Trafficking in Women: Border Control, Gender and Criminal Policy

Abstract

In Europe the issue of trafficking has been quasi-invisible until the 1990s. More recently the visibility of trafficking has been raised as a problem of numbers. Millions of people were reported to be enslaved, forcefully moved across borders and exploited. Yet, numbers were felt to be misleading, insufficient and incapable of speaking the truth about trafficking. This article will analyze the incidences of statistics and numbers in the design of criminal policies in the European Union from a governmental and gender perspective that look for counterpart the abolitionist statements in prostitution.