SEX TRAFFICKERS ON SEX TRAFFICKING David Gadd and

SEX TRAFFICKERS ON SEX TRAFFICKING David Gadd and Rose Broad University of Manchester david. gadd@manchester. ac. uk rosemary. broad@Manchester. ac. uk How should ‘third parties’ work with sex workers?

TRAFFICKERS Trafficking = exploitation of the prostitution of others Exploitation = recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or reception of persons, including the exchange or transfer of control over those persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. In law vulnerability = children but could also be defined in terms immigration status, poverty, disabilities, substance dependency, threats of violence.

ONLINE SEX MARKETS CONFLATED WITH INTERNATIONAL TRAFFICKING

BUT SEX WORK IS NOT ILLEGAL Some women who are sex workers, along with others trapped in low paid work migrate into sex markets often with a specific purpose – to save, send money to dependents, escape debt. The work can be gruelling and intensive, but some do pay off debts. The work is made more dangerous by laws that prohibit collective working and profiteering in the absence of recourse to law (especially when clients are criminalized and deportation is a risk). Lone working is virtually impossible

THE PERPETRATORS OF MODERN SLAVERY PROJECT Aims To produce an empirically informed understanding of modern slavery, particularly focused on those people convicted for modern slavery offences To use a combination of methods to produce models of offender motivation and background, networks and personal and social histories that contribute to the organisation of modern slavery To provide case study evidence for intervening with people convicted of these offences To open debate about the impacts of modern slavery and immigration policies, including unintended consequences. In addition to looking at police data, we are conducting biographical narrative interviews with offenders convicted under the (2015) Modern Slavery Act and allied legislation… See here for more https: //sites. manchester. ac. uk/perpetrators-of-modern-slavery/

ADAM Hungarian man in his 20 s convicted with his family for trafficking for sexual exploitation His father was involved in the Hungarian mafia and helped Adam to establish himself as a drug dealer (after taking drugs since 13) during his teens and with contacts to assist him as a pimp His drug use contributed to the end of his relationship with his ‘first love’ which led to intensified drug use and his migration to the UK to join his parents who have travelled to the UK previously After some casual work as a labourer, Adam met Jenny who ‘fell in love’ with him, despite his protestations that he would never love her and that she was just ‘using’ his ‘family’ because she had been abused as a child and was indebted to another family who had trafficked her. Along with several other women, including his sister-in-law, Adam worked as a pimp, advertising the girls on Adultworks and Vivastreet and waiting downstairs in the premises in case the clients got ‘crazy’. Adam kept all of Jenny and his sister-in-law’s earnings although maintained that they had everything they needed through the family. He retained half of the other girls’ earnings and kept their passports, spending the money on ‘drugs, clothes, car’. Jenny eventually ‘grassed’ on the family although the other women did not make a complaint. He pled guilty to the sex trafficking but vehemently denied the charges of rape brought by Jenny – for which he was not ultimately convicted.

SANDRA 47 year old British women sentenced for keeping a brothel after police identified a potential victim of trafficking on her premises She was from a large family and disrupted upbringing due to her father who battered her mother and sexually abused the children At 27, having secured a job working with children with behavioural problems. Committed perjury to cover for brother, then lost her job, started working as a nanny and a bouncer but eventually became homeless as her brother made continuous financial demands from prison to fund his drug habit Turned to prostitution and became pregnant to a ‘Jack-the-lad’ who never supported her. Moved between brothels, never taking drugs and keeping herself to herself, so she could best provide for daughter. Late 30 s she had enough of handing money to men and decided to go into business herself, setting up a brothel – with good working conditions- and negotiating with landlords and cab drivers. The brothel was eventually investigated by the police, Sandra suspected the police had been tipped off by a rival. Police found an Eastern European potential victim of trafficking on the premises despite

ANDREI 35 year old Romanian son of military family, IT repairer, heroin user. Tricked? into UK job designing sex work websites for Romanian husbands/bodyguards and ‘wives with benefits’: ‘selling pussy’ Addiction deepens while business expands Secures tenancies, buys tickets, provides lifts Customer ‘in love’ with sex workers calls police, but women do not wish to prosecute after Andrei hires legal advice. Andrei imprisoned for 3+ years as ‘ringleader’ of sex trafficking network. Sex workers move to Germany where they re-establish business and send Andrei money in prison in hope he will rejoin them once released. ‘How could I traffick someone when that someone brought me here, paid for my. . . coming here and pay me for what I am doing? ’.

DISCUSSION Third Party Relationships: family business, brothel keeper, marketing, transport, protection, property Undertaken by ‘traffickers’ with precarious lives, motivated by profit, but not entirely devoid of morality This jars with modern slavery law which counterpoises victims with exploiters in markets in which ere are many shades of grey proliferated by the criminalization of migrant sex work within a vast market of ‘largely unpoliced illegality’. If we take migrant sex work as given, we are left with the question of under what terms and conditions those who provide support services to sex workers should operate. These questions are not well answered by advocates of abolitionism, the Swedish model or anti-slavery activists. Though difficult in a self-employed, tax avoiding market, clarifying the terms upon which sex workers and others can legitimately work together has to be a better starting point than legal interventions that attempt to differentiate acceptable prostitution from unacceptable trafficking.