A Diaspora Approach to Understanding Human Trafficking for Labor Exploitation

Author: Arhin, Antonela

Abstract: This article offers new conceptual tools to understand the dynamics and relationships between trafficking in persons and diaspora networks. A diaspora approach provides a more nuanced and in-depth mode of analyzing human-trafficking cases, and takes into account the intersections between traffickers, victims and diaspora communities within the human-trafficking process. Data come from 72 court files handled as cases of trafficking of adults and children for labor exploitation by various courts between 2004 and 2014. The results confirm that traffickers, to a certain extent, rely on diaspora networks in the recruitment, transportation, and exploitation of the victims. In particular, there is a strong correlation between the nationalities of traffickers and victims, as well as between traffickers and their intermediaries and collaborators. These findings hold in both transnational and domestic trafficking cases. Most traffickers prefer to recruit co-ethnics, but once the recruitment phase is over, traffickers are ready to move across the globe in search of the most advantageous sites of exploitation guided by a commitment to minimizing costs and maximizing profits.

Keywords: cross-case analysis, diaspora and transnationalism, diaspora networks, human trafficking, organized crime