Trafficking in Human Beings: MDT Approaches

1. Trafficking in Human Beings: MDT Approaches Susan Kreston Research Fellow Centre for Psychology & the Law UFS susankreston@hotmail.com

2. MDTs – The Way Forward

3. IDENTIFY AND RECRUIT MEMBERS • Who is on the “team”? • Prosecutor/Law Enforcement • Social Workers • Medical/Psychological Professionals • NGOs • Probation Department • And more…

4. POLICING

5. Identifying the Victim May Not Be Easy Because… • May not speak local language • May not see themselves as victims • May feel responsible for a family debt • Do not trust police • Fear their traffickers • May suffer “Stockholm Syndrome” • May have PTSD & Memory loss • May not yet have been exploited

6. Prima Facie Identifiers • Age & Gender • Nationality/Origin • Documents • Last location • Sweatshop, brothel, bar, mines, etc… • Transport • Increasing levels of escort/control • Context/referral • Removal from brothel by police, NGO, etc.. • Referring agency’s opinion should also be considered • Obvious signs of abuse

7. Interception and Investigation Pre-border Port of Entry Inland Identification Identification Identification • Profile • Interview • Premises • Outreach • Visas • Liaison officers • IGO’s • NGO-networks Investigation Investigation • Initiate case • Victim support • Secure evidence • Full scale • Victim support • International

8. Pre-Screening for ID • The early identification of victims of trafficking • Based upon intelligence from all sources; • The ‘local’ trafficking picture - modus operandi and trafficking activity • Regional and international intelligence • Develop specific victim profiles and indicators • Performed by trained personnel - to include any potential first contact officers • Trained or expert interviewers • Multi agency cooperation • Close cooperation with all law enforcement agencies likely to come into contact with a victim of trafficking • A national and international referral mechanism • The ability and capacity to analyse information and make an assessment

9. ID Stages Three stages of identification... • Initial assessment based on pre-interview indicators developed ‘locally’ to reflect current intelligence picture - pre screening • Structured interview focussed on; • Recruitment • Transportation and • Exploitation • Assessment of other corroborative material

10. ID of trafficking through… • Direct reporting • Victim goes to police • Victims of trafficking are most visible on destination • Bystander goes to police to report • “client” goes to police to report • Referrals from NGO’s and shelters • Mostly through “outreach” work • Information from or referrals via hotlines

11. ID of trafficking through… • Routine police activity unrelated to trafficking • Border crossings/standing checkpoints • Crimes where V is potential witness • Crimes where V is suspect (petty theft, etc…) • Crime where V is a victim (mugging, etc…) • Random checks for drink/drive, documents, etc… • Random visits to brothels, factories, farms, etc… • Routine scan of media (Internet, newspapers, flyers, etc…) • Community policing • Enquires into missing children • NB: traffickers do not necessarily change their methods, locations, or transport due to routine policing, even when it leads to arrest

12. ID of trafficking through… Proactive policing • Targeted raids on factories, mines, brothels, etc… • Working in tandem with Dept of Labour or Health • Intelligence gathering on “nexus” points (routes used, operations, transport, etc..) • Surveillance • Planned border operations • Slightly less and 1/3 of cases thru this method (< 30%)

13. ID and Interviewing Indicators • Identification of victims requires interviewing • Use of profiles based on updated intelligence – avoid exceptionalism • Individual indicators: • Malnutrition, dehydration or poor personal hygiene • Bruising, broken bones, signs of rape or abuse • Under somebody's control • REMEMBER though, the relationship between trafficker and victim is often very complex

14. Profiling the Traffickers

15. Gender • 2003 UNODC report found that although the majority of traffickers were male, the recruitment of victims involved significant numbers of females • particularly where victims were recruited individually rather than several at a time • Their credibility and the rapport they established with victims was believed to be enhanced where recruiters (regardless of gender) were older than victims

16. Age • Traffickers may be any age • Traffickers have been found anywhere from 15-58 years of age • Older recruiter the norm, but children may also recruit other children • EX: Child soldiers, boomerang victims • Trafficking victims may, in some cases, become traffickers themselves • Threatened/actual violence • Promotion within the system • Compulsion distinguishes victim from trafficker

17. Mode of contact • While a number of women and girls trafficked into sexual exploitation are lured by advertisements in newspapers, in countries where print media is heavily regulated (or absent), traffickers resort to more ‘direct’ contact with victims

18. Ethnicity & Nationality • Nationality of recruiters is generally that of victims, but may be any nationality • Recruiters often come from the same ethnic group as their victims • facilitates their capacity to communicate with and build the trust of victims • IOM study found @ half the victims knew their recruiter (78 countries examined)

19. Role of Family • 2009 US TIP Report – Role of Parents in Trafficking • Sometimes trafficking is a “family” business • One study found this occurs in @ 1/3 of cases • Husbands, wives or domestic partners, children, parents and extended family involved • Can exist across borders • Ex: mother recruits women in country A, and sends them to be ‘pimped’ by her daughter in country B • Sometimes traffickers target their own family • @10-20% of cases • 75% of these victims were under 18

20. How did traffickers become traffickers?One study’s findings • 37.5% had been victims of sexual exploitation in brothels, or were brokers or pimps • 35% were brothel owners who transitioned into trafficking through their close relations with traffickers • 22% inherited the ‘business’ from parents, guardians or people who they were living with • Only 5.6% were entirely newcomers who entered the trade through their association with other traffickers

21. How do traffickers start? • Of those previously exploited in brothels, many were elderly women who could no longer “service” clients • Many ‘employees’ of traffickers would become traffickers themselves • Significant number of traffickers were found to have started as ‘amateurs’ in the field working as ‘spotters’ • locating vulnerable persons to be trafficked • eventually moving up to a higher rung in the trafficking hierarchy

