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The physical and psychological effects of human trafficking1 can be severe and long‐term (Zimmerman et al, 2006). Yet with appropriate support at all stages of the trafficking process women can be rehabilitated and re‐integrated within society (Zimmerman et al, 2003). This article highlights the unique needs of trafficked women and explores the work of the POPPY Project (the sole UK government‐funded dedicated service for women trafficked into prostitution) in helping trafficked women integrate into UK society successfully.

Trafficking in women is among the most serious human rights challenges. Extant studies of the media images of trafficked women suggest that these images emphasize women’s victimization and contribute to the reproduction of existing gender inequalities and power relations. In this case study of Moldovan media and scientific discourse, the authors sought to identify the images of trafficked women that are presented in the print media, on the one hand, and the scientific discourse, on the other. The authors also asked whether those images portray trafficked women in a stereotypical manner. The findings of this chapter revealed that the most prevalent images in both discourses are trafficked women as victims, commodities, and slaves. Both media and scientific discourses include gender oppression, domestic violence, and poverty as dimensions of the victim image. However, these three aspects of the victim image are treated more comprehensively by the scientific discourse. Some of the most prominent differences between the two types of discourses are the absence of women’s agency in the media discourse and absence of the men’s nature as a dimension of the victim image in the scientific discourse. The authors conclude by suggesting that, despite these differences, the images present in both types of discourse could be used to justify policies that would limit the migration of women but fail to effectively address the root causes of sex trafficking in women.

Drawing on ethnographic field research on female sex workers and male clients in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s global sex industry, this paper complicates our understanding of human trafficking in two ways. First, introducing the term perverse humanitarianism, the paper extends work on carceral feminism by offering concrete examples of interagency commitments between NGOs and the police. Second, my ethnography reveals that women framed their relationships with male clients as mutually beneficial because the men provided them with alternate pathways to economic mobility outside of sex work. Drawing on the same tropes of victimhood employed by the NGOs, sex workers elicited sympathy from male clients that they leveraged into gifts of money. Using men’s charitable gifts, many women became small entrepreneurs who opened local businesses and empowered other sex workers far beyond what NGOs were able to provide.

Human trafficking for sexual purposes is a significant human rights violation, as well as a crime of international proportions. Albania has been identified as an important source of individuals who are trafficked as well as an entry point from Eastern Europe and Russia into Western Europe. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nature of this problem and governmental and societal responses.

An examination of data sources regarding sex trafficking in Albania seen through the lens of the Albanian context and feminist legal perspective helps provide an understanding of the complexity of the issue and the nature of appropriate approaches.

Recommendations are given for a more effective anti‐sex trafficking campaign, incorporating socio‐economic factors that might be linked to sex trafficking.

The lack of available data from victims of sex‐trafficking and Albanian government limits the ability of researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of anti‐sex trafficking response by Albanian government.

This is the first theoretically based attempt at analyzing governmental and societal responses to sex trafficking in Albania.

The trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation has become a global business operated by organised crime groups and is now viewed as having reached ‘critical proportions’. Trafficking exists to meet the market demand for women who are used in brothels, the production of pornography and other aspects of the ‘sex industry’. It is nothing less than a modern day slave trade.

To reduce the number of women being sentenced to death, this chapter explores and critically reflects on the calls being made by women’s rights activists in Southeast Asia for cross-border drug trafficking to be reconstituted as human trafficking. Drawing on interviews with a range of stakeholders, alongside information on 146 cases of women sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Malaysia, this chapter shows that the gendered dynamics of drug trafficking can indeed be understood as a form of human trafficking. However, there are concerns from a feminist activist perspective in representing it in these terms because the discourse of human trafficking, has been used by the patriarchal state to legitimize racialized and gendered oppression of women at borders. This has ramifications in terms of human rights, particularly with regards to women’s right to freedom of movement as well as the right to livelihood.

An ideal victim is someone who is both weak and strong enough (Christie, 1986). To be seen as an ideal victim one should be vulnerable, weak and not to blame for the crime one has been subjected to. But, in order to be seen, heard and believed one must also be strong, resourceful and confident. This chapter discusses the conflicting perceptions between the weak and the strong victim in light of one particular group of victims, Nigerian women subjected to trafficking for prostitution. What types of expectations do these women meet when identified as victims of trafficking in Norway? Do the Nigerian women live up to the image of the ideal victim? Or do they have to adjust their behaviour in order to enter this role and be entitled to help and assistance? The answers to these questions tell us whether existing trafficking measures are based on the real needs of victims of trafficking, or an idealised image of their problems and needs.

This article reviews the research literature on factors that contribute to the growing problem of people trafficking. It separates the findings into ‘push’, ‘pull’, ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ issues and explores the social and economic circumstances that result in the exploitation of the victims of trafficking