Representation of transnational human trafficking in present-day news media, true crime, and fiction
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: School of English
Abstract
Despite the fact that human trafficking is condemned as a modern-day form of slavery, criminalized under international law, and categorized as a human rights violation, this exploitative practice now represents a multibillion-dollar industry for transnational organized crime. The failure to address the problem holistically means that it has now become an urgent priority. European Union directives (2011/2014) indicate that an integrated and human-rights oriented approach is needed to combat this "complex crime", including the provision of protection and support for its victims, as well as wider education and awareness-raising campaigns. Meanwhile, police and governments face investigative and crime-fighting challenges, due to the flexibility and relative speed with which organized crime can adapt its transnational operations, often by activating overlapping circles and layers of networks, interaction and expertise.
The primary purpose of this research is to investigate the portrayal of transnational human trafficking in contemporary crime fiction, the genre of true crime, and news media. This research will investigate how aligned such representations of trafficking are, whilst assuming that fictional and supposed factual representations as well as wider media coverage (which blurs fact and fiction - see e.g. Surette 1998) can shape public knowledge and perception of such crime, and indeed inform offender/victim and law enforcement policy (Mathers, 2004).
Specifically, our research into human trafficking will consider the interrelated representations of victims, the investigation/policing/prevention of trafficking and the wider framing of public perceptions concerning transnational governance and global justice. Key areas of inquiry include:
1. Identifying victims of trafficking is complex, and investigations are slow, painstaking, time-consuming, and increasingly difficult. Yet, this element of complexity may not lend itself to the perceived desires of readerships for news reporting or crime fiction narratives in the global marketplace. We intend to examine to what extent trafficking is over-simplified and/or sensationalised, as well as assess to what extent investigative reporting and literature can contribute to expanded world knowledge, insight and public discourse, concerning the identification, protection and support of victims.
2. We will engage with the thematic and textual methods that narratives employ to investigate transnational trafficking. This involves a consideration of how texts incorporate existing and new knowledge, and lend visibility to the experience of exploited subjects by drawing attention to the politics of representation. With the assistance of Gravett's Special Policing Consultancy, we also consider the ways these texts address the challenges for global governance and policing at various scales.
3. Greater public awareness and knowledge is important to combat human trafficking. We will explore the varied ideologies and politics of human trafficking, in connection with wider discourses about global in/justice. For instance, we scope the diegetic narratives of trafficking within a range of fictional and non-fictional 'true crime' media, to explore how stories of the 'moral panic' around trafficking are constructed and used within such sources, as mechanisms for raising public awareness, but also as potential areas of political expediency by key actors involved.
The emergent research findings will be disseminated through an essay collection, a policy brief, a public blog and twitter feed, as well as a symposium/outreach activities, thus contributing to wider academic knowledge and public dialogue surrounding the investigation, policing and prevention of human trafficking as well as support for its victims.
The primary purpose of this research is to investigate the portrayal of transnational human trafficking in contemporary crime fiction, the genre of true crime, and news media. This research will investigate how aligned such representations of trafficking are, whilst assuming that fictional and supposed factual representations as well as wider media coverage (which blurs fact and fiction - see e.g. Surette 1998) can shape public knowledge and perception of such crime, and indeed inform offender/victim and law enforcement policy (Mathers, 2004).
Specifically, our research into human trafficking will consider the interrelated representations of victims, the investigation/policing/prevention of trafficking and the wider framing of public perceptions concerning transnational governance and global justice. Key areas of inquiry include:
1. Identifying victims of trafficking is complex, and investigations are slow, painstaking, time-consuming, and increasingly difficult. Yet, this element of complexity may not lend itself to the perceived desires of readerships for news reporting or crime fiction narratives in the global marketplace. We intend to examine to what extent trafficking is over-simplified and/or sensationalised, as well as assess to what extent investigative reporting and literature can contribute to expanded world knowledge, insight and public discourse, concerning the identification, protection and support of victims.
2. We will engage with the thematic and textual methods that narratives employ to investigate transnational trafficking. This involves a consideration of how texts incorporate existing and new knowledge, and lend visibility to the experience of exploited subjects by drawing attention to the politics of representation. With the assistance of Gravett's Special Policing Consultancy, we also consider the ways these texts address the challenges for global governance and policing at various scales.
3. Greater public awareness and knowledge is important to combat human trafficking. We will explore the varied ideologies and politics of human trafficking, in connection with wider discourses about global in/justice. For instance, we scope the diegetic narratives of trafficking within a range of fictional and non-fictional 'true crime' media, to explore how stories of the 'moral panic' around trafficking are constructed and used within such sources, as mechanisms for raising public awareness, but also as potential areas of political expediency by key actors involved.
