Admittedly, it is difficult to discern when this type of control occurs, since in many cases the dominant individuals or groups will ostensibly comply with the "rules of the game" in portraying the transaction as voluntary. Furthermore, those who have made their own "choices" generally use the coercive group's arguments as their own. Nonetheless, given the current state of the research, the project adopts the presumption that consent is illegally induced when the victims are drawn from a vulnerable population.
This does, however, raise an additional problem in terms of
how society views the subject of trafficking. From a juridical
perspective, a person that is trafficked for the purposes of sexual
exploitation is considered a "victim". In other words, this person is a
nonactive "object" of the criminal behavior and/or a person to whom a
crime or criminal act has been committed against. Assuming induced
consent, to a certain extent, adopts this same perspective.
The problem with this approach is that it further "victimizes"
the subject of trafficking (by treating them as an object or abstract
subject) while directing attention away from moral culpability of the
larger society for creating the conditions that lead to the victimization.
Thus, use of terms such as "victim" to define a person, creates a
conceptual trap that gives more value and individual meaning to the
exploiter-exploited relationship while exempting the government,
society, and the market from accepting the responsibility of not
confronting the issue of trafficking.
While it is accurate that at the end
of the process, when the individual is in the hands of the
trafficker/exploiter, he or she is a "victim" of the trafficking
phenomenon, what is critical is that researchers must not allow this end
stage to restrict their analysis of the characteristics and cultural and
socio-economic factors that lead to this result.
MAPPING THE CONTURES OFTRAFFICKING IN WOMEN, CHILDREN
AND ADOLESCENTS IN BRAZIL
In any effort to regulate the problem of trafficking, the first
task is to develop an accurate understanding of the phenomena. How is
it structured? How does it work? Who are its victims? What are its
consequences in terms of human costs? This section will draw a rough
map of the problem.
In its simplest form, trafficking involves three classes of
actors: the women or children who are the subjects of trafficking; those
consumers of the services provided by the trafficked women or children
thereby creating a demand for them; and the traffickers who service the
consumers by connecting the trafficking subjects with the consumers.
While the consumers who create the demand for women and children
are a crucial feature of the trafficking phenomena, they are not the
subject of this study. The problem of demand has been and is being
addressed by the International Human Rights Law Institute through a
series of conferences entitled: Demand Dynamics.
This study focuses upon two sides of the triangle: the women
and children who are the subjects of trafficking; and the traffickers and
their support structures.
It is designed to analyze trafficking by linking
social indicators affecting the women and children subject to trafficking
(such as mobility, poverty, family break up, intra family violence etc.)
with industry specific indicators as to how trafficking is organized and
operates (e.g. recruitment, coercion, transport, harboring etc.). The
types of social indicators examined were selected based on prior
research suggesting links between particular social factors and
trafficking or the sexual exploitation industry. Industry specific data
was drawn from a careful review of available materials and original
research.
For this project, researchers began work by reviewing and
analyzing arrest records and court cases arising under Article 231 of the
Brazilian Criminal Code, the statute prohibiting prostitution, which
provides the most direct protection against trafficking. This was
supplemented by interviews with different governmental officials and
non governmental organizations active in this area as well as
information obtained from the media. Researchers also collected and
analyzed a series of case studies of the subjects of trafficking. Finally,
this information was then correlated with additional socio economic
research in order to present an integrated picture of the problem.