and knowledge on human trafficking? This question will be supported by three sub-questions: (1) How do the Netherlands and Sweden measure the effectiveness of their prostitution policies regarding human trafficking? (2) How can we interpret the available data on human trafficking and prostitution in the Netherlands and Sweden? (3) What should we know about prostitution and human trafficking in order to measure and compare the effectiveness of prostitution policies?

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8 This thesis starts out with a theoretical framework. Within this framework, the most important concepts and theories will be discussed. Central concepts in this thesis are human trafficking, prostitution policies and effectiveness. These concepts all face different definitions and uses, so it is important to make clear what is meant with each concept. The theories deal with the issues of combating human trafficking, measuring the effectiveness of anti-trafficking policies and collecting human trafficking data. After the theoretical framework, the methodology of this thesis will be discussed. This chapter describes which data is used and which methods are used to analyse this data. Most of the analysis will be a content analysis of official documents and academic literature, but interviews will also be used to generate additional data. Then, the following three chapters will be based on the three sub-questions. The first of these chapters describes the different anti-trafficking policies and legislation of the Netherlands and Sweden. The next chapter discusses the interpretation of existing statistics on human trafficking. The last of these chapters theorises on an approach that could tackle the lack of reliable data. Finally, the research question will be answered in the conclusion and implications will be discussed.

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2. Theoretical Framework

This chapter discusses the most important concepts and theories of this thesis. The first section discusses the concepts human trafficking, prostitution policies and effectiveness. Then, the second section deals with theories on combating human trafficking, measuring the effectiveness of policies and collecting human trafficking data.

2.1 Concepts

2.1.1 Human trafficking

This study defines human trafficking according to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and

Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. Article 3, paragraph (a) defines human trafficking

as follow:

“Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring 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. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs” (United Nations, 2000a: 2).

The main focus of this study is on human trafficking and prostitution. There are a few different concepts available to describe the sexual exploitation part of human trafficking. Some authors use the term sex trafficking (Todres, 2011b; McCarthy et al, 2012), while others use the term sexual slavery (Jakobssonand Kotsadam, 2013). In this study, the term sex trafficking is preferred. Sexual slavery as a concept does not do justice to the complexity of factors that influence human trafficking activities and sexual exploitation (Andrijasevic, 2010: 93). Therefore, the term sex trafficking will be used with regard to the sexual exploitation part of human trafficking.

Related to human trafficking is the concept of human smuggling. The United Nations have defined human smuggling as “the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident” (United Nations, 2000b: 2). The focus of human trafficking is on

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10 labour exploitation, while the focus of human smuggling is on illegal migration services (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 136). According to its definition, human trafficking does not require international border crossing (Doomernik, 2013: 120). However, these two concepts are often overlapping in practice. Human trafficking cases could start off with human smuggling activities (Shinkle, 2007: 1). For instance, people are smuggled into a country and then face a type of labour exploitation in the country of destination. Human smuggling and human trafficking thus have separate international definitions, but are often interconnected in reality.

2.1.2. Prostitution policies

Prostitution policies are to some extent developed to combat sex trafficking. This is of course not the only objective of prostitution policies, because they also represent national attitudes towards prostitution in a country. Nevertheless, these policies are connected to the fight against sex trafficking. There are broadly three different types of prostitution policies, although different terms are used to describe them. Chuang (2010) for example uses the terms abolitionists, neo-abolitionists and non-abolitionists, while McCarthy et al (2012) prefer the terms full criminalisation, partial decriminalisation and full decriminalization. Yet, most authors use the terms prohibitionism, abolitionism and regulation to describe the three different prostitution policies (Andrijasevic, 2010; Hubbard, Matthews and Scoular, 2008). Prohibitionism refers to the illegality of prostitution for each party that is involved (Jakobsson and Kotsadam, 2013: 5). This means full criminalisation of prostitution. Abolitionism refers to partial criminalisation, by criminalising third parties. Finally, regulation refers to policies that make prostitution legal and where it is regulated by the state.

The United Kingdom (abolitionism) and the Netherlands (regulation) are mostly mentioned as perfect examples of these prostitution policies. The Swedish model comes close to the prohibitionist model, because sex buyers are criminalised. This is defined in the Swedish Penal Code Chapter 6:11 as follow: “A person who, in other cases than previously stated in this chapter, obtains a casual sexual relation in exchange for payment shall be sentenced for the purchase of a sexual service to a fine or imprisonment for at most six months” (Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications, 2005: 1). Although sex sellers are not criminalised, it is practically impossible to work as a prostitute. Therefore, the Swedish model will described as prohibitionist, just as in studies of Andrijasevic (2010) and Hubbard, Matthews and Scoular (2008).

Although the Netherlands is a well-known example of a prostitution model of regulation, this has not always been the case. The organisation of prostitution was illegal, contrary to prostitution itself (Hubbard, Matthews and Scoular, 2008: 141). Yet, the strict rules on running brothels were barely enforced and the organisation of prostitution therefore was accepted passively (Brants, 1998: 623). The rules on running brothels changed in 2000, which meant the start of the regulation model.

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11 Municipalities now could give licences to brothels which had met the standards laid down by local authorities (Hubbard, Matthews and Scoular, 2008: 142). Prostitution is thus regulated by local authorities and becomes a special type of labour (Daalder, 2007: 5). If prostitutes are adults, doing their work voluntary and have a residence permit, they can work legally as a prostitute in the Netherlands.