22. Criminal Histories? • Few studies conducted • Findings - some traffickers have a criminal history in trafficking or other crimes, while others have never been involved in crime or have no criminal record • Czech study of 31 traffickers found 12 had a criminal record, while 19 had no criminal record • In Israeli study of 325 traffickers, 47.3% had no prior criminal record

23. Trafficking Roles & Hierarchy • Master trafficker • Apex of hierarchy. Enjoys high level of anonymity. Manages, modulates and orients activities. Profits the most from trafficking activities. • Primary traffickers • Identifies sources of supply and demand, procures, buys and sells humans in various locations • Secondary traffickers • Delivers human cargo to primary traffickers • Often relatives or acquaintances of victims, petty criminals and thugs • Grassroots intelligence gatherers • Visits locations (markets, railway stations, etc) to gather intelligence about vulnerable persons • Report to primary or master trafficker

24. Social Services

25. Impact of Trafficking

26. What Makes Kids Vulnerable to Abuse? • Interconnected issues of: • Dysfunctional Family • Physical violence, sexual abuse, (DV) substance abuse, etc… • No Family • OVCs/Street Kids • Disability • Physical –EX: deaf 2.5x more vulnerable • Mental

27. What Makes Kids Vulnerable? • Lack of education • Poverty • Correlation, not cause or justification • See 2009 ISS comments on SA TIP Bill • Personal Psychology • Some kids are robust, others are fragile

28. What Makes Kids Vulnerable? • Lack of coping skills • Lack of assertiveness • Lack of judgment • Lack of skills to protect themselves

29. Trafficking Risk Factors • Macro • Zimbabwe • 2010 • Regional economic variance • Patriarchy • HIV/AIDS • Sex tourism

30. Child Sex Tourism

31. Worldwide Child Sex Tourism Global Sex Tourism Destinations

32. ECPAT - Child Sex Tourism in Africa Benin Burkina Faso Cameroon Côte d’Ivoire Gambia Ghana Kenya Madagascar Mauritius Morocco Nigeria (major source of offenders) Senegal Sierra Leone South Africa Tanzania Togo

33. Sexual exploitation – § 17(6) • Person, including a juristic person, who • makes or organises any travel arrangements for or on behalf of a 3rd person, whether other person is resident within or outside RSA, with intention of facilitating commission of any sexual act with child irrespective of whether act is committed or not, OR • prints or publishes, in any manner, any information that is intended to promote or facilitate conduct that would constitute a sexual act with child • Guilty of offence of promoting child sex tours • Child Sex Tourism and 2010

34. Trafficking Risk Factors • Interpersonal • Gender based violence; • Crimes against children; • Reliance on children for income; • Peer pressure • “happy trafficking”

35. Trafficking Risk Factors • Individual • · Lack of education (school leavers); • · Lack of marketable skills; • · Lack of positive free time; • · Risky sexual behaviors; • ·Low self-esteem, self-efficacy, and substance abuse; • · Lack of awareness of risks of work and migration.

36. Types of Trauma • Physical, emotional and sexual • Coercion • Abuse an intimidation • Threats • Lies/deception • Emotional manipulation • Loss of any control • Physical exhaustion • May co-occur or overlap

37. Emotional Abuse • Control tactics much like torture victims or DV or child abuse • Terrorizing • Persistent and relentless fear • Deception • Undermine their ability to trust • Highlighting “positives,” like sending money home to family • Destabilizing • Unpredictable and uncontrollable conditions of life

38. Emotional Abuse • Abandon previous life for self-defense/survival strategies and mode • Elimination of decision making • Dependence on trafficker absolute

39. Fear & Insecurity Dangerous Environment Anxiety No desire to meet new (good) people to go outside Can’t concentrate Anger At self Self-injury (ex: cutting) At the world Can’t sleep Nightmares Distrustful Low self-esteem Guilt Shame Rejected by family or community Trafficking Reactions by V

40. Trafficking Reactions • Memory loss • Dissociation • Hypervigilance • Isolation/loneliness • Sadness/depression • Disengagement from others • Reject offer of help

41. Other Effects • Driven into “relationships” with dangerous adults • May set lifelong pattern of poor choices in adult partners • Violence within trafficking mirrors violence in dysfunctional home • Confirms child’s view of world as negative or destructive

42. Other Effects • Highly sexualized or highly aggressive behaviours • Dysfunctional handling of stress and anxiety

43. Medical/Health

44. An Inconvenient Truth: Medical Evidence, and the Lack Thereof, in Child Sexual Abuse Cases

45. Scientific/Medical/ForensicPerpetratorVictim

46. EXPECTATION VS REALTY • Legal System expects medical evidence to unequivocally support claims of sexual abuse • Medical examination can sometimes confirm but NEVER exclude sexual assault in children

47. How can a “normal” exam be consistent with sexual abuse?

48. Why there may be no medical, forensic or physical evidence • Delay in reporting • Very common • EX: 3 year delay in SA in incest reporting • Absence consistent with type of abuse • Fondling, etc… • Can we dust for prints inside the body? • Abuse undetected due to failure of technology • No colposcope – microtrauma • Intentional destruction of evidence • Shower, bath, abortions, etc

49. Why there may be no medical, forensic or physical evidence • Child says “in” and we think “all the way in” • Penetration is defined as past the outer lips of the vagina (labia majora) • “Penetration” as defined by law, may leave no evidence of trauma • Elasticity • Physical grooming • Penetration ≠ trauma • Healing • Faster and different • Oestrogen • The 9 month old victim

50. What the Studies Tell Us