Second, governance practices often involve tasks with conflicting demands and hence ambivalent client relationships – for instance, in the case of governmental public health and law enforcement authorities, whose institutional roles encompass exercising control or imposing punishment, on the one hand, and providing protection or support, on the other. Non-governmental organ-isations and actors face a different set of problems; for instance, the problem of limited access and powers of intervention. These kinds of difficulties and ambivalences cannot be resolved. They rather need to be balanced and compensated, which includes the risk of one-sided positions and solutions.
Third, challenges in this governance arena emerge from the functional differentiation of institutional tasks and aims. This systematic division of responsibilities leads to interdependences and potential lines of conflict. Therefore, inter-organisational co-ordination and reconciliation are required in order to approach prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation holistically. For this purpose, social actors at the executive level of organisations must have the ability to take the institutional role of the other, to complement and harmonise governance practices and policies. Instruments conducive to this are, for instance, multi-disciplinary working groups and round tables, as well as negotiations and contracts between law enforcement authorities and non-governmental organisations concerning modes of action and co-operation in cases of suspicion of trafficking for sexual exploitation.
To conclude, I would like to emphasise the need for further research to learn to what extent the findings of this study – that the knowledge production of frontline actors substantially impacts on local policies and politics in regard to prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation – also apply to the governance of other forms of trafficking, such as for forced labour or the removal of organs. However, given its theoretical and, especially, practical relevance, it seems crucial to gain a comprehensive understanding of the coherence of knowledge production and governance practices of frontline actors at the level of implementation.
Notes
1 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 15 November 2000.
2 Aradau, C., “Human Trafficking: Between Data and Knowledge”, in Roth, P., Uhl, B.H., Wijers, M., and Zikkenheiner, W. (eds.), Data Protection Challenges in Anti-Trafficking Policies – A Practical Guide (Berlin: KOK e.V. –German NGO Network Against Trafficking in Human Beings, 2015), pp. 7–15.
3 Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T., The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Anchor Books edition., Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 65–109; Schütz, A., The Phenomenology of the Social World (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967) (Northwestern University studies in phenomenology & existential philosophy); Blumer, H., Symbolic Interactionism; Perspective and Method (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969).
4 Carpenter, B., “The Prostitute and the Client” (1998) 21(4) Women’s Studies International Forum 387–399; Doezema, J., “Now You See Her, Now You Don’t: Sex Workers at the UN Trafficking Protocol Negotiation” (2005) 14(1) Social & Legal Studies 61–89; Doezema, J., Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters: The Construction of Trafficking (London and New York: Zed Books, 2010); Uhl, B.H., Die Sicherheit der Menschenrechte. Bekämpfung des Menschenhandels zwischen Sicherheitspolitik und Menschenrechtsschutz (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2014) (Edition Politik, 20).
5 Exceptions include: Valverde, M., Law’s Dream of a Common Knowledge (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003) (Cultural lives of law); and Pates, R., Schmidt, D., Buck, E., Feustel, S., and Froböse, U., Die Verwaltung der Prostitution. Eine vergleichende Studie am Beispiel deutscher, polnischer und tschechischer Kommunen (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009) (Gender studies).
6 Mayntz, R. and Scharpf, F.W., “Der Ansatz des akteurzentrierten Institutionalismus”, in Mayntz, R. and Scharpf, F.W. (eds.), Gesellschaftliche Selbstregelung und Politische Steuerung (Frankfurt and New York: Campus, 1995) (Schriften des Max-Planck-Instituts für Gesellschaftsforschung, Cologne, Vol. 23), pp. 39–72.