2.1.3. Effectiveness of prostitution policies

Measuring the effectiveness of policies is a rather complicated issue. It involves considerations on what is meant with effectivity and how this can be measured. From a simple point of view, a policy is considered effective when the goals of the policy are reached (Bovens, 2007: 30). In the end, the main goal of prostitution policies is reducing sex trafficking. According to Wagenaar, Altink and Amesberger (2013), policy goals are usually too ambitiously formulated when it comes to prostitution policies. The effectiveness of prostitution policies greatly depends on the way in which it is formulated and implemented in practice (Wagenaar, Altink and Amesberger, 2013: 91). However, the most difficult part is how to measure if the policy goals are reached. This involves collecting data in a policy field that lacks reliable statistics.

2.2 Theories

2.2.1. Combating human trafficking

One of the most discussed issues within the field of international migration has been whether liberal states are able to control migration (Lahav and Guiraudon, 2006: 206). National immigration policy often is focused on restricting migration. However, there seems to be a growing gap between the goals and results of liberal states concerning migration. This is called the gap hypothesis (Hollifield et al, 2014: 3). This theory describes the desirability of states to restrict migration, but at the same time the difficulties states have to control this. The reasons for this are extensively discussed in the academic literature (Lahav and Guiraudon, 2006: 206). Joppke (1998) argues that there are two mechanisms that could drive unwanted migration. It is either accepted passively by liberal states or it is caused by the inability of keeping migrants out (Joppke, 1998: 267). The former refers to matters like asylum-seeking and family reunification, while the latter refers to illegal migration and human trafficking.

States thus have their logic when it comes to migration. They want to control their borders and are selective when it comes to letting migrants inside their territory. Yet, migrants have their own logic, which may be motivated by economic, social or security reasons. Between those logics exists a market, that facilitates the movement of people who do not fit into the logic of the state (Doomernik,

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12 2013: 125). This can either be human smuggling or human trafficking. The economic market for illegal migration services is related to human smuggling. It becomes human trafficking when labour exploitation is involved (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 136). The human trafficking market is driven by making profit, just like other illegal movements such as the international drug market (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 117). In the context of sexual exploitation, human trafficking is mainly driven by the need for cheap services and commercial sex (Todres, 2011b: 61).

The main characteristic of an economic market is the connection between buyers and sellers, that represent demand and supply (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 116). The price of a product is based on the characteristics, the availability and the scarcity of the product (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 119). In the case of human trafficking, the involved actors are vulnerable individuals, traffickers, employers and consumers (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 117). Human trafficking in the end continues to exist because there are still vulnerable individuals who are easily exploited (Todres, 2011b: 57). Traffickers make use of the vulnerable positions that these individuals are in. They facilitate the movement of these people across the borders and provide for the paperwork needed to travel (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 122). The employers are interested in the vulnerable individuals, because they represent cheap labour (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 130). It is possible that the traffickers are also the employers. Finally, the consumers pay for certain products or services (Wheaton, Schauer and Galli, 2010: 130).

It is important to understand the dynamics of human trafficking in order to combat it. The three pillars of combating human trafficking are prevention, protection and prosecution (Hughes, Raymond and Gomez, 2001: 93; UNODC, 2009). This is part of the Framework for Action, which is a technical assistance tool that assists the United Nations in combating human trafficking. Prevention, protection and prosecution are internationally recognized themes in the fight against human trafficking (UNODC, 2009: 3). The strength of the three pillars is that they are complementary to each other. The prevention part includes the adoption of legislative measures and policies to prevent human trafficking, ensure consistency among policies that deal with human trafficking and the development of measures that address the root causes of human trafficking (UNODC, 2009: 11). The protection part includes the identification of victims of human trafficking and the development of policies that guarantee assistance and protection to those victims (UNODC, 2009: 11). The prosecution part includes the criminalisation of activities that are related to human trafficking, the development of appropriate penalties for people who are involved in the trafficking process and ensuring the formation of specified institutions, like a specialized police department (UNODC, 2009: 10).

Although prevention, protection and prosecution are commonly accepted as important pillars in combating human trafficking, this does not lead to a commonly accepted best policy. Especially when it comes to prostitution policies, there are two opposite views on how to combat human

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13 trafficking. The main question in this debate is whether legalising or criminalising prostitution could decrease human trafficking activities. In theory, legalising prostitution could have two contrasting effects on the market (Cho, Dreher and Neumayer, 2013: 2). These effects are derived from economic theory, because human trafficking is often approached as a market. On the one hand, legalising prostitution could expand the prostitution market, because people are now allowed to have sex for money. This expansion of the market could increase human trafficking activities. This is called the scale effect. The bigger the market, the bigger the probabilities for human traffickers. On the other hand, legalising prostitution could also lead to a decrease in human trafficking activities, because legal prostitutes may be preferred over trafficked prostitutes. This is called the substitution effect. The demand for trafficked prostitutes is reduced and is replaced by a demand for legalized prostitutes.

In a way, these different effects of legalising prostitution are represented by the different prostitution regimes. Supporters of the prohibitionist model argue that legalising prostitution only will lead to an increase in human trafficking, while supporters of the regulationist model argue the exact opposite. Yet, it is not just about the expansion of the prostitution market. Besides the arguments that were derived from economic theory, there are more arguments that could support the claim that one of the prostitution regimes is better in combating human trafficking than the other. Ekberg (2004: 1189) argues that the only way to combat human trafficking and prostitution is to tackle the root cause. In the eyes of the supporters of the prohibitionist model, this is men’s demand for women in a sexual way. This means that human trafficking and sexual exploitation should be combated by criminalising prostitution. However, supporters of the regulationist model argue that criminalising prostitution will not diminish the prostitution market, it will only become an underground phenomenon. Illegality of prostitution only criminalises these women, and therefore harm their labour and social rights (Pitcher and Wijers, 2014: 3). Moreover, Andrijasevic (2010: 56) argues that the illegality of prostitution only makes these women more vulnerable, because they now certainly need a third party who gets them into a country and gives them work.

