human trafficking

Defining Human Trafficking and Identifying Its Victims: A Study on the Impact and Future Challenges of International, European and Finnish Legal Responses to Prostitution-Related Trafficking in Human Beings. by Venla Roth

Isabel Dela Cruz

Roth, Venla. Defining Human Trafficking and Identifying Its Victims: A Study on the Impact and Future Challenges of International,

European and Finnish Legal Responses to Prostitution-Related Trafficking in Human Beings. Brill, 2012, pp. viii-viii. 

Venla Roth, Finlands’s Anti-Trafficking Coordinator for the Ministry of Justice, has a Ph.D. in law and works towards unveiling the best ways to combat human trafficking. She’s not only educated in the human trafficking world, but she has both power and first-hand experience as an anti-trafficking coordinator who works for one of the 12 ministries that comprise the Finnish government. Her book compares the contradicting positions on prostitution and details the modern legal instruments adopted to prevent trafficking and protect its victims. I can use this book as an informative source for detailing the grey areas of sex work and trafficking and recommending solutions to the challenges of Finland’s Anti-Trafficking strategies. The study argues that human trafficking is complex, therefore the laws made to regulate them need to be just as well developed; Roth presents possible alternatives and specific methods that focus on judging trafficking situations through the victim’s perspective rather than an authorities’ viewpoint. This book can be useful for bringing forth proper solutions to dealing with human trafficking and will also have a refreshing perspective on this subject since Finland is, legally, more progressive when it comes to sex work. 

  1. “More attention should be paid to the conditions in which the women sell sex as well as to their vulnerabilities and dependencies which increase their risk of being exploited.”
  2. “The law enforcement agencies, prosecution services and judiciary need more training on human trafficking, as they often lack adequate knowledge of the phenomenon.”

“Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?” by Cho, Seo-Young, et al.

Isabel Dela Cruz

Cho, Seo-Young, et al. “Does Legalized Prostitution Increase Human Trafficking?” World Development, vol. 41, 2013, pp. 67–82.,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.05.023. 

As a senior researcher for quantitative cultural policy studies and empirical economist that focuses on migration, gender, culture, and institutions, Seo-Young Cho’s article analyzes the correlation between legalized prostitution and human trafficking inflows. Seo-Young Cho, as a woman with a doctorate in economics, has created a “3P Anti-Trafficking Policy Index” to evaluate governmental anti-sex trafficking efforts for each country and each year. In her article she discusses two theories: the scale effect, where legalized prostitution causes an increase in human trafficking, and the substitution effect, which reduces trafficking since legal sex workers would be in higher demand than illegal trafficked ones. Since research isn’t well-developed enough and data collection on human trafficking remains inadequate, cogent causal inference has yet to be an easy feat, so the two effects based on economic theory are used instead. The study’s quantitative empirical evidence leads us to believe that legalized sex work increases human trafficking, but Cho also points out how the furtivity of both the sex work and trafficking industries needs to be accounted for. This article utilizes cross-section data, robustness tests, and case studies and is constructive considering the research and data collection on such a taboo and polarizing subject falls short. The results won’t be used as fact, but they can help develop the idea that simply legalizing sex work isn’t enough when it can and has shown, in Germany, for instance, a rise in trafficking as a result. 

  1. “Our quantitative empirical analysis for a cross-section of up to 150 countries shows that the scale effect dominates the substitution effect…[however] the problem here lies in the clandestine nature of both the prostitution and trafficking markets”
  2. “On average, countries with legalized prostitution experience a larger degree of reported human trafficking inflows. We have corroborated this quantitative evidence with three brief case studies of Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.”