Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

This chapter discusses how anti-trafficking institutions and networks combine to diffuse policy implementation from the top-down and bottom-up. It shows that when no one in the government is held accountable for the implementation of the policies uneven policy implementation occurs as some countries (i.e. Latvia) are more effective at implementing policy than others (i.e. Ukraine and Russia). The results demonstrate that top-down implementation (from the national government) was apparent in all three countries as the government entities attempted to guide implementation. Only Latvia was able to balance this top-down approach with a grass roots bottom-up implementation processes facilitated by their working group and the strength of the interest groups in that country. This could also demonstrate that country size and/or decentralization reforms from the federal level help facilitate human trafficking policy implementation. The influence of internal factors including law enforcement measures to combat trafficking and interest group strength are the most significant facilitators of policy implementation. While state capacity and commitment, bureaucracy, and corruption were the biggest impediments to successful policy implementation. Interest groups also provide feedback loops, policy evaluations, and guide implementation when the government fell short.

Introduction: Diffusing the politics of human trafficking from Europe to Asia

The introduction examines the politicization of human trafficking in Eurasia and how these politics affect the policy adoption and implementation in this region. The chapter presents a definition for human trafficking and examine the scope and manifestations of the crime in source and destination countries of Eurasia. It discusses the adoption of the Palermo Protocol and explore the patterns of human trafficking dynamics across the region from Europe to Eurasia. Internal and external human trafficking constraints and different gendered and racialized approaches to trafficking policy that make ethnic minorities in the region more vulnerable to human trafficking are also discussed. Victim stereotypes perpetuated in the trafficking policies of Eurasia, have produced their own regional type of ideal victim ‘Natashas’ but increasingly men and children from this region are victims of labor exploitation suggesting that there are factors at play within these countries that encourage human trafficking.

Conclusion: The implications of human trafficking policies

The conclusion explores the limitations and effectiveness of human trafficking policy in combatting the phenomenon of human trafficking. It discusses if legislated solutions for a wicked problem such as human trafficking are impossible to obtain and if policies can only attempt to alleviate the problem. Most policy advocates argued that human trafficking policies help, but aspects of supply and demand are the main causes of human trafficking. These concepts such as poverty, abuse, gender inequality, and immigration that get to the underlying causes of push and pull factors of trafficking, are not covered in most human trafficking policies and are difficult to legislate across countries in an increasingly globalized world. The existing laws and policies were imperfect with implementation problems, but the policies were effective in many respects and better than an absence of policy. The chapter also analyzes how progress in anti-trafficking adoption and implementation was affected by the different political developments in masculinized political environments. The crime of human trafficking is always changing, and policy should be encompassing and resilient to withstand changing trends and political developments.

Diffusing human trafficking policy adoption

Chapter Two narrows the focus to a case study analysis of Russia, Latvia, and Ukraine and examines how human trafficking policies diffuse in these three most-similar case studies from Eurasia. The results demonstrate that internal determinants such as state commitment to human trafficking policy and interest group strength are more important to policy adoption than external pressures from the international community. Conversely, state capacity and bureaucratic restructuring impede policy adoption. Instead of identifying international influence as an all-encompassing reason for policy adoption, data suggested that policy adoption was influenced by multifaceted pressures such as the Palermo Protocol, US TIP reports, the Council of Europe, and EU and ultimately country dependent. The chapter argues that policymaking is more nuanced than blind compliance with international treaties, as the literature suggests, and reveals that there is no black box of policymaking because even in authoritarian (Russia) and semi-authoritarian (Ukraine) regimes, policymaking does not occur in a vacuum. This type of policymaking shows that interest groups and policy entrepreneurs work within the constraints of national policymaking to adopt human trafficking policies even in non-democratic political systems.