At the heart of this discussion lies a fundamental problem. In order to go beyond a theoretical debate, it is necessary to measure the effects of different policies. However, it is very difficult to collect reliable and comparable data on human trafficking and prostitution. Some academics have tried to measure the effectiveness of different prostitution regimes. Cho, Dreher and Neumayer (2013) find that human trafficking is most prevalent in countries where prostitution is legalized, and least prevalent where prostitution is illegal. Jakobsson and Kotsadam (2013) have the same results in their article. They argue that softer prostitution policies will increase the prostitution market, and therefore also the number of human trafficking activities (Jakobsson and Kotsadam, 2013: 16). Although these studies are an interesting attempt to analyse empirical data, the results and conclusions are questionable. The studies both completely depend on human trafficking data that was known by

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14 national organisations, without paying attention to the invisible part of human trafficking. This is a crucial issue, because the visibility of human trafficking data is also depending on the capability to expose it (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013c: 4). The difficulties of measuring the effectiveness of anti-trafficking policies will be discussed in the next section.

2.2.2. Measuring the effectiveness of policies

A policy problem is often described by measuring it. These measurements usually contain numbers. Yet, as Stone explains, to count is to count as (Stone, 2002: 164). Counting always starts with the establishment of criteria and rules, which decides what is included and excluded. For instance, if someone wants to know how big the problem of unemployment is, he can use the unemployment rate to measure it. But who are you counting as unemployed? People who work part-time but want to work full-time? People who do not take available jobs because they think it is below their status? These are choices to make that already influence the outcome of counting unemployment. So even in policy fields where all the knowledge is available, it is difficult to obtain good and reliable numbers.

Measuring the effectiveness of policies on human trafficking and prostitution is even more difficult, because there is a lack of reliable and comparable data. This situation is illustrated in figure 1. It is commonly acknowledged that there exists a lack of reliable data on human trafficking (Aradau, 2013; Goodey, 2008; Laczko, 2002). The biggest problem is that we do not know the sizes of the categories in figure 1. The relevant actors in this field of research are trafficking victims, prostitutes,

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15 illegal migrants and traffickers. These actors are all part of so-called hidden populations. The size of these hidden populations is unknown, mainly because they are involved in illegal or stigmatized activities (Tyldum and Brunovskis, 2005: 18). This makes it very difficult to count for example the number of trafficking victims. Numbers that represent the total number of trafficking victims are thus based on estimations.

Why is it important to generate reliable data? First, it is difficult to develop policy on a subject without knowing anything about the size of the problem (Wagenaar, Altink and Amesberger, 2013: 21). Reliable numbers on human trafficking victims can show the urgency of developing anti-trafficking policy. Moreover, reliable statistics are important in the evaluation of anti-trafficking policies (McGaha and Evans, 2009: 21). In order to tackle the problem of hidden populations, these populations should be made visible (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013b: 11). Exposing the human trafficking structures is essential in combating trafficking. Second, prostitution policies can be described as instances of morality politics. This means that in discussing the effectiveness of prostitution policies, the ideology is often more prominent than the evidence (Wagenaar and Altink, 2012: 4). The characteristics of morality politics are that it is ruled by ideology, it is lay policy, it is emotionally charged, it is resistant to facts, formulation is more important than implementation and it is vulnerable for change (Wagenaar and Altink, 2012: 5). The impact of morality politics is that ideology becomes more important than evidence (Chuang, 2010: 1721). Reliable statistics could function as a counterbalance to this morality debate.

The question then arises how reliable estimations on human trafficking are. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), it is not yet possible to give a comprehensive estimate of the total number of human trafficking victims worldwide (UNODC, 2014: 16). There is no sound methodology that can expose hidden populations, such as victims of human trafficking. This problem is extensively debated among UNODC researchers, without having a solution to the problem (UNODC, 2014: 30). As a result, any estimation of the number of trafficking victims comes with a dark figure that represents the unknown. The Dutch National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking refers to this as “the dark number” (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013b: 12). The number of identified victims probably represents only a tip of the iceberg (Tyldum and Brunovskis, 2005: 24).

Challenges that researches face in estimating the number of trafficking victims are limited abilities to identify trafficking victims and the existence of different definitions (O’Brien, 2010: 6). It is difficult to identify victims of trafficking, because they could have reasons to remain hidden from the police or other organisations. Victims often are in fear of paybacks if they report their abusers or traffickers (Goodey, 2008: 425). It is also possible that they are afraid of government penalties, because they are illegal migrants in that country (Laczko, 2002: 3). This further complicates the ability to expose

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16 human trafficking activities. Differing definitions are also a problem for human trafficking researchers. Who do you count as victims of trafficking? According to Marieke van Doorninck, the Netherlands sometimes identify someone as a victim of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, while that person does not see themselves as a victim (Van Doorninck, 2015). This makes it extremely difficult to compare the number of identified victims between countries.

It is now clear that not all the data on human trafficking is available. Part of it is visible and part of it is invisible. It is also hard to indicate how big the sizes of these two categories are. Estimations try to translate the visible part to the total size of human trafficking activities. This is for instance done by the studies of Cho, Dreher and Neumayer (2013) and Jakobsson and Kotsadam (2013). Both studies draw conclusions based on registered data, so only the visible part. The limitations of this approach are discussed above. It is, however, also possible to tackle the problem in a different way. Instead of focussing on the lack of data, measuring human trafficking could also start with theorising about an ideal situation where all the knowledge is available. The question then would be: what should we measure if we had all the data on human trafficking there is?

