Second, studying trafficking routes may provide insights as to the points of entry and potential points of vulnerability to legal and/or social intervention. For example, in another studies conducted by the International Human Rights Law Institute in Central America, it was found that many women who were economic migrants (following the routes developed for illegal immigrants) became victims of trafficking when they were intercepted within the illegal immigrants system and diverted into the trafficking system.
Third, determining the exact numbers of individuals being
trafficked is, of course, quite difficult. It is an illegal activity which
has, in many cases, been shielded by governmental complicity. One
possible alternative of assessing the magnitude of the problem is to
measure the number of routes being used for trafficking. By definition,
a route involves multiple transports of individuals. Ergo, the more
routes being used the more victims being trafficked from or through
that area.
Fourth, studying trafficking routes allows researchers to
discriminate among those being trafficked. That is to say, the type of
trafficking route used and its destination often varies according to the
type of person being trafficked.
For example, the logistics of moving
children or adolescents, because it is likely to be more difficult to
transport them across borders, will demand a different type of network
from that of moving women. Similarly, the end markets for trafficking
may prefer one ethnic, racial, cultural or age group over others. That
preference would inform the network created to meet that demand.
Finally, identifying the routes of trafficking followed by
individuals who have been identified as being trafficked helps guide
governmental and non governmental monitors in the disposition of
their limited resources to attempt to and measure the movement of
individuals within the trafficking system.
Domestic Trafficking Routes
As previously noted, one of the reasons for including the
Brazil study within the larger program of research on trafficking in the
Americas was that Brazil represented a major economic power in the
region, with a large population and covering a expansive geographic
territory.
Prior research had demonstrated that even within some of the
smaller countries in Central America, internal trafficking could be
observed in the movement of individuals from one part of the country
to another for purposes of sexual exploitation.
This study has found
that internal trafficking represents a major phenomena within Brazil. In
order to study it effectively, the country was divided into 5 geographic
region and routes were mapped within and between regions.