Linkages among actors in anti-trafficking networks

This chapter discusses how anti-trafficking institutions work together to form anti-trafficking networks illustrating the connections and cooperation among the different institutions. A network analysis is used to examine implementation networks, focusing on how different actors in the human trafficking policy subsystem come together and the ties that bind them. The networks of anti-trafficking institutions in each country reveal a stark divide and disconnect between criminalization aspects of the policy with law enforcement and police and the social aspects with rehabilitation for victims mostly performed by NGOs and women’s advocacy networks. The analysis revealed the Russian network is the smallest and most fragmented but also the densest while the Latvian network is the most cohesive with the largest number of reciprocal ties facilitated by the working group. The network in Ukraine has the highest average of incoming and outgoing connections and the most efficient connection between actors in the network. There was also evidence of interest groups in Ukraine and Russia moving around impediments in the national government by creating their own networks and lobbying specific regional level entities who were more open to cooperation. The results show that the more effective the anti-trafficking institutions are in a country, the more cohesive the anti-trafficking network is at facilitating reciprocal relationships.

Empirical comparisons of human trafficking policy across Eurasia

This chapter broadens the analysis back to whole region of Eurasia to analyze the determinants of policy adoption and implementation with original dataset, adapting variables for internal determinants and external pressure to the international policymaking environment. It examines the quantitative determinants of policy adoption and implementation across all fifteen counties in Eurasia in a similar time period as the case study analyses from 2003-2015 in a pooled time series. It presented a new and innovative Human Trafficking Policy Index which measures the scope of human trafficking policies in Eurasia and ranks it on a 15-point scale every year. The findings mirror the qualitative results and reveal that internal political conditions and monetary factors inside the country such as state commitment, policy entrepreneurs, bureaucracy, and state capacity determine how the countries adopted policy while policy entrepreneurs, bureaucracy, and police effectiveness influence policy implementation. The mixed method comparison demonstrates that state commitment and policy entrepreneurs had a positive influence on human trafficking policy adoption while bureaucratic impediments inhibited policy adoption. The results were less cohesive with policy implementation model but revealed the influence of internal determinants such as street-level bureaucrats, bureaucratic impediments, and conflicting policing results.

Tracing the development of anti-trafficking institutions

This chapter builds on policy adoption, by tracing different anti-trafficking institutions created directly or indirectly as a result of that adoption. It analyzes and compares the establishment and development of five different anti-trafficking institutions: national coordinators, working groups, police units, shelters for victims, and victim certification processes. Although many of these institutions were developed as a result of policy adoption, they are not always codified and even some that are established, fail to work effectively and are only hollow Potemkinesque institutions. The chapter demonstrates that once anti-trafficking institutions are entrenched in countries and there are mechanisms to ensure the institutions’ survival, they have the potential to not only oversee implementation but also are effective actors in the policy subsystem working to develop better and more responsive policy in the future. A competent working group composed of civil society and government officials, which meets regularly, is the most effective anti-trafficking institution a country can possess. However, police units were the only institution that was effectively implemented demonstrating the institutional emphasis on criminalization across all three cases.

Contrasting policy approaches to human trafficking in Eurasia

Although all the countries in Eurasia have adopted some sort of policy approach to human trafficking, there is significant variation regarding the scope of these laws across the region. Chapter One, traces this variation through development of human trafficking policies in all 15 countries of Eurasia. Gendered regulatory and redistributive policies embodied in human trafficking laws and policies in Eurasia can be typologized into five different approaches: criminal codes, national action plans, national laws, decree, regulation, or decision, and miscellanies policies. The chapter discusses the rapid diffusion and development of these laws throughout the region from 1998 when the first law adopted until 2015 including the leaders and laggards in Eurasia. The results show that authoritarian leaders utilize trafficking policies, masked in the language of international human rights norms, to increase their power and control their citizens. Additionally, stereotypes perpetuated in the trafficking policies of Eurasia, have produced their own regional type of ideal victim: ‘Natashas’ seemingly similar victims of sex trafficking with Slavic features (Hughes, 2000).