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) made a great effort to support this approach by developing performance indicators. These performance indicators can serve as guidelines in measuring the effectiveness of anti-trafficking projects (IOM, 2008: 8). The report also makes use of the three pillars of combating trafficking, namely prevention, protection and prosecution. For each pillar, they have developed an enormous list of performance indicators. It is however not their intention that this list should be measured step by step in order to get a comprehensive analyse of the

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17 effectiveness of policies (IOM, 2008: 1). That would simply be too ambitious and therefore not achievable. The performance indicators are useful to measure a specific part of the performance of anti-trafficking policies. Figure 2 shows an overall picture of the performance indicators. Each part has an extensive list of indicators.

This approach can be very helpful in theorising what we should measure if all the data on human trafficking is available. Moreover, the performance indicators on “policy and legislation” and “cooperation” can be measured quite systematically, because most of the data will be available. However, this does not say everything about the results of the different policies. The biggest flaw of this approach is that it is still depended on the available data on human trafficking. This becomes clear by looking closer to the performance indicators and is especially the case for the second category in each pillar. So the categories “root causes and vulnerabilities”, “direct assistance” and “criminal justice system” greatly depend on incomplete data.

2.2.3. Collecting human trafficking data

Since human trafficking is often described as an underground phenomenon, it is interesting to look in more detail on how to collect human trafficking data. The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) have released a handbook on human trafficking data collection. This is probably the most comprehensive work on this issue. In their handbook, they describe two different methodologies to collect human trafficking data: a victim-centred database and a trafficker-centred database (ICMPD, 2010a: 21). The victim-centred database collects data by focussing on the victims of human trafficking (ICMPD, 2010a: 22). The aim of this methodology is to collect information on individual trafficking cases, like their trafficking experience and the identification and protection of the victims. Data will most likely be collected by actors who come in contact with the victims, like anti-trafficking organisations, law enforcement, social services, labour organisations and legal professional. The trafficker-centred database collects data by focussing on the traffickers, or someone that is accused of trafficking related activities (ICMPD, 2010a: 28). The aim of this methodology is to collect data on the background of traffickers, but also data on the way in which the prosecution process is dealt with. Data for the traffickers-centred database is most likely collected by law enforcement, the judicial system, prosecutors office and human rights NGO’s (ICMPD, 2010a: 30).

Just like the performance indicators from the IOM, the ICMDP has an extensive list of indicators for both database approaches. This list is too long to discuss all the indicators, but the categories will be described shortly. The victim-centred categories are personal information, recruitment experience, transportation and travel, trafficking experience and identification and assistance (ICMPD, 2010a: 46). The personal information deals with the economic and social situation of the victim before the

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18 trafficking occurred. The recruitment experience contains indicators about the conditions and details of the recruitment. The details on how the borders were crossed are dealt with in the transportation and travel section. In the trafficking experience section, question are asked about the type of exploitation. Finally, the last section looks at how the victims experienced their assistance and identification. The different sections are all focused on identifying victim profiles and trafficking structures (ICMPD, 2010a: 48).

The different sections in the trafficker-centred database are personal information, complaint and investigation phase, trial phase, appeal phase and post-trial phase (ICMPD, 2010a: 88). The personal information section simply collects the traffickers’ general information and background. Information on the length of the investigation and the filed charges are collected in the complaint and investigation section. The trials phase section deals with information on the trial process and the final outcome of the trial, while the appeal phase section obviously describes the same about the possible appeal. The post-trial phase collect data on the conviction implementation and the way victims are compensated.

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3. Methodology

This chapter discusses the methodology of this thesis. The first section focusses on the data collection, while the second section focusses on the methods that are used to analyse the data.

3.1 Data collection

The following data will be used in this thesis: official state documents, reports from the national rapporteurs on human trafficking, reports from international organisations, academic literature and interview data. The official state documents, the reports from the national rapporteurs on human trafficking and the reports from the international organisations are collected from their official websites. Most of the academic literature is collected by using google scholar. Other academic articles are collected by looking at which authors are often cited. This gives an extensive package of academic literature.

Official state documents are used to describe the policies and regulation of the Netherlands and Sweden towards human trafficking and prostitution. Examples of these documents are national penal codes, prostitution policies and action plans to combat human trafficking. Reports from the national rapporteurs are complementary to the official state documents. These documents give some more context to the national policies and also touch upon the issue of collecting reliable data. International organisations reports are particularly interesting because they often provide estimations on the number of victims of human trafficking. It is interesting to analyse this data, and give an interpretation of the numbers. There are also reports from international organisations that provide guidelines to collect human trafficking data and measure effectiveness, like the reports from ICMPD and IOM. The academic literature is useful in many ways. There are for instance articles about the implementation of policy designs, but there are also theoretical articles about what should be improved in collecting trafficking data. Finally, interviews will produce new data on different perceptions of dealing with the lack of data on human trafficking and prostitution.

3.2 Methods

The methods that are used in this thesis to analyse the data are content analysis, literature study and interviews.

Content analysis is a method to analyse texts and documents (Bryman, 2008: 274). The goal of content analysis is not so much generating data, but rather analysing and interpreting existing data (Bryman, 2008: 528). Content analysis is a very useful method for the interpretation of official state documents and reports from national rapporteurs and international organisations. A literature study

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20 is important to find out what is already known in the academic area. It shows the most important concepts and theories. In this study, the academic literature is also a secondary data source. Literature about the effectiveness of prostitution policies will be analysed and literature about dealing with the lack of data will be used a starting point for theoretical reasoning. Besides the analysis and interpretation of secondary data, interviews are conducted to generate data. In-depth interviews are very useful to get an insight of people’s perceptions on certain issues and ideas (Boyce and Neale, 2006: 3). For this thesis, it will be interesting to discover the perceptions on the lack of data and knowledge from people who deal with human trafficking in their work. How do they deal with this problem and what can be a solution in their opinion? Interviews were conducted with Maaike Kuijsten from the Coordination Centre Human Trafficking (CoMensha) and Marieke van Doorninck from La Strada International.

