Supply

8 In this market system, supply refers to the source or objective availability of services. The supply of individuals willing to migrate and work is almost endless. [4] With respect to the supply side of the trafficking process, “eternal human yearning for improving one’s life makes people vulnerable to the lures of trafficking” (U.S. State Department, 2005:8). The steady supply of persons trying to improve their lives, or those of their children, is created by a climate of (relative) poverty and political and/or social exclusion; a lack of educational or employment opportunities; domestic violence, discrimination and violence against women, children or ethnic minorities; government corruption; persecution; absence of the rule of law; and natural disasters and war (U.S. State Department, 2005; Europol, 2009, Aronowitz, 2009). Furthermore, cultural practices of child fosterage in certain societies may facilitate the illegal adoption or exploitation of child (domestic) workers (Aronowitz, 2006).

9 Globalization has (re)shaped the supply and demand side of the increasingly transnational human trafficking market in several ways. Firstly, globalization has served to not only increase the supply of exploitable workers, but also the demand for them. Increased competition from non-domestic markets has led to global pressure on employers to reduce production costs by any available means. Traffickers take advantage of this increasing need for cost efficiency and cheap labor by acting as intermediaries, offering low-cost labor in exchange for a profit – and in their search for cheap labor, employers such as brothel (or factory) owners sometimes remain indifferent to violating the human rights of their employees. Globalization has thus acted as a catalyst for increased demand for cheap products and thus cheap labor. Since exploited labor is by definition cheap and profitable, it has also acted as a catalyst for increased demand for trafficked persons.

10 Additionally, the lowering of trade restrictions of international borders, the increased cross-border traffic and the declining distinction between domestic and international markets have given criminal organizations the opportunity to conduct transnational operations around the world and at an international level (Schloenhardt, 1999). The ease of movement of goods, services and capital has increased in regions where borders are porous or where the external borders have expanded and Member States’ citizens are allowed to travel legally and visa-free between countries, thereby reducing the risk of detection for traffickers.

11 Thirdly, globalization has influenced key “push”-factors in societies which increase the vulnerability of specific groups and make them more susceptible to trafficking and transnational crime. The spread of technology and market forces have put pressure on traditional cultures and have, in some cases, led to severed community bonds. The damage to these crucial societal ties leaves certain groups marginalized, excluded and/or impoverished, making them extra vulnerable to exploitation. Additionally, the increased consumerism and materialism associated with globalization can lead to a global anomie where large portions of a population do not have the means to acquire the so strongly desired consumer goods. In an attempt to acquire the money to access these goods, the turn to transnational crime (either as perpetrator or as migrant) is in some societies promoted (Passas, 1999).

Demand

12 In investigating the causes underlying human trafficking, previous research has often focused on (the causes of) the supply and delivery of trafficked persons. Research has also examined the traffickers who supply the victims and the systems and means by which they operate. Equally important, but receiving less attention, is the demand side of human trafficking.

13 Within the context of trafficking, there is no agreed upon definition of the term “demand”. In marketing and economics, demand typically refers to “the desire and preference for a particular commodity, labor or service” (ILO, 2006:15). Demand can be elastic or inelastic: whereas elastic demand for a service fluctuates depending on the price of the good or service, inelastic demand for a product or service remains stable despite price fluctuation, meaning that consumers will pay almost any price for the product or service. In the case of sex trafficking, the demand for cheap sex is highly elastic: a price increase will lead to a reduction in demand (Kara, 2009). Conversely, a greater availability of individuals providing services at lower prices will result in more customers, hence, greater demand.

14 In the case of prostitution, worldwide demand has always existed. The booming sex industry is fueled almost exclusively by males purchasing the sexual services of women, girls, boys and men. The sex industry is expanding from traditional brothels and street prostitution to escort services, “private clubs” and residences, massage parlors, advertisements through the internet and online (child) pornography. The male demand for prostitution is said to be the “most immediate and proximate cause” contributing to the expansion of the sex industry. Were it not for men’s demand to purchase sex, pimps, recruit­ers and traffickers would not generate a profit and “the prostitution market would go broke” (Raymond, 2004:1160).

