Policy and Complex Systems
DOS 2016 ). Other governments may be inhibited by a lack of capacity , such as the government of Lebanon , which has an underfunded and untrained law enforcement community that applies its anti-trafficking law “ unevenly ” ( U . S . DOS 2015 ).
Limitations of Predominate Approaches
There are generally two predominate perspectives for understanding human trafficking ( Salt 2000 )— an economic perspective that emphasizes “ trafficking as a business ,” and a law enforcement perspective that focuses on trafficking as criminal activity . Although both approaches are important for understanding human trafficking as a phenomenon , neither has proven effective for combating the practice . Both perspectives maintain an underlying assumption that human trafficking is a function of cohesive , coordinated transnational networks . This often leads to approaches that treat human trafficking like other forms of transnational crime , such as trafficking weapons , organs , and drugs ( Bhabha , 2006 ). This is problematic because it effectively dismisses the agency of victims , and implies that strategies for combating the trafficking of inanimate objects are also effective for combating the trafficking of humans . Prosecutions of human trafficking cases often hinge on the cooperation of victims who are frequently the sole source of evidence . The interception of potential trafficking victims does not yield the same evidence as seizing drugs or weapons . Victims must be willing to cooperate to provide the necessary evidence , but are often reluctant to do so because they may be involved in criminal activity themselves ( e . g ., illegal immigration , prostitution ), under duress due to being forced into the situation by their trafficker , fearful of harm or losing their jobs , or in situations of debt bondage in which they or their family face the loss of collateral if they fail to fulfill certain commitments ( e . g ., employment contracts , debts to labor recruiters ).
Victim-Centered Approach to Human Trafficking
The U . S . Department of Health & Human Services ( U . S . HHS ) ( 2016 ) identified two primary reasons victims of human trafficking are not detected ; victims do not identify themselves as victims , and others do not view them as such . The U . S . DHS and Department of State both follow and promote the victim-centered approach , which is based on the assumption that victims do not often self-identify and therefore require incentives to cooperate . This approach requires law enforcement knowing the dynamics of human exploitation and then leveraging that understanding to search for indicators of trafficking , such as physical abuse , the use of labor recruiters , and imbalanced labor contracts . Recognizing that victims may have been compelled to commit crimes such as prostitution , authorities using a victim-centered approach are encouraged not to penalize victims for crimes they commit as a result of being trafficked . This approach then makes accommodations for providing victims with needed services , such as shelter , psycho-social help , or repatriation assistance , which act as incentives for self-identification and cooperation with authorities . The overall premise is that , if an individual victim believes authorities are more interested in pursuing human traffickers and helping victims than persecuting her for her coerced crimes , she will be more willing to self-identify and cooperate ( U . S . DHS , 2016a ).
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