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4. Policy and legislation on human

trafficking in the Netherlands and Sweden

This chapter deals with the policy and legislation on human trafficking of the Netherlands and Sweden and the way in which it is evaluated. It is now clear that the Netherlands and Sweden have different prostitution policies. The Netherlands has legalised and regulated prostitution, while Sweden has criminalised sex buyers and brothels. The possible effects of these different prostitution policies on human trafficking activities have already been discussed in the theoretical chapter. However, it is also interesting to examine whether these different prostitution policies also lead to different legal frameworks on human trafficking. This is not necessarily the case. It is possible that the Netherlands and Sweden have similar anti-trafficking legislations that are based on prevention, protection and prosecution. This chapter starts out by discussing the legal framework on human trafficking of both countries. The performance indicators from the IOM are great starting point to study policy and legislation on human trafficking. These performance indicators are quite extensive, but therefore also overlapping on some points. The pillars prevention, protection and prosecution all have some categories and each category has specific performance indicators. During the process of data collection and analysis, it appeared to be impossible to collect data for each specific performance indicator. Hence, the policy and legislation of the Netherlands and Sweden will be analysed by combining the different categories of each pillar. The main policies and legislations on prevention, protection and prosecution will be discussed for both countries. Then, the implications of these legal frameworks for the study of effectiveness will be discussed. After that, this chapter will focus on how the Netherlands and Sweden measure the effectiveness of their policies and regulations. This will be done by looking at the role of the national rapporteur on human trafficking.

4.1 Sweden

4.1.1. Prevention

Sweden has signed the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially

Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and

ratified it on 1 July 2004 (ICMPD, 2010c: 340). The goals of this Protocol are “(a) to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, paying particular attention to women and children; (b) to protect and assist the victims of such trafficking, with full respect for their human rights; and (c) to promote cooperation among States Parties in order to meet those objectives” (United Nations, 2000a: 2). By ratifying this

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22 Protocol, Sweden needed to develop legal measures in order to comply with the purposes of the Protocol (Department for Global Development, 2003: 28).

Besides the ratification of the UN Protocol, Sweden also appointed a national rapporteur on human trafficking in 1997, according to the Hague declaration from the European Union (Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications, 2005: 3). Sweden was the first country to follow this declaration (ICMPD, 2010b: 69). This national rapporteur is part of the National Criminal Investigation Department of the National Police (NCID). The director of this human trafficking unit is Kasja Wahlberg. The NCID reports the Swedish government on the human trafficking situation in Sweden and also makes recommendations on anti-trafficking policies and regulations (ICMPD, 2010c: 254). This makes the NCID the key organisation in monitoring human trafficking in Sweden.

Human trafficking is criminalised in the Swedish Penal Code, Chapter 4 Section 1a (ICMPD, 2010c: 255). In order to enforce this anti-trafficking law, a national action plan was established in 2008. The focus of this plan is on improving five areas: prevention, protection, prosecution, cooperation and awareness (Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality Sweden, 2008: 1). When it comes to the prevention part, the most important issue is to change the attitudes of Swedish people towards prostitution. The desire from men for prostitution services should be diminished. The key to this change is education and information, especially among young people. Apparently, the focus of Swedish policy framework is more on preventing prostitution rather than preventing human trafficking. Prostitution and human trafficking are not separated in the Swedish anti-trafficking approach (Wahlberg, 2009: 2). So in the opinion of the Swedish model, reducing prostitution will in the end also reduce human trafficking activities. This is expressed in the Swedish action plan against human trafficking.

An important part of preventing human trafficking is developing a bilateral cooperation with sending countries of migration (IOM, 2008: 21). The Swedish government acknowledges that cooperation and coordination with other countries need to be strengthened, specifically in the Baltic Sea region and the Nordic area (Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality Sweden, 2008: 2). The aim of bilateral cooperation is to improve coordination and competence between authorities and NGO’s from two different countries. In 2005, Sweden already started an anti-trafficking project with Russia, Norway and Finland. This project was established to combat sex trafficking from parts of Russia by decreasing the demand of women for sexual purposes and providing alternative solution for these women in the region (Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications, 2005: 4).

4.1.2. Protection

In October 2004, the Swedish governments introduced a new provision in the Alien Act which made it possible that victims of human trafficking could receive a time-limited residence permit. This provision

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23 was introduced because the police experienced trouble in their investigation with victims who stay illegally in Sweden(Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications, 2005: 3). Those victims are needed as witnesses in the investigation of human traffickers. During this temporary permit, the victims are entitled to social welfare, medical attention and health care services. The municipalities are responsible for these social services.

The Swedish policy and legislation on protection of human trafficking victims is mainly focussed on their involvement in investigation as witnesses. There seems to be a lack of protection for the victims that are not willing to be a witness in a trafficking case. Victims are often afraid of retaliation if they testify against their traffickers (Laczko, 2002: 3). The Swedish government acknowledges this lack of protection and wants to improve it for all victims of human trafficking (Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality Sweden, 2008: 1). This is written in their national action plan. The aim is to intensify protection and support of human trafficking victims by ensuring shelter housing and treatment centres.