7 The former was funded by the German state of Saxony’s Higher Education and Science Programme (Hochschul-und Wissenschaftsprogramm des Landes Sachsen), and the latter by a postgraduate scholarship from the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
8 Meuser, M. and Nagel, U., “ExpertInneninterviews – vielfach erprobt, wenig bedacht: ein Beitrag zur qualitativen Methodendiskussion (Expert Interviews – Tested Many Times, But Poorly Conceived: An Article on Qualitative Method Discussion)”, in Garz, D. and Kraimer, K. (eds.), Qualitativ-empirische Sozialforschung. Konzepte, Methoden, Analysen (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1991), pp. 441–471; Meuser, M. and Nagel, U., “The Expert Interview and Changes in Knowledge Production”, in Bogner, A., Littig, B., and Menz, W. (eds.), Interviewing Experts (Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) (Research methods series), pp. 17–42.
9 Valverde, M., Law’s Dream of a Common Knowledge (2003), p. 3.
10 Mayntz, R., “From Government to Governance: Political Steering in Modern Societies”, in Scheer, D. and Rubik, F. (eds.), Governance of Integrated Product Policy: In Search of Sustainable Production and Consumption (Sheffield: Greenleaf, 2006), pp. 18–25. See also, Mayntz, R., “New Challenges to Governance Theory”, in Bang, H.P. (ed.), Governance as Social and Political Communication (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 27–40.
11 Mayntz, R., From Government to Governance (2003); Mayntz, R., New Challenges to Governance Theory (2003); Zürn, M., “Governance in einer sich wandelnden Welt: eine Zwischenbilanz”, in Schuppert, G.F. and Zürn, M. (eds.), Governance in einer sich wandelnden Welt (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften/GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden, 2008) (Politische Vierteljahresschrift Sonderheft, 41/2008), pp. 553–580.
12 Finkelstein, L.S., “What Is Global Governance?” (1995) 1(3) Global Governance 367–372; Krahmann, E., “National, Regional, and Global Governance: One Phenomenon or Many?” (2003) 9(3) Global Governance 9, 323–346; Mayntz, R., Soziologie der öffentlichen Verwaltung, 4 (Revised edition, Heidelberg: Müller, 1997) (UTB für Wissenschaft, 765: Soziologie); Obokata, T., “Global Governance and International Migration: A Case Study of Trafficking of Human Beings” (2010) 29(1) Refugee Survey Quarterly 120–136.
13 Mayntz, R., Soziologie der öffentlichen Verwaltung, 4 (Revised edition, Heidelberg: Müller, 1997) (UTB für Wissenschaft, 765: Soziologie).
14 Jackson, G., Actors and Institutions (University of Bath, School of Management, Working Paper Series, 2009.07, 2009).
15 Mayntz, R., Soziologie der öffentlichen Verwaltung, 4 (1997).
16 Bourdieu, P., The Logic of Practice (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), p. 53.
17 Schütz, A., The Phenomenology of the Social World (1967).
18 Mayntz, R., Soziologie der öffentlichen Verwaltung, 4 (1997).
19 Bogner, A. and Menz, W., “The Theory-Generating Expert Interview: Epistemological Interest, Forms of Knowledge, Interaction”, in Bogner, A., Littig, B., and Menz, W. (eds.), Interviewing Experts (Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) (Research methods series), pp. 43–80; Meuser, M. and Nagel, U., “ExpertInneninterviews – vielfach erprobt, wenig bedacht: ein Beitrag zur qualitativen Methodendiskussion (Expert Interviews – Tested Many Times, But Poorly Conceived: An Article on Qualitative Method Discussion)”, in Garz, D. and Kraimer, K. (eds.), Qualitativ-empirische Sozialforschung. Konzepte, Methoden, Analysen (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1991), pp. 441–471.
20 Meuser, N., “ExpertInneninterviews – vielfach erprobt, wenig bedacht” (1991).
21 Bogner, A. and Menz, W., “The Theory-Generating Expert Interview” (2009); Meuser, N., “ExpertInnen-interviews – vielfach erprobt, wenig bedacht” (1991).