The emergent research findings will be disseminated through an essay collection, a policy brief, a public blog and twitter feed, as well as a symposium/outreach activities, thus contributing to wider academic knowledge and public dialogue surrounding the investigation, policing and prevention of human trafficking as well as support for its victims.
Planned Impact
Recent heated political debates about migrants and refugees, further fuelled by media coverage, have yet to adequately address the complexity of human trafficking, and have not taken into account this transnational crime's effect on individuals and communities. The project will shed light on the process of selecting information and viewpoints to be presented by fictional and non-fictional crime writers, as well as on the resulting influence on public perception of, and opinion about, issues surrounding this crime, such as victim protection and trafficker punishment systems, but also the range of anti-trafficking initiatives centred on its prevention. For instance, by analysing what viewpoints news media present and what they choose to neglect, attention will be drawn to the process of documenting the acts of trafficking and their consequences, and to the debates on public policies activated in response to human trafficking. We analyse news media and supposed factual/fictional discourses published in several languages and countries (both in and outside of the EU). These include countries of origin for victims of human trafficking, as well as transit and destination countries, thereby ensuring an exploration of both dominant and marginalized points of view (as expressed by both organized groups and individuals).
This research will benefit researchers and organisations seeking to gain a greater comprehension of human trafficking and its representation in a rapidly changing national and global political climate. This research will benefit the following main beneficiaries:
1. Impact on Law enforcement policy-making. This includes the Police, the Home Office, Border Force, the Ministry of Justice, the Gang Masters Licensing Authority, the Intelligence services, and UK local authorities.
2. In the case of children, there would be interest from Local Safeguarding Children Boards, i.e. mandatory local authority multi-agency partnerships responsible for safeguarding children in their area.
3. Other beneficiaries include various Foundations, such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (who specialise on Forced Labour) together with NGOs and charity organisations working with victims and raising public awareness campaigns. We have already been in touch with Zoe Fortune (Freedom Fund, a 'private donor fund dedicated to identifying and investing in the most effective front-line efforts to end slavery', see http://freedomfund.org/) who reviewed and fed into our project's design. She will be invited to participate in our symposium, and help us disseminate results in due time.
4. The National Crime Agency is another government organisation, which we envisage as a beneficiary of our project.
5. Amnesty International UK has increasingly engaged with issues of human trafficking, and have been organising a series of panels in recent months debating trafficking. We envisage that they would be interested in our work, important as they deem media/fictional portrayals of this crime to be, and we will actively seek to involve them.
We contribute to heightening the awareness of the role cultural, media and literary representations play in constructing but also challenging and thereby changing perceptions of human trafficking and crime, and, in turn, impacting on policing matters and social policy. Beyer will manage a project blog to which all applicants will contribute, and utilise social media in order to enable public outreach. Further dissemination of ongoing project work will be taking place through a designated project twitter account.
Our symposium is conceived with the purpose of widening impact and will provide a public platform from which to disseminate our research. By inviting representatives from the above beneficiary organisations to the symposium as participating delegates and speakers, our project has the potential to generate policy recommendations. We will also generate a policy brief which we will disseminate to practitioners.
This research will benefit researchers and organisations seeking to gain a greater comprehension of human trafficking and its representation in a rapidly changing national and global political climate. This research will benefit the following main beneficiaries:
1. Impact on Law enforcement policy-making. This includes the Police, the Home Office, Border Force, the Ministry of Justice, the Gang Masters Licensing Authority, the Intelligence services, and UK local authorities.
2. In the case of children, there would be interest from Local Safeguarding Children Boards, i.e. mandatory local authority multi-agency partnerships responsible for safeguarding children in their area.
3. Other beneficiaries include various Foundations, such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (who specialise on Forced Labour) together with NGOs and charity organisations working with victims and raising public awareness campaigns. We have already been in touch with Zoe Fortune (Freedom Fund, a 'private donor fund dedicated to identifying and investing in the most effective front-line efforts to end slavery', see http://freedomfund.org/) who reviewed and fed into our project's design. She will be invited to participate in our symposium, and help us disseminate results in due time.
4. The National Crime Agency is another government organisation, which we envisage as a beneficiary of our project.
5. Amnesty International UK has increasingly engaged with issues of human trafficking, and have been organising a series of panels in recent months debating trafficking. We envisage that they would be interested in our work, important as they deem media/fictional portrayals of this crime to be, and we will actively seek to involve them.
We contribute to heightening the awareness of the role cultural, media and literary representations play in constructing but also challenging and thereby changing perceptions of human trafficking and crime, and, in turn, impacting on policing matters and social policy. Beyer will manage a project blog to which all applicants will contribute, and utilise social media in order to enable public outreach. Further dissemination of ongoing project work will be taking place through a designated project twitter account.