4.1.3. Prosecution

Legislation on prosecution is dealt with in Chapter 4, section 1a of the Swedish Penal Code (Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications 2005: 3). According to this section in the Penal Code, someone who is guilty of human trafficking will be sentenced for at least two years and at most ten years. Human trafficking could refer to sexual exploitation, but also other types of labour exploitation or even exploitation for the removal of organs. Victims of human trafficking are a key player in the prosecution process. Their statements can be crucial to convict a trafficker. Therefore, the national plan on human trafficking argues that more attention should be paid to the victims, in order to improve the prosecution of traffickers (Ministry of Integration and Gender Equality Sweden, 2008: 2).

4.2 The Netherlands

4.2.1. Prevention

The Netherlands has signed the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,

especially Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and ratified it on 23 August 2005 (ICMPD, 2010c: 320). Just like Sweden, the Netherlands also

has a national rapporteur on human trafficking, which was established in 2000 (ICMPD, 2010c: 199). Since 1 October 2006, this is Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen. The national rapporteur reports the Dutch government on the nature of human trafficking and their reports contain information on the status of prevention, protection and prosecution in the Netherlands (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2012: 7)

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24 Unlike Sweden, the Dutch national rapporteur works independently of the Dutch government (ICMPD, 2010: 135).

According to the Dutch national rapporteur, an important part of the prevention of human trafficking is the identification of victims (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013b: 11). An underground phenomenon can only be tackled by making it visible. Therefore, organisations that identify victims are very important in combating human trafficking. CoMensha is the main organisation in the Netherlands when it comes to identifying trafficking victims. They work together with other organisations, the police and authorities. CoMensha receives a notification if other organisations think someone might be a victim of trafficking (Kuijsten, 2015). This means that CoMensha has quite an extensive dataset on victims of trafficking in the Netherlands. This data is also used by the National Rapporteur in their reports (ICMPD, 2010c: 200).

Bilateral cooperation with sending countries of migration is also a key issue in preventing human trafficking (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013: 235). The Netherlands for instance has a bilateral cooperation with Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. An important anti-trafficking project is La Strada International. This started out in 1995 as a cooperation between the Netherlands, Poland and Czech Republic, but in the meantime Belarus, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Moldova and Ukraine are also included (La Strada International, 2014: 10). Prevention and awareness raising are key goals of La Strada International, especially within sending regions of migration (La Strada International, 2014: 42).

4.2.2. Protection

The ICMPD (2010c: 199) discusses that the Netherlands is a perfect example of a country that applies a victim-centred approach. This means that protecting victims is a prime goal within anti-trafficking policy and legislation. The Dutch National Rapporteur (2013a: 130) argues that there are some crucial steps in guaranteeing the protection of human trafficking victims. First, in order to protect victims from exploitation, organisations such as CoMensha need to identify as many victims as possible. If a victim is not identified, it cannot be protected from exploitation. Second, any identified victim should be reported to CoMensha, so that the registration of victims is as complete as possible. Third, coordination between the police and organisations that provide assistance to victims is crucial. Protection should be arranged before, during and after the investigation process.

The Netherlands also provide for time-limited residence permits for victims of human trafficking. This was dealt with in the so-called B9 regulation. At this moment, this regulation is called

verblijfsregeling Mensenhandel (IND, 2015). Victims of human trafficking can get a temporary

residence permit if they cooperate with the investigation process (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013a: 149). This temporary residence permit is for the maximum of one year and victims should be available for police interview during this year. Before the regulation is applied to a victim of human trafficking,

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25 this victim should be offered a reflection period of three months (ICMPD, 2010c: 201). During this reflection period, the victim has to decide whether he/she wants a temporary residence permit or not and thus whether he/she wants to cooperate with the police or not.

4.2.3. Prosecution

Human trafficking is criminalised in article 273f of the Dutch Penal Code (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013a: 17). Someone who is convicted of human trafficking will be imprisoned for the maximum of twelve years or even fifteen years when it concerns a minor victim. The description of human trafficking is similar to the Swedish Penal Code. Human trafficking can be sexual exploitation, but also labour exploitation or the exploitation of removing organs. There needs to be some element of coercion involved with this exploitation to call it human trafficking (ICMPD, 2010c: 200).

4.3 Comparing policy and legislation in the Netherlands and Sweden

The main goals of policy and legislation on human trafficking are the same in the Netherlands and Sweden, namely combating human trafficking and decreasing human trafficking activities. However, there are some differences between the two approaches to achieve this. Both countries have appointed a national rapporteur on human trafficking. The Swedish national rapporteur is part of the National Criminal Investigation Department of the police, while the Dutch National Rapporteur works independently from the authorities. According to the ICMPD (2010b: 69), the most important thing is the existence of an organisation that is responsible for collecting and analysing human trafficking data. As long as this organisation work independently from the policy-making structures, it does not really matter if they are independent or part of the national police department (ICMPD, 2010b: 70).

The biggest difference between the Netherlands and Sweden on prevention policy is the relationship between prostitution and human trafficking. In Sweden, prostitution and human trafficking are strongly connected with each other. This is not the case in the Netherlands, where the two concepts are approached separately. Prevention policy in the Netherlands is really focused on human trafficking, while Swedish prevention policy focusses more on prostitution. This is mainly because they have different opinions on the root causes of human trafficking. The Swedish national rapporteur argues that the demand for sexual services is a root cause of human trafficking (Wahlberg, 2009: 7). According to the Swedish approach, human trafficking can be prevented by tackling the demand for prostitution. Swedish prevention policy thus focusses on changing attitudes towards prostitution by educating men. In the Netherlands, the large gap between rich and poor countries and the existence of gender inequality in the world are considered as root causes of human trafficking (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2010: 32). Therefore, the Dutch approach is focussing on identifying victims and cooperating with sending countries of migration.

