Learning from Failure in Human Trafficking

Law, Policy and Practice
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-20089-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 266 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in Crime and Society

This edited collection offers a ground-breaking shift in anti-trafficking literature by focusing on what goes wrong in order to determine how to fix it. Adopting a highly accessible, multidisciplinary approach, this international collection brings together leading scholars and legal practitioners to expose the critical gaps in current global response systems.

Thematically, the book is structured around three core pillars. First, it challenges outdated definitions of exploitation, particularly regarding child criminal exploitation, sex work, and labour trafficking. Secondly, it evaluates operational failures in victim identification and protection, using highly topical real case studies from different continents, such as cross-border drug smuggling in Chile, cyber-scam factories in Southeast Asia, and the high-profile Dominic Ongwen case at the International Criminal Court. Finally, the book focusses on structural failures, addressing cutting-edge realities, such as the role of artificial intelligence in the fight against human trafficking, and the importance of integrating survivors’ testimonies and lived experiences into research, law-making, and public policy.

By courageously analysing why past frameworks have failed, this essential volume delivers actionable, evidence-based, and survivor-centred solutions to reshape future law, policy, and practice worldwide.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rodríguez-López, Silvia

Weatherburn, Amy

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Soziale Fragen & Probleme
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Rechtswissenschaften Strafrecht Kriminologie, Strafverfolgung
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kriminalsoziologie
• Rechtswissenschaften Öffentliches Recht Staats- und Verfassungsrecht Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Migrations- & Minderheitenpolitik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Learning from Failure in Human Trafficking Law, Policy and Practice: An Introduction Part I. Conceptual Failures: Overcoming Definitional Limits on Effective Action 1. Human Trafficking for Labour Exploitation: A Problematic Conceptualisation and its Repercussions in the Identification of Victims  2. Child Criminal Exploitation and Human Trafficking: Tackling Conceptual Conundrums 3. Prostitution and Human Trafficking: They Are Not the Same, Nor Will Exploitation End by Abolishing Sex Work 4. Human Trafficking in the Digital Age: Mapping the Current Criminological Landscape and Charting Future Frontiers Part II. Operational Failures: Filling the Gaps in Identification, Protection, and Justice 5. Beyond the Trafficker-Victim Binary: Criminal Exploitation and the Limits of Victim Identification in Cross-Border Drug Cases in Chile 6. The Survivor-Perpetrator Paradox in the ICC’s Dominic Ongwen Case: Trafficking, Coercion, and Culpability  7. Beyond Criminalisation: Lessons from Europe’s Non-Punishment Failures for Southeast Asia’s Cyber-Scam Victims 8. Educating Healthcare Providers about Human Trafficking: Challenges and Opportunities Part III. Structural Failures: Innovating System Design, Recovery, and Survivor Engagement 9. Re-positioning the Role of Information and Communication Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in the Fight against Human Trafficking 10. Sex Trafficking of Romanian Women in the UK: Lessons from Post-Trafficking Trajectories and Survivors’ Perspectives on Recovery 11. The Recovery and Reflection Period: Analysis and Proposals amidst the Transformation of the EU Anti-Trafficking Framework 12. Lived Experience as Expertise: Making Inclusion in Exploitation Research the Rule Rather than the Exception

Über Autor(innen)

Silvia Rodríguez-López is a Senior Research Fellow in Criminal Law at the University of A Coruña, where she presented her thesis on human trafficking-related corruption. She has also carried out studies on criminal exploitation and the non-punishment clause, labour exploitation, and women convicted for trafficking.

Amy Weatherburn is FWO Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at the KU Leuven Institute for European Law with expertise in human trafficking, forced labour, (labour) migration and fundamental rights law. Her current research focuses on tackling labour exploitation beyond criminal law and providing access to remedy to migrant workers.