Our symposium is conceived with the purpose of widening impact and will provide a public platform from which to disseminate our research. By inviting representatives from the above beneficiary organisations to the symposium as participating delegates and speakers, our project has the potential to generate policy recommendations. We will also generate a policy brief which we will disseminate to practitioners.
Publications
| Description | Findings • We note an increase of UK media coverage on human trafficking from 2000 until 2016. • Relatively large numbers of articles were published in The Guardian, The Times and The Independent during this time. • Particularly large numbers of articles were published in April 2001, March 2007, November 2013, the summer of 2015, and May 2016. These spikes in reporting coincide with (international) events that raise the public's awareness of migration-related matters, and have been misused to stir up anti-migrant sentiments. • The texts marginalise and stereotype victims, creating a problematic victim hierarchy. • The texts' focus on the 'foreign-ness' of victims and traffickers suggests that human trafficking is portrayed as, and considered, an imported problem (rather than linked to domestic pull factors and to push factors created at least in part by foreign policy). • The texts problematically conflate trafficking (a crime against the individual) with smuggling (a crime against the state), and also (illegal) immigration and asylum seeking, hence failing to follow legal definitions of these terms. Such conflation also suggests that all economic migration/movement into the UK is highly problematic and unwanted. • The texts place more emphasis on the one-sided 'official' points of view (the court, Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, police force), with alternative points of view (such as those of academics or activists in the field) excluded or backgrounded. • Contextual information relevant for the issue of human trafficking is frequently not provided (for example, reference to the social/political/economic root of the problem). • In Serbian newstexts, Serbia is presented as a destination, key transit and country of origin. • The crime fictions we examined represent transnational child trafficking along a continuum, when it comes to detail, plausibility and victim engagement. Some of these works can be seen to explicitly engage in public and private debates around human trafficking, and to contribute to public understanding of human trafficking and, through this popular outreach, have the potential not only to affect popular perceptions of human trafficking, but also to effect change. Others are hampered by narratives that are too 'busy' and try to do too much, or suffer from a confusion of focus. Some also appear to confuse or perpetuate stereotypes, for example of Roma people. • Crime fiction novel analysis shows that there is still work to be done, in terms of telling the victim's story and rendering the complexity of the trafficking narrative. The genre carries limitations and possibilities with which to address exploitation, inequality, oppression and suffering. • In documentaries, traffickers are shown to be hugely diverse in their identities, activities and degrees of involvement. Some are victims and also parts of the state and economic apparatus. There are political and economic as well as social and cultural factors that shape (and to some extent determine) who traffickers are, and who becomes a trafficker. While there are some open-ended narratives, the old dichotomies of victim/perpetrator and transatlantic slavery still predominate. Heavy use of voiceover and advocacy commentators denies or discourages viewers from making up their own minds about traffickers and trafficking. |
| Exploitation Route | The list of recommendations that follows is targeted toward creative writers, filmmakers, police officers, media agencies, educationalists, charity workers, government workers and related training (i.e. students) in all these fields/beyond. Recommendations: • Making our research open access or otherwise accessible to non-academics might allow our project findings to become available to a wide range of media companies and others in the field, influencing better practice. • Given the need for stronger and more effective press regulation, we propose introducing human trafficking-specific guidance documents, and/or a code of practice for all reporting on the issue, who need to fully appreciate the term's legal meaning and the ideological implications of relevant language, avoiding seeing stories as mere commodities/entertainment and as an area where truth can be manipulated. Seeking the support of those who can influence the discussion on media accuracy and encourage responsible reporting is key. • We propose developing research-led material that can be used for online or in-person training/workshops for relevant practitioners in all fields (including police officers, media representatives, educationalists, and film/soap scriptwriters), but also A-level and university students. • We recommend producing research-led media footage or actively contributing to mainstream audience films (see, for instance, http://unchosen.org.uk, a film-based project that has been managed and passed to a wide range of NGOs) that more accurately and sensitively report on the issue. • We propose aiming to produce briefings for the Brexit Committee, various human trafficking foundations, and even airport/airline staff, helping identify concerning situations/individuals, improving relevant information posters (say, at airports), and ultimately informing better policy development. • There is a need to encourage and enable victims to represent themselves, in their own words/forums, devolving power down from the conventional editor/journalist decision- and programme-makers. We recommend that third sector representatives, but also migrant rights and sex worker rights organisations with sensitivity and access to such victims, help them collaborate with researchers in gaining that power. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Security and Diplomacy,Transport |