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26 The protection part of anti-trafficking policy in Sweden is mainly focussed on looking at victims as witnesses. Victims could get a temporary residence permit if they cooperate with investigation services. In this situation, victims of human trafficking are almost forced to cooperate with the police. In the Netherlands, there is more attention for coordination between the police and human right organisations. Victims have a reflection period of three months to decide if they will cooperate with the investigation. Nevertheless, receiving a temporary residence permit is still connected with cooperating with the police. According to organisations like La Strada International, protection services are too much focussed on cooperation with the police instead of helping vulnerable victims (Van Doorninck, 2015).

Legislation on prosecution of traffickers is quite similar in both countries. The possible sentences are slightly higher in the Netherlands than in Sweden. However, higher sentences are not necessarily effective when it comes to prosecuting traffickers. If the punishments of human trafficking are too high, and not in line with other similar criminal offenses, judges might be very cautious in convicting a suspect for human trafficking activities (Van Doorninck, 2015). This could have effects on the number of convictions of traffickers.

Aside from these differences discussed above, the policies and legislation of both countries have many similarities. This is mainly because both countries try to meet up to international standards. The biggest differences are caused by the impact that the prostitution policies have on anti-trafficking policies. It is now interesting to study how these different policies are evaluated by the national rapporteurs. This will be dealt with in the next section.

4.4. Recommendations of the National Rapporteurs

The Dutch and Swedish National Rapporteurs are the key actors in evaluating anti-trafficking policy in the Netherlands and Sweden. They work independent from policymaking structures and make recommendations to improve policy and legislation on human trafficking. These recommendations will be discussed in this section by prevention, protection and prosecution.

4.4.1. Swedish National Rapporteur

The recommendations from the Swedish National Rapporteur are mainly focussed on improving prosecution processes. Nevertheless, there are also some recommendations on prevention and protection. According to the Swedish National Rapporteur (2012: 41), policy on prevention of human trafficking should not only focus on sexual exploitation, but also on other types of exploitation. This specifically is the case with bilateral cooperation. More attention should be paid at possible victims of labour exploitation. A recommendation related to this is the improvement of visa procedures in sending countries of migration (Swedish National Rapporteur, 2012: 44). This would make it even

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27 harder to migrate someone to Sweden and then exploit that person. A recommendation on protection is that victims of human trafficking should be supported before they are part of the investigation process (Swedish National Rapporteur, 2012: 42).

Most of the recommendations concern improvements in the prosecution processes. According to the Swedish National Rapporteur (2012: 40), better methodologies are needed to collect important data in trafficking cases. The coordination between the judicial system and human right organisation should for instance be improved. This could increase the number of victims that will work along with the investigation. During the prosecution of traffickers, specialised court interpreters should be hired to improve the prosecution process (Swedish National Rapporteur, 2012: 43). Concerning the police investigations, focus should be on the sex buyers as well as the organisers of sexual services. Finally, just as in sexual exploitation, buyers of labour exploitation services should be investigated carefully.

4.4.2. Dutch National Rapporteur

The focus of the Dutch National Rapporteur is mainly on improving prevention and protection. A first preventive recommendation is that the prostitution sector should be less vulnerable to human trafficking activities (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013a: 7). The prostitution market is regulated by the municipalities, but there is not yet a national framework that uniformly regulates prostitution. This means that traffickers could go to regions in the Netherlands where exploitation is not strictly regulated. According to the Dutch National Rapporteur, a national uniform regulation framework is thus essential in preventing human trafficking. A second recommendation on prevention is that a sex buyer should be criminalised if he/she knows that the sex worker is forced to provide the sexual services (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013a: 308). In this case, the sex buyer is in full knowledge involved in human trafficking activities. This legislation could make sex buyers more alert to illegal prostitution practices.

Concerning the protection of victims, the Dutch National Rapporteur calls attention for child victims of human trafficking. Training and awareness raising is necessary in order to identify these vulnerable victims (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013a: 304). The registration and assistance of this group is not on the right level according to European legislation. Finally, a national referral mechanism should be ensured to protect human trafficking victims from all kinds of exploitation (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013a: 306).

4.5. Effectiveness of policies

The National Rapporteurs on human trafficking have the task to monitor human trafficking activities in their countries. They evaluate policy and legislation by analysing daily procedures of organisations and authorities that deal with human trafficking. Their recommendations are reactions on problems

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28 that arise in combating trafficking. The key question in developing these recommendations is what can be improved in the anti-trafficking approach of a country. There is, however, a difference between on the one hand the desirable moral effects of policy and legislation and on the other hand the actual outcomes. The most important question is ‘what is the most effective policy?’ and not ‘what is a desirable policy?’ (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013a: 307).

The issue of effectiveness of anti-trafficking policy is often approached with caution, even by the National Rapporteurs on human trafficking. In one of their reports, the Swedish National Rapporteur (2012: 21) argues that the effectiveness of the Swedish policies strongly depends on the access the police has to resources. It is still extremely difficult to estimate how many trafficking victims there are in Sweden. Yet, in some of her speeches, Kajsa Wahlberg is more outspoken. She argues for instance that the Swedish legislation is effective against human trafficking, because the number of people exploited in street prostitution has decreased enormously (Wahlberg, 2010: 2). From 1998 to 2003, the number of street prostitutes already decreased from 2500 to 1500 (Wahlberg, 2009: 4). According to Wahlberg, prostitution cannot be pushed underground, because the police can find the same things that sex buyers can find. The interpretation of numbers will be dealt with in the next chapter. Nevertheless, it is clear that Kajsa Wahlberg uses these numbers in her argument that the Swedish policy is effective in combating human trafficking.