15 In examining demand for trafficked sex workers, three distinct groups can be identified. The first group comprises customers or clients of trafficked persons; this is referred to as primary demand.

16 The second and third groups are the employers (owners, pornographic film producers, managers of brothels or massage parlors) and third parties involved in the trafficking process (recruiters, travel agents, transporters). These groups expect to generate revenues from human trafficking and create what is referred to as derived demand.

17 Demand is heavily influenced not only by prices, costs and revenues, but also by social and cultural contexts, attitudes and practices within a country, and is more prevalent among certain occupational groups. The exploitation of women in the booming billion dollar commercial sex and entertainment industry is driven by “… the unequal power relations that exist in patriarchal societies, power relations that sexualize women and objectify them for consumption” (Goward, 2003:no page), which are more prevalent in certain societies and cultures than they are in others.

The Trafficking Business Chain

18 A crucial difference between primary and derived demand is not only whether the person generating it is making a profit, but also their chronological order in the trafficking chain. Human trafficking as a crime is not based on a single event but can be seen as a process or chain from recruitment and transportation, through employment, exploitation and purchase (Aronowitz, 2009). The demand for trafficked persons occurs on three different levels (or stages) of personal or institutional demand related to human trafficking.

19 Derived demand is created at the beginning of the trafficking chain or process by recruiters, agents, transporters and others who facilitate the recruitment, harboring and transportation of trafficked persons for (commercial) sexual exploitation. At the middle of the trafficking chain, the second level of derived demand is formed by the employers, owners, managers of brothels, or those who may “order” women, children or men who meet certain specifications or match the characteristics or unique selling points desired by their customers or clients. The third level of demand is primary and created at the end of the trafficking chain by the customers or clients of the prostitutes, consumers of child pornography or other victims being sexually exploited.

The Relationship between Supply and Demand

20 Supply and demand are intricately interwoven and their relationship is complex. A multi-country study of the demand side of human trafficking for commercial sexual services and domestic labor found that demand for such services is “... intimately related to questions concerning supply and vulnerability; indeed, we could almost say that supply generates demand rather than the other way around” (Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2003:41). It has been argued that it is the market – or supply – in trafficked women which creates the demand – not the customers (Newman, 2006). While traditional market theory operates on the presumption that demand creates supply, a steady supply of unskilled (migrant) workers willing to accept jobs or provide services can sometimes generate the demand for such services and labor, rather than vice versa (Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2002; Newman, 2006).

21 Supply and demand are shaped “…by a complex and interlocking set of political, social, institutional and economic factors” (Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2002:54). Demand is created as a result of the availability of a service. Anderson and O’Connell Davidson (2002:26) provide the following as an illustration to support their argument:

22

For example, in the poor and developing world, many children work as “shoe-shine boys”, whereas few do so in the affluent world. The absence of this form of child labour in affluent countries and its presence in poorer nations cannot be explained through reference to different levels of absolute demand for shoe-shiners’ labour. Here, as elsewhere, the relationship between supply and demand is mediated by a range of economic and social factors, as well as by government policies on employment (including child labour), immigration, education, and welfare.

23 In an empirical econometric analysis of supply and demand determinants of sex trafficking, the ILO (Danailova-Trainor & Belser, 2006) identified the two most important factors contributing to human trafficking. Supply is influenced by youth unemployment or underemployment, especially for females, in a country; there is a statistical correlation between the level of female youth unemployment and the number of victims trafficked out of a country. Furthermore, demand for trafficked victims is higher in countries that are more open to globalization and that have more prostitution (Danailova-Trainor & Belser, 2006). Another important factor influencing supply in source countries is the presence of organized crime (Shelley, 2010). Shelley argues that organized crime brings them together.

24 While markets may be driven by supply and demand, it is argued that they are influenced by the ‘institutional framework’ or responses to the trafficking market within a society, which include cultural variables as well as the existence and enforcement of laws and the success of prosecutions and punishments.