| Description | The organisation Freedom United used the edited Open Access book we published (see outputs) in a campaign that relates to generating guidance for reporters who need to more sensitively write about this issue. See https://www.freedomunited.org/advocate/my-story-my-dignity/ in August 2018. They also planned to follow up with the targets of the campaign, sharing the book as additional arsenal in their call for them to adopt the guidance note on reporting. They think it will be very powerful. In February 2020, Christiana Gregoriou was invited to be an expert panelist in a 2/6/2020 symposium organised by the NGO Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) to explore how modern slavery is framed. The expert panel was to be comprised of well-known journalists, a frontline organisation, and FLEX, while the audience was to be made of journalists, broadcast producers, policymakers and key civil society organisations. The goal was for the event to generate a briefing that will enable the conversation to continue. Christiana Gregoriou invited Ilse Ras to co-present some of their project findings. Because of Covid-19, the event ultimately took place online and on July 21st 2020. It secured an audience of 100, and our talk was described as 'interesting', 'fascinating', 'excellent' and 'important' on twitter. A recording is available here: https://youtu.be/uxmg8cJXXWA |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Report on 'Human Trafficking Representation in present-day news media, true crime and fiction' symposium that took place in Carriageworks, Leeds on the 12th of September 2017 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The event featured research talks by the project partners of the ESRC Human Trafficking project led by Leeds (C. Gregoriou), along with talks by invited speakers, these including the Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson, journalist/writer/filmmaker Paul Kenyon, crime writer Matt Johnson and academic/writer/'Free the Slaves' Foundation founder Professor Kevin Bales. The invitation-only event targeted human trafficking specialist academics, police officers, foundation, Home Office and media reps responding to this crime, as well as creative writers and filmmakers interested in the subject. It also featured a break-out session during which participants were invited to help partners disseminate and 'translate' our research findings into policy recommendations, after which we screened a documentary and played a book reading followed by Q and As with the relevant filmmaker and crime writer. We aimed for a group of round 50 participants, had as many as 53 registrations/expressions of intention to attend, though 16 withdrew nearer the time and/or didn't show on the day. The 37 that did show (not including our project partner Muzdeka whose work was nevertheless read out) included: - 18 human trafficking specialist academics (from various institutions across the UK) - 6 police officers/representatives from police service Offices (West Yorkshire Police Human Trafficking Team, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire) - 8 charity representatives (Migrant Help, Basis Yorkshire, Hope for Justice) - 1 former soldier/police officer and the event's featured crime author - 2 filmmakers/writers, one of whom is also a journalist and the other an academic - 2 Council/Government Reps (Home Office, Crime Partnership) Since some participants left early due to other commitments, we had a group of 22 taking part in the event's break-out session (not including the 5 project partners who moderated and minuted discussions), all of whom completed the questionnaires we distributed after. Most respondents were in their forties and older. Though we had some early career professionals attending, our targeting specialists resulted in a group of most likely mid-career professionals instead - 9 academics, 7 charity representatives, 1 police officer, 1 intelligence analyst, 1 crime novelist, the 2 filmmakers and 1 who didn't declare their employment. Here are the pleasing questionnaire responses: 1. Was the symposium useful, informative and insightful? 4.18/5 2. Would you recommend such a symposium to others? 4.22/5 3. In response to the question 'If so, who?', respondents recommended front-line professionals such as from the Home Office, anti-trafficking/asylum/refugee organisations, media reps such as those of the National Union of Journalists, local journalists, newspaper editors and various publishers, police, NGOs, other academics/researchers, students, crime authors, policy makers, and social workers. 4. Do you have a better understanding of the nature of transnational human trafficking media representation having attended this symposium? 4.13/5 5. Was it helpful to get an academic perspective on media human trafficking portrayal? 4.13/5 6. Did the symposium change your values or beliefs? 2.36/5 (with three acknowledging that this is a question they couldn't answer) 7. Will the symposium inform or influence your professional practise? 3.55 (with two saying this question was non-applicable to them) A brief comparison of responses by academics, 'creatives' (filmmakers and the novelist) and front-line workers (charity representatives and police officers) shows that academics tend to give slightly higher scores, but the differences are not substantial. This may indicate that the presentations were well-pitched to the respondents, whose backgrounds are highly variable. Younger respondents generally evaluated the symposium as more useful, but the differences between age groups are small. Differences between other points of evaluation are again not substantial. 8. When invited to offer other comments, respondents thanked us, described the event as very good and interesting, and said it offered a 'brilliant mix of delegates to gain a wider picture'. Meeting people from other sectors seems to be something everyone enjoyed. One says our work is certainly the kind they would reference, and found our analysis very helpful. Another suggested we had front line workers' perspectives to add into the day's mix (something we felt our speakers indeed offered) and another that we seek out to do a briefing for the Brexit Committee, HT Foundations/enquire to offer guidelines on representations of HT (which we will consider when drafting our policy brief next). In personal communication with the event's journalist/documentary maker, he expressed truly enjoying our well-organised event: 'It helped educate me about aspects of trafficking I had not focused on previously, and inspired me with lots of ideas about possible future documentaries'. Dr Christiana Gregoriou Project Leader |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://n8prp.org.uk/event/symposium-representation-transnational-human-trafficking/ |