This section considers two aspects of this complex issue for their effects upon agency. One is the performance of identification: how professionals understood and applied victim status. The other, is how their understanding of victim served to resist and assist women’s expressions of agency in the formal identification process.
In discussing the formal identification of women with anti-trafficking professionals, the phrase “victim for the purposes of the Convention” was frequently used by government enforcement officers - a finding also reported in the ATMG report, 2010: 39. Through its use, GEOs were voicing a recognition of the dual nature of their role toward human trafficking victims, which is to prevent and protect VOTs, but equally to prosecute the traffickers.
“My definition is akin to that of other staff in the Competent Authorities - that we’re here to provide help as part of the European Convention and that’s quite explicit really, to improve the services to victims and our ability to get the people actually involved in trafficking them”. (senior GEO 2) “The only way we are going to get it right for victims, is by ensuring the UK is a hostile environment for trafficking”. (senior GEO 1)
Goodey (2005:74) refers to human trafficking victims under this criminal umbrella as “tools through which criminal justice agencies might be able to secure convictions of traffickers” 14
. Whilst there is robust argument for the validity of prosecuting traffickers in the fight against trafficking, the ATMG report (2010: 38-43) suggests official use of the phrase ‘for the purposes of the Convention’ is, in point of fact illegal, because anyone subject to the crime of trafficking becomes a victim under the Convention. In light of the complex and contested boundaries of trafficking and other ‘irregular’ migrations, Kelly (2007) believes victims would receive improved justice under a greater use of trafficking related offences, such as false imprisonment or rape, rather than trafficking charges per se. Lebov (2010:85) lends support to this from a Scottish perspective, suggesting the costly and labour intensive resourcing needed for good human trafficking surveillance prohibits police capacity for gathering
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“actionable intelligence”. Given the research focus on agency, professionals’ use of this phrase carries additional gravitas for reproducing popular constructions of a VOT, addressed in 4.3. In order to be ‘fit for purpose’ within the criminal justice system, victims need to conform as closely as possible to the imagery of an ideal victim of trafficking. Consequently, women need to be recognised as vulnerable, passive, pure, defenceless, physically broken and inactive subjects in their own trafficking experience and ordeal.
“Obviously, you have to look at what’s happening in that person’s life - what the indicators are. You’re looking to any control measures being applied, is their movement restricted, whether exploitation has occurred in that process, duration of exploitation, any signs of physical abuse. Collectively, they form the facts for making that case”. (senior GEO 3)
This kind of professional vetting for the right sort of victim has been critiqued for introducing conditions that do not legally form any part of the Convention. The ATMG report and empirical findings would appear to offer substance for Kelly’s early suspicions over “how service providers and state agents define trafficking, and especially the extent to which they introduce additional requirements which do not appear in the protocol in order to construct a category of “deserving” victims...” (2005: 238.) For Goodey (2008), the litmus test of a truly victim orientated service lies in whether women can access trafficking services, irrespective of their intended or actual co-operation with state authorities. However, her position was not shared across the government enforcement officers who participated in this research. In response to the suggestion that victims might not be best served under a criminal framework, GEO 6 replied
“I disagree ! Why do I disagree? First of all, trafficking and the Convention. Trafficking is a crime. (GEO 6)
Their rejection of Goodey’s claim was, perhaps, most forcibly voiced by senior GEO 2 in this way:
“If you really have been trafficked, you’ve got information to give to the Police. If you’re going to act as a witness, brilliant, we want you to stay here and I make no apology for that, because part of the reason for all these [trafficking] arrangements is to increase the risk to traffickers. And
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one way of doing that, is by securing cooperation from their victims. It’s not just about prosecutions. It’s also about securing the intelligence that improves our knowledge of what they’re doing, so that we can disrupt their activity or prevent the activity. So it is useful to have that”. (senior GEO 2)
Further and detailed consideration of how anti-trafficking professionals use their discretion to negatively influence decisions on identification are documented in the ATMG (2010) evaluation of UK victim services. Given the ATMG’s lack of focus on any positive aspects of professional discretion, this chapter closes with a brief consideration of two ways in which participating professionals mediated the duality of a process, intended to both protect women and vet their potential in criminal justice proceedings. In her research on women asylum seekers and refugees, Hunt (2008: 290) “places all agents (asylum applicants, refugees and grass roots workers) as potentially having some independent effects” on the asylum process. Although this is easier to establish for NGOs, given their voluntary status, one of the ways in which participating government enforcement officers accomplished this, was through job crafting. Whilst GEOs recognised and condoned the intelligence and prosecution element of their trafficking brief, one means of restoring the balance in favour of protection was through the medium of multi agency working. This was widely viewed as a positive and essential aspect of sound trafficking policy and good practice. As reinforcement for this claim, extracts are provided from the same GEOs referred to above.
“It is important to recognise that some colleagues may have greater strengths in certain areas and may have received training, and good multi agency working is strategic - allowing fluidity and recognising flexibility is required to maximise the skills base on offer. It’s about utilising our
respective skills and maximising them in our particular business areas”. (senior GEO 3)
“The CPS has also greatly improved on the ways in which women should give their evidence in Court and to the non punishment clause governing the content of their evidence. Women have a full say within the Victim Personal Statements they give and they’re provided with support in doing this from the partnership agencies”. (senior GEO 1)
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“It’s been really interesting, really rewarding to engage with such a diverse field of people and use that sort of tension between those different views to help develop policy. That’s been a really positive thing…There was massive suspicion before. It’s frustrating that they [NGO groups] still
criticise us, but it’s all part of that ‘good’ tension I referred to earlier on”. (senior GEO 2)
A second way in which anti-trafficking professionals cushioned against the harsher realities of the formal system was by demonstrating respect for diversity. This was especially apt for professionals with a partnership remit. These professionals understood how a statutory need for rationing scarce resources detracted attention away from NGO preoccupations with the human face of suffering. Migration Partnership professionals presented a united front in engaging with aspects of cultural diversity, as an achievable way of conveying organisational respect and community support for trafficked individuals. Most commonly, this took the form of ethnic fundraisers - hosting musicians and dancers from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Another means of conveying empathy with women’s experience of institutional oppression, was through food and public support of migrant businesses when supplying catering for a meeting or civic event. During one such partnership meeting, I accompanied a community leader to collect lunch from a Turkish café and, on a different civic occasion, witnessed the polski sklep (Polish shop) delivery of afternoon cake. These included babka (a type of fruit loaf), makowiec - poppy seed cake, piskota (cherry cake) and medovnic (honey cake). Whilst my initial reaction to such practices was one of an uncomfortable tokenism, partnership motivations offered a measure of reassurance. Partnership C explained his support of this practice as follows
“A Human Rights approach provides for the basics - safety, food and clothing - but food is more than mere survival. It’s about giving them their own values and traditions back, a sense of self worth and that person’s well-being.” (partnership C)
In his reasoning, Partnership C reflected similar issues of importance and significance to those of participating women.
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