22 According to Di Nicola et al. (2005: 15f), we can discern, roughly speaking, four different legislation models in the Europe
an context: abolitionism, new abolitionism, prohibitionism, and regulationism. These policy typologies range from a restrictive-repressive way of governing prostitution, on the one hand, to an either permissive-regulatory or permissive-non-interventionist one, on the other. Moreover, these legislation models are implicitly based on different stances toward prostitution, in general, and certain forms of prostitution, such as street prostitution or prostitution in apartments and brothels, in particular. The prohibitionism model takes a restrictive-repressive approach to prostitution. Here, both outdoor and indoor prostitution are prohibited. Therefore, the parties involved in prostitution can be liable to penalties – including the clients in some cases, for example, in the well-known Swedish case. As opposed to prohibitionism, the regulationism model provides a permissive-regulatory framework in which the markets for both outdoor and indoor prostitution are regulated by the State, and buying and selling such services are therefore not prohibited when exercised according to the rules. Often sex workers are registered by local authorities, and are sometimes obliged to undergo medical controls. Abolitionism and new abolitionism represent a permissive-non-interventionist mode of governance of prostitution. A country falls under the abolitionism policy model if the State decides to tolerate and not intervene in prostitution. Hence, prostitution by adults is not subject to punishment. However, profiting from the prostitution of another person is criminalised. The new abolitionism approach is a further development of the abolitionism model. It neither prohibits nor regulates outdoor and indoor prostitution in general, but explicitly bans the existence of brothels. As Di Nicola et al. (2005: viii) state, the most common policy model in the European Union is new abolitionism (32% of the Member States), followed by regulationism (28%), abolitionism (24%), and prohibitionism (16%).
23 Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (1990).
24 Meuser, M. and Nagel, U., (n.8) “ExpertInneninterviews – vielfach erprobt, wenig bedacht” (1991); Meuser, M. and Nagel, U., “The Expert Interview and Changes in Knowledge Production”, in Bogner, A., Littig, B., and Menz, W. (eds.), Interviewing Experts (Basingstoke, UK and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) (Research methods series), pp. 17–42; Strauss, A. and Corbin, J., Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques (London: Sage Publications, 1990), p. 57.
25 Vorheyer, C., Prostitution und Menschenhandel als Verwaltungsproblem. Eine qualitative Untersuchung über den beruflichen Habitus, 1, Aufl (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010) (Gender studies).
26 Goffman, E., Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), p. 21.
27 Hüttermann, J., “Policing an Ethnically Divided Neighborhood in Germany: Day-to-Day Strategies and Habitus” (2003) 13(4) Policing and Society 381–397. doi:10.1080/1043946032000127936.
28 Vorheyer, C., Prostitution und Menschenhandel als Verwaltungsproblem (2010).
32
‘Assumptions built into code’ – datafication, human trafficking, and human rights – a troubled relationship?
Baerbel Heide Uhl
Introduction
In 2009, the European Commission adopted the Action-Oriented Paper (AOP) to highlight its future strategy to define a global EU strategy against trafficking. One of the proposed recommended activities included Member States creating international Swift Action Teams:
In response to a new trend or pattern in THB, for instance a noticeable increase in the number of victims of THB with a similar background or travelling route, it may be deemed necessary, in order to address this adequately, to develop a joint effort in partnership with a third country, region or organisation at international level. To this end, Swift Action Teams (SATs) may be established by Member States in cooperation with EUROPOL and FRONTEX. These SATs should be composed of experts from Member States, including liaison officers, as well as EUROPOL and FRONTEX where appropriate. A SAT should be deployed to support a specific third country, region or international organisation in the area of migration management, for example by assisting third countries in identifying victims of THB at airports before they board and providing training on the identification of victims and forged identity papers. Before a SAT starts work, care should be taken to ensure that shelter and assistance are available for any victims identified in that third country.1
This strategy is based on the assumption that if there is enough data to depict presumed victims’ homogeneous backgrounds and similar travel routes, it is considered a legitimate means to prevent them boarding a plane, and thus to violate their freedom of movement. It is a good example of a preventive policing measure, as described later in this chapter on the tools provided by ‘Big Data’. People can get ‘caught’ even if they are only identified as future victims of a crime – and not as perpetrators – that is still to be committed. This chapter discusses the role of data collection, and its human rights implications, in anti-trafficking policies.
