Despite the combative efforts of world superpowers, why do the different transnational networks of organized crime elements seemingly flourish around the globe? I propose that the crime of human trafficking, as it boasts complex linkages to transnational organized crime elements on a global stage, can serve as an excellent subject for analysis to potentially elucidate the aforementioned topic. The American Department of Homeland Security states that human trafficking “…involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.[1]” Human trafficking, while being an affront to established human rights, has today become a multibillion-dollar industry spanning various networks beyond geopolitically specified borders.[2] As such, an examination of human trafficking as an ultimately economically driven crime effected by the various social and political factors of the countries it occurs lends itself to a comparative juxtaposition that, supplementary, can round out the preliminary examination of the overarching topic.
According to the US Dept. of State’s ‘Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2019’ Russia, China, Iran, Belarus, and Venezuela see more human trafficking activity than other countries.[3] As these countries differ cultural and geographical, for the most part, ample data should be accessible for a comparative analysis of effective transnational criminal networks. Furthermore, hypothesize that evaluation of the human trafficking activates that occur in countries whose governments are categorized as Tier 3 in the Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2019 – as they do not fully meet the minimum standards set by the American Government’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) and are not making significant efforts to do so – alongside contemplation of the historical activity of associated criminal elements will reveal why human trafficking, as an exemplar of a transnational criminal network, flourishes contemporarily.[4] Supported by the comparative analysis of the documented causes of human trafficking in the Tier 3 countries, my argument is a complex and underreported series of transnational linkages inherent in both the internal and external social, political, and economic factors of the tier 3 countries allow for transnational organized crime networks to spread and operate relatively unobstructed.
The sources I hope will yield support this argument are data-driven overviews of human trafficking activities in tier 3 countries as written in the Transnational Organized Crime Journals, alongside writing such as Sally Cameron and Edward Newman’s Trafficking in Human$. The originality of the argument is that it combines a historical overview of the oft-underreported activities of transnational criminal elements in conjunction with analysis of aforementioned transnational criminal networks; in an attempt to contribute to the discussion on global criminology, a deeper understanding of why these networks flourish around the globe. Less of an alternative or a counterargument, but a more broadly accepted substitution for the methodological approach I proposed would be a more micro-historiographical approach, wherein the criminal networks associated with human trafficking would be analyzed within national contexts – stopping just short of exploring the transnational aspects of the networks. On the other hand, a potential issue facing analytical pursuit relating to Transnational Organized Crime comes from how complex the topic has become overtime with an ever-evolving slew of accompanying legislature.[5]
[1] Department of Homeland Security, ‘What Is Human Trafficking?’, US Gov., <https://www.dhs.gov/blue-campaign/what-human-trafficking> [accessed 4 March 2020].
[2]Patrick Belser ‘Forced Labour and Human Trafficking: Estimating the Profits’ SSRN Electronic Journal (March 2005), <https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=forcedlabor> [accessed 6 March 2020]
[3] Department of State, ‘Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2019’, US Gov., June 2019, <https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019-Trafficking-in-Persons-Report.pdf> [accessed 6 March 2020]
[4] Department of State, ‘Trafficking in Persons Report’, <https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019-Trafficking-in-Persons-Report.pdf> [accessed 6 March 2020].
[5] Valsamis Mitsilegas “From National to Global, Empirical to Legal: The Ambivalent Concept of Transnational Organized Crime” in Critical Reflections on Transnational Organized Crime, Money Laundering, and Corruption, Margaret E. Beare (ed.), (Toronto, 2003), p. 55.