Low Cost

29 Given the fact that the demand for sexual service is elastic, price fluctuations have a strong impact on demand (Kara, 2009). Research on the groups most likely to purchase sex has shown that men tend to purchase sex in cities and countries where commercial sex is cheaper. Prostitutes in border towns see an influx of “sex tourists” from neighboring countries where the price of prostitutes is higher. This thriving sex tourism has seen Finnish and to a lesser extent Swedish men travel to cities in Northwest Russia [5] and Germans travel to various Czech border towns. [6] Likewise, during times of economic recession, clients are known to bargain with the prostitutes for cheaper prices. In downtown Toronto, the current economic crisis has caused the plunge of average prices for street prostitutes’ services from $60 to $20 for oral sex and from $150 to $80 for intercourse (Crawford, 2009). In this particular case, it can be theorized that the demand for street prostitution has decreased due to the clients’ overall tighter budgets, but simultaneously the supply of prostitutes may have increased due to the financial crisis, leading to a double-curve shift which caused the plummeting of prices. These reflections suggest that price is an important consideration for many purchasers of sex and that when sexual services are supplied more cheaply, levels of demand may rise (Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2004).

30 It is easy to see why the price of (services provided by) trafficked sex workers would be lower in comparison with their more expensive voluntary counterparts. In the exploitative trafficking process, trafficked victims are not only “low cost products” for the consumers, but also for the traffickers earning the profits from their labor. Trafficked sex workers can be forced by brothel, massage parlor and sex shop owners into working long hours for little or no pay. Although some expenses need to be made to keep the business running – costs incurred as a result of transportation, documents, smuggling fees or rent, as well as costs aimed at reducing the risk of detection, such as bribes – salary expenses are small to non-existent and the costs can easily be passed on to the trafficked victim in the form of debts.

Malleability

31 Trafficked persons, through deceit, force, threats, violence, intimidation and isolation are molded into malleable persons from whom traffickers, pimps, brothel owners and employers can extract the maximum profit from their forced labor. Bales (no date:6) defines malleability as “…the ability of the consumer to force the enslaved trafficked person to do anything they require, or to do anything they want to the trafficked person.” Malleability or control of the victim, brought about initially through physical coercion (e.g. sexual assault) combined with malnutrition, sleep deprivation, isolation, psychological intimidation, threats to family members, and the withholding of documents, is exacerbated by the fact that the victim is often isolated, does not speak the local language and is unfamiliar with his/her surroundings.

32 Malleability is a unique selling point for both traffickers and purchasers of sexually exploited persons. Being able to easily manipulate and control the victim ensures that (s)he will not try to escape or cooperate with the authorities if an investigation is initiated. The fact that traffickers in some Western European countries reportedly recruit prostitutes working in their own (Eastern European) countries ensures their compliance (Aronowitz, 2009). For the customer or client of the trafficked victim, malleability or compliance ensures that his wishes are granted without resistance. Trafficked victims are rarely able to “set limits on the nature and terms of their encounters with clients” (Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2004:22). Trafficked prostitutes can therefore more easily be forced to engage in more “exotic” and unusual sex acts or to comply with the client’s requests for unprotected sexual intercourse than their non-trafficked counterparts.

Youthful Prostitutes

33 In a multiple-country study of clients who purchased sex, researchers found that “just over three-quarters of all clients surveyed expressed a preference for prostitutes aged 25 or under, with 22% stating a preference for those aged 18 or below”, in spite of the fact that two thirds of the clients were between the ages of 31 and 50 at the time of the study. “Despite their own advance towards middle age and beyond, youth was still a quality that most clients in all countries sought in sex workers (Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2003:19).

