Human Traffickers: The social circuits of human trafficking and transnational, organised crime

Project Information

TRAFFICKER

Grant agreement ID: 101068833

DOI

10.3030/101068833

EC signature date 3 November 2022

Start date 1 January 2024

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 286 191,36

Coordinated by

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRAFFICKER (Human Traffickers: The social circuits of human trafficking and transnational, organised crime)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

During the past decades, millions of euros have been spent by national governments and international organisations on combatting human trafficking and on offering assistance to victims of trafficking. However, we know surprisingly little about the people who facilitate, manage and orchestrate human trafficking: the traffickers. But who are the human traffickers, if we look beyond the stereotypes? The TRAFFICKER project will answer this question and fill this knowledge-lacuna, by ethnographically investigating the business operations and social relationships of human traffickers, via the analytical concept of ‘social circuits’.
The project is based on ethnographic fieldwork in two sites, in respectively one country of origin and one destination country of the traffickers: (a) a city in Romania, and (b) in prisons in Lisbon, Portugal, among inmates that are incarcerated for human trafficking.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the project illuminates:
1) How human trafficking is carried out by traffickers on the ground, and thus how national criminal networks make their illegal business transnational.
2) The ways in which the kinships relations and social relationships of human traffickers hinder or enable their transnational criminal livelihood.
3) The lives of human traffickers both during and after imprisonment and their navigation of legal and illegal work domains.
This knowledge will not only be beneficial for the academic research community on transnational, organised crime, but also for stakeholders such as NGOs, policy makers, international organisations, and governments, as well as for the wider public.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Research on human trafficking has primarily illuminated the experiences of victims of human trafficking. This projects investigates the traffickers - the people orchestrating human trafficking - thus also shedding light on the complex relationships between human traffickers and victims of human trafficking.