Our Social Work publishing features books and journals that help to address issues arising from poverty, inequality and social injustice.
The list includes monographs, textbooks and practitioner guides, series, including Research in Social Work co-published with the European Social Work Research Association, and the Critical and Radical Social Work and European Social Work Research journals.
Policy Press is the leading UK book publisher for books on child abuse, child sexual exploitation, child protection and children’s social work.
Social Work
The arrangement of the Circles of Analysis model, set out in this chapter, represents three complex adaptive systems: the suitable target, the motivated offender and the conducive environment. The model posits human trafficking as a non-linear pattern that emerges from the interaction between the circles, represented at their intersection. The pattern of exploitation cannot be understood or predicted by examining each of the circles in isolation from each other, nor by seeking linear causal pathways, but as resulting logically from multiple antecedents, interactions and outputs that emerge at the intersections of each circle.
The Circles of Analysis theory provides a multi-dimensional model of human trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation. The benefit of the model is its transferability between disciplines and professions that will enable professionals to structure their investigations, assessments and interventions. It offers a richer, holistic analysis of trafficking and modern slavery as a dynamic process of non-linear development over time which is superior to the current reductive, descriptive models that have been used to inform policy and practice.
Traffickers are ever more sophisticated in their recruitment and control of victims, their seizure of new opportunities and ability to adapt to changing social conditions and efforts to prevent the trade in human beings.
This book presents a unique model to assist professionals, researchers and policy makers by providing a new theory that describes and explains how patterns of trafficking and exploitation emerge and are sustained over time.
It critically evaluates the international development of current legal, policy and practice developments in the field of anti-trafficking and argues that these are based on overly simplistic and reductive analyses of the problem. As such they are inadequate in addressing the complex, non-linear and adaptive nature of the phenomenon.
Focusing on factors that influence the relationships and interactions between the victim, offender and environment, this innovative model equips professionals to consider prevention, protection, intervention and disruption activity rather than limiting action to criminal justice-related outcomes.
Each point is illustrated with case study examples from the author’s own practice experience and research and from the work of his colleagues involved in investigating, disrupting and prosecuting traffickers and identifying and supporting victims towards safety and recovery.
Methods of coercive control of people for trafficking and exploitation through slavery, servitude, forced labour and the trade in human organs is frequently acknowledged within key strategies and policies produced by different governments and their agencies, but rarely is it described or explained in any detail. This contrasts with the attention that is given to the trafficking and abuse of primarily women and girls, in the context of sexual exploitation.
This chapter examines the evolution of current strategies and its influence on policy and practice specifically in relation to the problem of modern slavery and human trafficking. It utilises true case studies to exemplify and then discusses some of the underlying assumptions that have informed or contributed to the present state of policy and professional practice, the identification, pursuit and prosecution of traffickers, and the development of prevention and safeguarding strategies.
It proposes that current defintions be set aside for now and instead of trying to establish what trafficking and modern slavery is, indicates the need to investigate why and how trafficking and modern slavery happens and why it affects specific populations in different contexts over time.
The Circles of Analysis is a theory that explains trafficking and exploitation of both children and adults in an evolutionary, adaptive and emergent way, making it possible to recognise (and set out evidentially) how and why a person is being trafficked and exploited presently and their risk for future re-victimisation.
The foundation of professional decision-making should be understanding human trafficking and modern slavery as an output of a complex of systems (namely, the victim as a suitable target, the perpetrator and the conducive environment), which are maintained by a range of mechanisms over time. These principles are the keystone of the Circles of Analysis model which describes and explains human trafficking, modern slavery and other forms of exploitation and offers a new theoretical framework for structured professional judgement and decision-making.
Human trafficking, and exploitation is not an objective, single and measurable event, or product. It is a transformational process that responds to new or changing conditions over time and place. Many of its processes and interactions between victims, perpetrators and their environments are hidden and therefore largely incomprehensible.
Exploitation is described and explained in this chapter as a pattern of transactions that emerges from the synergistic, dynamic relationships between the exploiters and the exploited. These interactions are autonomous as every person, as a component of a social system, has their own motivations and needs which will drive them towards perceived opportunities to meet those needs. Other individuals or groups that have synergistic needs and motivations will endeavour to attract them to join. Exploitation may therefore refer to patterns of complex behaviour that emerge from local interactions between system components over time.
Theory explains a phenomenon, why and how it occurs or does not occur. Theory provides a foundation and logic for the development of approaches for responding to the phenomenon, preventing or mitigating it. Theory can be quantified, tested and developed so that approaches can be strengthened, refined and adapted to changing conditions.
This chapter, criticizes the common tendency to try to define the problem of trafficking of human beings (THB) and exploitation and work backwards to identify correlates and causes in a linear pathway of logic – if A then B. Human trafficking is complex and non-linear and exploitation is a complex pattern of transactions that emerges from the synergistic, dynamic relationships between the exploiters and the exploited.
Exploitation must be understood first and foremost as a pattern of abusive behaviour that has particular goals. By doing so, it is possible to draw upon vast knowledge in professional and academic literature and upon clinical experience. Reframing the understanding of cases of human trafficking and modern slavery as cases of abuse and interpersonal violence or maltreatment through which profit or other gain is generated can offer greater opportunity for flexible, multi-systemic interventions.
This chapter examines the aetiology of exploitation through slavery, servitude, forced labour and other exploitative practices in relation to constructs of organised crime. A concept of the ‘degrees of organisation’ in relation to trafficking and exploitation is presented to describe and explain its presentation and modalities. A series of case studies is presented to illustrate the research evidence that has been cited and the argument that is being made.
Methods for trafficking of human beings vary according to the degrees of organisation of the traffickers, their motivation, their objectives and their physical, social, cultural, political and economic environments. The chapter explores how business models of organised crime groups (OCGs) engaged in trafficking of human beings reflect traditional business practices in the offenders’ country of origin and argues that today’s modern ‘slave trade’ is shaped by cultural, geographic and economic forces that coalesce to create a conducive environment in which patterns of exploitation emerge and are maintained.
The chapter concludes by establishing the need for a sound concept of exploitation as a mode of abuse, built upon a solid theoretical foundation to take account of, and make better utilisation of existing resources, measures and remedies.
The trafficking of people for the purposes of exploitation relies on a fundamental power imbalance between the traffickers and those who are the victims of exploitation. Those who may be suitable targets for exploitation are also likely to be those with the least power or at least fewest resources to protect themselves within their wider social environment. Recognising this enables us to address systemic and structural conditions in the framing of exploitative scenarios, where exploitation is not necessarily only perpetrated by an individual or group of individuals.
Previous approaches to understanding the problem of trafficking, modern slavery and other forms of exploitation have been hindered by a ‘segregative’ approach to not only theory development but also practice guidance and service design. To overcome this problem, this chapter develops an integrative theoretical model of trafficking, modern slavery and other forms of exploitation.
This chapter looks in detail at some of the essential components of an enquiry, whether single or multi-agency, with an emphasis on practical approaches to involve adults and working with other agencies. We revisit the duty of care and the role of escalation in fulfilling this. The vital role of advocacy is considered.