Trafficking and data collection
The desire to generate and access more information and data on the crime of trafficking in human beings has been a continuing quest during two decades of negotiating a political and legal framework for this crime in the international arena. The vague knowledge about the quantity and nature of the crime seemed to be a major concern shared by governments and international organisations under anti-trafficking policies, internationally, after the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.
Consequently, in 1997, EU Ministers agreed, in one of the first high-level EU declarations, the so-called Hague Declaration, to establish in each Member State an independent body to ‘report on the scale, nature and mechanisms of trafficking in women’ –so-called National Rapporteur Mechanisms.2 The decision to create an institution in its own right, instead of using existing structures, such as the respective law enforcement reporting mechanisms, shows the high priority of data politics as an integral part of anti-trafficking interventions.
The concept of a National Rapporteur Mechanism, though, reached far beyond the EU realm. The UN Rapporteur on trafficking in human beings, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe also took on the idea, and integrated it into their programmes and legal institutions. As of today, the majority of EU Member States operate National Rapporteur (or similar) Mechanisms; yet the demand for more and better data on trafficking remains.3
This chapter explores the intersection of data politics with the human rights-based approach to trafficked persons. The analysis is based on the assumption that ‘data collection’ is not a neutral concept; rather, it shapes the political and legal intervention against human trafficking. Thus, the way we frame data on THB, both in quantitative and qualitative terms, forms the ground on which political and legal decisions are being made – which eventually has an impact on the lives of victims of trafficking. First, however, this chapter discusses ongoing global data collection tools and their critiques, as well as data protection tools.
Global data instruments
Currently, there are numerous data collection and analysis tools trying to address the demand for data on human trafficking on a global level. The following subsections highlight selected data instruments in order to illustrate different categories of data production.
Quantitative estimations
Since the early 1990s, political discourses have been accompanied by estimations of the quantitative extent of the phenomenon of human trafficking in Europe and beyond. In 2012, the ILO published its second global estimation of forced labour, assessing that 20.9 million people are under the condition of forced labour.4 A similar endeavour, however with a different methodology, was carried out by the Walk Free Foundation. It estimated that 45.8 million people are enslaved, in 167 countries.5
Global assessments of secondary data compiled from national trafficking statistics
A second category of global and regional data instruments consists of the compilations of available national statistics – both law enforcement statistics and the results from National Rapporteur Mechanisms
. The US State Department publishes, annually, the global Report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP report),6 which has provided the figures in Table 32.1 below.
Table 32.1 Global law enforcement data7
Year Prosecutions Convictions Victims Identified New or Amended Legislation
* * *
2008 5,212(312) 2,983(104) 30,961 26
2009 5,606 (432) 4,166(335) 49,105 33
2010 6,017 (607) 3,619(237) 33,113 17
2011 7,909 (456) 3,969 (278) 42,291 (15,205) 15
2012 7,705(1,153) 4,746(518) 46,570(17,368) 21
2013 9,460(1,199) 5,776 (470) 44,758(10,603) 58
2014 10,051 (418) 4,443(216) 44,462(11,438) 20
2015 18,930(857) 6,609 (456) 77,823(14,262) 30
Even though the State Department also refers to the numbers above as estimates only, due to the lack of reliable and comparable data sets in the respective countries, the collection remains closer in quantitative terms to the respective national law enforcement data. The difference between the TIP report data and the data displayed in the first category is striking.
Data collection instruments are also used by the European Commission, in co-operation with Eurostat, which compiles statistics from its Member States in order to issue regular reports on the quantity of human trafficking within the EU. In 2015, the first report documented 10,998 identified victims in EU Member States from the year 2012.8 In a recent document, the European Commission expressed its concern about what it regards as a too-low number of identified victims in the EU:
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