34 While trafficked persons are more likely to provide cheaper and more malleable sex services than non-trafficked individuals, commercial sex with persons under the age of consent is always exploitative. [7] The specific demand for young prostitutes can be motivated by different consumer beliefs and interests. It may be tied to the desire for prostitutes who are “sexually innocent”, inexperienced, undemanding and passive. They may be more malleable than older, more experienced prostitutes who are more likely to set boundaries. Some clients have a specific sexual interest in pre-adolescent children: an interest they can act upon through sex tourism. Yet others act upon key misconceptions and myths about sexual health which particularly prevail in Asia and Africa: for instance, the belief that having intercourse with a child can cure HIV/AIDS, can improve potency or will bring good luck in business ventures (Hughes, 2005; Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2002).

35 Included in the market for young children is the more specific market for virgins. The myths regarding ‘healing powers’ of having sex with young children apply equally if not more to virgins, creating an immense demand for this exclusive ‘consumer good’. Particularly in Asia, “virgins are an elite commodity sought by high ranking or wealthy individuals who can afford to buy a rare human commodity that is forever changed after the man is finished with her” (Hughes, 2005:25). After being sold as a virgin, a girl may be resold as a virgin or inexperienced girl a few more times. However, the value of her services quickly falls and to her customers she becomes a prostitute like all the others.

The Exotic versus the Same

36 According to Hughes (2004) there is evidence of a growing demand for foreign women of various ethnic backgrounds by customers of prostitutes. Men’s sexual expectations are driven by myths and ethnic stereotypes. Some men sexualize the “exotic” – those of other ethnic or racial backgrounds, or national identities. Research carried out on white Western male sex tourists in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeast Asian countries, reveals that they “…simultaneously sexualise racially “othered” persons, and de-sexualise white women” (Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2002:23). For example, African-American prostitutes in the United States have to fight against a cultural stereotype of black women being overly sexual and “animalistic” (Carter, 2003:215). For sex tourists who travel specifically to engage in commercial sex acts with foreign prostitutes, their ‘otherness’ creates a feeling of surrealism and exempts the client from any moral responsibility while engaging in acts which would be unacceptable or illegal in his own country (Roby and Tanner, 2009).

37 Another pattern may emerge. Once sex workers of a particular nationality or ethnic background begin working in a country (as either freelance sex workers or trafficked victims), a market for this particular “type” of sex worker may be established. This in turn generates demand which employers (pimp, brothel and massage parlor owners) and third parties (recruiters, transporters) are willing to fill.

38 Although clients and employers to an extent value “the exotic”, at the same time it is important that sex workers are within certain limits of sameness: a balance needs to be found between these two contradictory selling points. This balancing act is also often found in the marketing of day-to-day products, where every candy bar is profiled as being different to the rest, “wild” or “exotic,” while at the same time certain boundaries of sameness are being upheld (Bales, no date). “Sameness” can therefore for some clients be a prostitute’s unique selling point which matches the demand generated for particular victims who meet certain criteria desired by the client base. For example, the Mexican Cadena family created a market for sexual services among illegal migrant workers in Florida and then supplied the men with often-underage women trafficked from Mexico. The young women were beaten and threatened (Aronowitz, 2009). [8]

Repressive Measures

44 Police from the United States to Finland to Zimbabwe have taken repressive measures to penalize male buyers. The most straightforward measure is the arrest of prostitution clients (sometimes facilitated by the use of undercover female agents). An extensive study by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2007 found that arrest of male buyers reduced the likelihood of future prostitution arrest by approximately 70 percent (Brewer et al., 2007). Investigations of other state police records showed that arrests did not seem to cause a displacement effect to other areas. These results therefore suggest that apprehension of prostitution clients has a significant specific deterrent effect on patronizing behavior. However, the general deterrent effect of arrest of prostitution clients for soliciting can be expected to be small, as only a very small proportion of men visiting prostitutes is arrested (Brewer et al, 2007). The impact of law enforcement strategies on overall demand is thus very low. Additionally, some research has indicated that the fear of arrest can increase demand among risk-seeking men, who purchase sex ‘because of the kicks.’ Several studies have found that the likelihood of arrest heightens excitement and encourages men motivated by risk to visit prostitutes (Monto, 1999).