The Dutch National Rapporteur is very careful in using numbers to support arguments on effectiveness of anti-trafficking policies. The analysis of policies requires data on the visible human trafficking victims as well as the invisible (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013c: 5). This data collection is not yet available, which makes it almost impossible to conclude anything about the effectiveness of prostitution and human trafficking policies (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013a: 83). The first step in creating an effective human trafficking policy is making it visible (Dutch National Rapporteur, 2013b: 14). The Dutch National Rapporteur thus does not make any statements on the effectivity of human trafficking policy.

4.6. Conclusion

Studying policy and legislation is useful, in order to compare anti-trafficking strategies of countries. This chapter has shown that the prosecution processes are quite similar in the Netherlands and Sweden, while their approaches towards prevention and protection are rather different. This is mainly because the connection between prostitution and human trafficking is not the same in both countries. In Sweden, prostitution and human trafficking policies are basically the same, because they see the demand for sexual services as a root cause of human trafficking activities. In the Netherlands, human trafficking is approached separately from prostitution. When it comes to the effectiveness of the national policies, the Swedish National Rapporteur is considerably more outspoken than the Dutch

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29 National Rapporteur. This is mainly because human trafficking numbers are used in different ways by the rapporteurs. It is therefore interesting to have a closer look at the interpretation of these numbers. This will be dealt with in the next chapter.

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5. Interpretation of available statistics on

human trafficking

Although there is a broad consensus that there exists a lack of reliable and comparable data on human trafficking and prostitution, numbers play an important role in many academic articles and NGO reports. UNODC acknowledges the difficulty of measuring the total size of human trafficking, but their so-called “conservative estimate” is that of 2.5 million victims of trafficking (UNODC, 2015). Yet, the total number of reported victims between 2010 and 2012 was 31,766 (UNODC, 2014: 29). This immediately shows the difficulty of human trafficking numbers. It is of course desirable to measure policy problems and produce reliable statistics, but is always important to understand how these statistics are produced. In the words of Stone, “to count is to count as” (Stone, 2002: 164). This is definitely true in policy fields like human trafficking and prostitution, where you try to expose underground phenomenon.

The lack of reliable and comparable data on human trafficking is also acknowledged by the European Commission. Comparing national statistics on human trafficking is even more complicated, because of the different national approaches in reporting and monitoring trafficking (Eurostat, 2013: 16). This is why the European Union started an initiative to collect comparable statistics on human trafficking. This initiative should provide an understanding of the total size of human trafficking. It resulted in Trafficking in human beings, a 2013 European Statistics Office (Eurostat) report that contains these comparable statistics on human trafficking of the European Union member states (Eurostat, 2013: 9). The main findings of this report will be discussed in this chapter. Furthermore, there will be a closer look at the statistics that are available for the Netherlands and Sweden. After that, there will be a closer look at the interpretation of these numbers.

5.1. What is the Eurostat report?

The Eurostat report on human trafficking was established because there is a growing need of reliable and comparable statistics on human trafficking at the European level (Eurostat, 2013: 9). The report is a collection of national data on human trafficking for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010. This national data was collected from authorities and organisations that have to deal with human trafficking, like the police or NGO’s. Besides the 27 EU Member States, countries that are also included in the Eurostat report are Croatia, Iceland, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. The figures that show total numbers and percentages are only based on the EU 27 Member States. Croatia is not included in these statistics, because it was not a member state at the time.

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31 The report focusses on the three pillars of combating human trafficking, namely prevention, protection and prosecution, although it is difficult to put the prevention part in numbers. Yet, the report has comprehensive statistics on the number of victims of human trafficking. These numbers are disaggregated by age, gender and form of exploitation. This means that there are also statistics on the amount of sexual exploitation per country. Furthermore, there are also statistics on the kind of protection that the victims have received, although this is not obtainable for every country. Finally, the report contains data on prosecution. This section includes the number of convicted traffickers per country.

Before the main results of the report will be presented, it is important to discuss some of the limitations of the report. This will also happen later on in this chapter, when the interpretation of the numbers will be discussed, but this concerns the limitations made by Eurostat itself. The report argues that the statistics should be “interpreted with caution”, because countries have different methods to collect the data and use different definitions for human trafficking practices (Eurostat, 2013: 18). This makes it rather difficult to compare the statistics of different countries. It is thus important to look at how these national statistics are produced, in order to give an interpretation of these numbers.

5.2. Overview of the total situation

Table 1 shows an overview of identified victims and convicted traffickers over three years. The numbers are a total of countries that provided data for 2008, 2009 and 2010. Countries that lacked data from one or more years were left out this table. Identified victims numbers were provided by 24 Member States, convicted traffickers numbers by 22 Member States.

Table 1: Overview of identified victims and convicted traffickers

(Eurostat, 2013: 30).

The total number of identified victims increased from 6309 in 2008 to 7418 in 2010. This is an increase of 17.58 percent. At first sight, these numbers indicate an increase in the total number of victims of human trafficking. However, this is not necessarily the case. It could also be a consequences of improved ability to identify and report actual victims. This is acknowledged by Eurostat as well (Eurostat, 2013: 10). Contrary to the number of identified victims, there is a 12.71 percent decrease in the total number of convicted traffickers from 2008 to 2010. This is quite remarkable, especially since there is an increase in the total number of identified victims. A closer look at the data shows that most

2008 2009 2010 2008-2010 %

Identified victims 6309 6955 7418 + 17.58%

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32 of the decrease is caused by Belgium, which had 198 convicted traffickers in 2008 and only 64 in 2010 (Eurostat, 2013: 84). This is due to a change in encoding convictions from 2009. This immediately is an example of ‘to count is to count as’.

Figure 3: Overview of total victims by gender, adulthood and type of exploitation (Eurostat, 2013: 32, 33, 41)

Measuring the undetectable : dealing with the systematic lack of data on human trafficking and prostitution