45 Other, more creative repressive measures include anti-cruising ordinances to prevent men from cruising to look for street prostitutes; seizing and impounding the vehicles of men who buy women in prostitution; issuing driving bans to habitual buyers; blocking off streets with cement barriers to prevent men from stopping and soliciting prostitutes on certain streets; and checking identity cards. Citizens in one city formed “citizens’ patrols” to alert patrol members to incoming “kerb-crawlers” (those driving around and stopping to solicit prostitutes for sex) and to drive them away. Volunteer members patrol the streets and confronted the kerb-crawlers by waving placards with messages such as “You can’t get no satisfaction” and “Get Back Where you Once Belonged” (Kryszko and Raymond, 2006; Hughes, 2004). Although it can be expected that these measures have a larger specific deterrent effect on men purchasing commercial sex acts, especially if family members or spouses are made aware of the offense, little to no empirical evaluations have been conducted to determine the effectiveness of such programs.

Legislative Measures

46 To protect the rights of women working in prostitution, a number of countries have legalized the sale, but criminalized the purchase of commercial sex. In Sweden, national legislation defines prostitution as a form of male violence against women and under the Swedish Penal Code, chapter 6, section 11, “a person who … obtains a casual sexual relation in exchange for payment shall be sentenced for the purchase of a sexual service to a fine or imprisonment for at most six months” (Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications, 2005:1). The main rationale behind the approach is that when the buyers risk punishment, the consumer demand for buying prostitutes will decrease, which in turn will diminish the profitability of the local prostitution markets. After adoption of the law the number of women involved in (street) prostitution in Sweden has decreased significantly, [12] although the statistics on trafficked women appear to have remained fairly constant (Ekberg, 2004).

47 Article 19 of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings requires Parties to the convention to consider the criminalization of knowingly using the services of a trafficking victim. One of the considerations for including this provision in the Convention was “…the desire to discourage the demand for exploitable people that drives trafficking in human beings” (Council of Europe, 2005:58). [13]

48 With respect to human trafficking in the form of child sex tourism, a number of countries have passed legislation allowing for the prosecution of their citizens who travel abroad and engage in sexual relations with children. The U.S. Federal Law Regarding Child Sex Tourism, 18 USC 2423, punishes anyone who “travels with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct” or those who “engage in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places”. This also covers interstate travel within the United States. [14] Under the U.K. Sexual Offences Act, 2003, article 72, persons can be prosecuted for a sexual crime that is viewed as a criminal offence in both countries. [15] Similarly, Australia has passed the Crimes (Child Sex Tourism) Amendment Act 1994 No. 105, 1994, punishing its citizens for having sexual relations with a child under the age of 16 outside of the territory (Aronowitz, 2009). [16] Overall, over thirty countries have passed some type of extra-territorial legislation allowing the country to prosecute its own nationals for crimes that have been committed against children in another country (Svensson, 2006).

Awareness Raising Campaigns

49 To tackle primary demand, awareness-raising campaigns are targeted primarily at (potential) customers of prostitutes, warning them that prostitutes may be victims of trafficking. The particularly powerful campaign of Crime-Stoppers U.K. warns customers of prostitutes: “Walk in a punter (customer), walk out a rapist.” [17] A similar poster campaign in Indonesia was aimed at men who visit Indonesia’s Batam Island sex area. The message of the poster is clear: “How Would you Feel if Someone did this to Your Daughter?” (Kryszko and Raymond, 2006). The website of the Dutch Crime-Stoppers Meld Misdaad Anoniem (‘Report Crime Anonymously’) reports that a number of valuable tips from customers came into the organization leading to the rescue of victims and the arrest of traffickers. [18]

50 Awareness-raising campaigns could also be aimed at the general public to raise awareness of the plight of trafficked victims, or to inform them about the health risks involved in commercial sex purchases, working conditions of prostitutes, the influence of street prostitution on neighborhoods and communities, and the legal responses to soliciting. These approaches appear to be promising: for example, in a study of a sample of the Japanese public, Otsuki and Hatano (2009) found that the more a man knew about human trafficking, the more likely he was to indicate objections to buying sexual services.

51 A third group which could be susceptible to these campaigns are third parties who may come into contact with prostitutes (such as taxi and limousine drivers or hotel personnel) and who may (unknowingly) be facilitating human trafficking. In these cases, hotels should be informed and held accountable if personnel such as concierges are found to arrange encounters between hotel guests and prostitutes who may be trafficked, or if hotel employees exploit their staff for these purposes. Awareness-raising campaigns may prompt these parties to (anonymously) report information on prostitutes whom they suspect to be trafficked.

Social and Cultural Measures

52 A number of programs in Canada and the United States have involved the “naming and shaming” of men who were arrested while soliciting for prostitution. In the hope of using public embarrassment to discourage and deter (also future) buyers, police departments have taken measures such as publishing the clients’ names and photos in newspapers or videos on the internet and television. In one city, officials reported that such publication helped cut solicitation by customers by about 40 percent. In another U.S. city, police not only posted pictures of the men arrested for soliciting, but also provided their names, birth dates and hometowns. [19] Other programs use public billboards to humiliate those who have purchased prostitutes (Hughes, 2004; Kryszko and Raymond, 2006).

53 Educational programs have targeted men who have been arrested for solicitation for prostitution. The education of customers of prostitutes has taken the form of programs such as the First Offender Prostitution Program in the United States (commonly referred to as “john schools”). The program was designed to reduce the demand for commercial sex by educating “customers” about the negative consequences of prostitution. Men arrested for soliciting prostitutes were given the option of being prosecuted or paying a fee and attending a one-day class.

54 Studies on the effectiveness of these john school programs show diverse results. An evaluation of the program in San Francisco found that “it has been effective in substantially reducing recidivism among men arrested for soliciting prostitutes” (Shively et al., 2008:4); the city boasts of a sharp decrease in reoffending rates to around one percent as a result of their pre-trial program for first-time offenders (Wilcox et al., 2009). Assessments of Toronto’s john school workshops suggest that the programs succeeded in informing men about the personal risks of buying sex and the Canadian prostitution law as well as in raising awareness of the victims and dangers associated with the sex industry (Wortley et al., 2002). After attending the program, men were more likely to accept responsibility for their actions and more likely to admit that they might have a sex addiction. However, these attitudinal changes did not translate into significant changes in anticipated future behavior. [20] In another study, Monto and Garcia (2001) compared heterosexual men attending a john school workshop with offenders who did not attend the workshop. All of the men were arrested for soliciting for prostitution in Portland, Oregon. The researchers found no statistically significant differences between the groups; however, it should be noted that the recidivism rates in both groups were very low. [21] This supports the hypothesis of Brewer and colleagues (2007) that post-arrest interventions or extra penalties of soliciting may not have a noticeable impact given the large specific deterrent effect of arrest, because there may be little additional deterrence that could be achieved.

55 Other educational programs such as faith-based healing and counseling programs are rehabilitative in nature and usually address a broader set of behaviors related to ‘sexual addiction’ and emotional and psychological problems rather than purchasing sex acts (Hughes, 2004).

56 A more long term strategy focusing on the reduction in the overall demand for prostitution requires “…long term awareness raising and educational work to bring about a fundamental re-visioning of sexuality, age, gender relations and prostitution. Such campaigns would need to target young people in particular” (Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2004:9). Lederer (2009) refers to this demand reduction strategy as a social marketing campaign aimed at educating and raising awareness among boys and young men.

57 Projects in Canada, France, Indonesia, the Philippines and the United States have attempted to challenge and change the sexual attitudes and practices of men and boys. The projects challenge men in recognizing their role as buyers of women in prostitution and educate men and boys to the harm of prostitution and trafficking. One campaign in France used prominent men to sign a statement recognizing prostitution as violence and to pledge not to engage in prostitution and rape stressing that men recognize a form of masculinity based on mutual respect, not domination (Kryszko and Raymond, 2006).