By Martina Prpic  

In December 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal to review Directive 2011/36/EU to strengthen the rules on combating trafficking in human beings and to better protect victims. Despite some progress achieved in recent years, it is estimated that over 7 000 people become victims of human trafficking in the EU on an annual basis, although the figure could be much higher because many victims remain undetected. Human trafficking is not only a serious and borderless crime, but also a lucrative business, driven by demand for sexual (and other) services. Criminals exploit vulnerable people (increasingly children), making high profits and taking relatively low risks. Vulnerability can result from a whole range of factors, including socio-economic ones, and migrants are a particularly vulnerable group. Gender also plays an important part, as women and men are not trafficked in the same way or for the same purpose. Women and girls represent a disproportionately high number of victims, both globally and at EU level, especially in terms of sexual exploitation. This form of exploitation is still dominant in the EU, even though other forms are on the rise, such as exploitation for forced labour and for criminal activities. The COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have brought new challenges for victims, as well as amplifying the vulnerabilities of those most at risk. Traffickers – like legal businesses – have increasingly moved to digital modi operandi. In its efforts to eradicate human trafficking, the EU has not only created a legal framework, comprising an anti-trafficking directive and instruments to protect victims' rights and prevent labour exploitation; it has also put in place an operational cooperation network involving decentralised EU agencies, including Europol, Eurojust, CEPOL and Frontex. Moreover, trafficking in human beings is a priority in the EU policy cycle for organised and serious international crime. The European Parliament plays a major role, not only in designing policies but also in evaluating their implementation. 

EPRS | European Parliamentary ResearchService , 2023. 12p.

By Nicole Vidal & Bryony Nisbet

  This study builds an understanding of the quantity and quality of refugees’ social networks, and their role in influencing public perceptions and engagement with the police. It applies the Social Connections Mapping Tool (SCMT) methodology, combined with in-depth interviews with refugees, asylum-seekers, police personnel, and associated services to identify refugee and asylum-seeker experiences, trust and confidence with Police Scotland and associated services. Findings: • Visibility, trust & confidence: Some participants had limited knowledge of Police Scotland or how to contact them. Confidence in Police Scotland is good despite negative experiences in their countries of origin. Most agreed increased police visibility is important. • Resources & Engagement: Officers recognised the importance of engaging with refugees and asylum-seekers but highlighted the challenge of operational demands and resourcing. • Language: Limited English language makes engaging with the police difficult, and ineffective interpretation and translation impacts on trust and confidence in the service. Police personnel agreed that language barriers can increase call and response times. • Gender: Efforts are being made to improve the gender imbalance in the police workforce. • Racism and hate crime: There was a general concern surrounding racism both at the hands of the community and the police, exacerbated by anecdotal accounts from others. Recommendations: • Engage with refugees and asylum-seekers to gain familiarity of their social networks. • Increase community support and empower communities to develop solutions to problems. • Utilise police officers’ cultural insights to assist with understanding community issues. • Equip all officers with community policing information and resources (e.g. cultural awareness training, working with interpreters, agreeing methods to support inclusion). • Enlist support of refugee-related organisations, local community organisations and/or faithbased organisations; these can serve as a bridge between the police and communities. • Work with the wider community to encourage knowledge sharing and mutual understand  

Edinburgh: Queen Margaret University, 2023. 53p.

By Alessandro Stanziani

For the first time, this book provides the global history of labor in Central Eurasia, Russia, Europe, and the Indian Ocean between the 16th and 20th centuries. It contests common views on free and unfree labor, comparing the latter to many Western countries where wage conditions resembled those of domestic servants. This gave rise to extreme forms of dependency in the colonies, not only under slavery, but also afterwards via indentured labor in the Indian Ocean and obligatory labor in Africa. Stanziani shows that unfree labor and forms of economic coercion were perfectly compatible with market development and capitalism, proven by the consistent economic growth that took place all over Eurasia between the 17th and the 19th centuries. This growth was labor intensive: commercial expansion, transformations in agriculture, and the first industrial revolution required more labor, not less.

New York; Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books , 2014. 270p.

Edited by Raphael Hörmann,  Gesa Mackenthun

Slavery – the subjection of some human beings to a state of bondage by other, more powerful, people – has been an accepted social institution since ancient times. It is less well known that slavery has also produced cultural contact zones in forcing members of different cultures into sharing the same places – whether in private households, on plantations, in mines and quarries, or indeed the same imaginative sites in works of art and public memory. The recent commemorations of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade by Britain (1807) and the United States (1808), as well as the rise of Black Atlantic Studies as a new academic field, have drawn new attention to this topic. In spite of these recent trends and the prominent position of slavery studies in British and American historiography, slavery’s implications for the study of cultural encounters remain a scholarly desideratum. This volume seeks to contribute to a better understanding of different forms of human bondage in cultural contact zones.

The essays in this collection represent a wide spectrum of the scholarship on slavery, as well as illustrating the vast range of conceptual approaches to the topic. They bring together research from several different disciplines and critical angles addressing, for example, archaeological reconstructions of labor camps in an cient Palestine, the moral significance of early Christian slavery, the ambivalent aestheticization of black bodies within the colonial culture of taste, Enlightenment discourses about black revolution, the significance of mythical narratives in African-American slave culture, the musical mourning for lynching victims, and the blindness toward the presence of slave laborers in Nazi Germany.
Most essays collected here are concerned with the cultural and human aspects of slavery as well as with establishing an understanding for the stark differences between various forms of slavery throughout history, stretching from antiquity into the twentieth century.

Münster, Germany: Waxmann Verlag, 2010. 296p.

Edited by Nikki Marczak and Kirril Shields   

Despite the catch-cry bandied about after the Holocaust, "Never Again", genocides continue to destroy cultures and communities around the globe. In this collection of essays, Australian scholars discuss the crime of genocide, examining regimes and episodes that stretch across time and geography. Included are discussions on Australia’s own history of genocide against its Indigenous peoples, mass killing and human rights abuses in Indonesia and North Korea, and new insights into some of the core twentieth century genocides, such as the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. Scholars grapple with ongoing questions of memory and justice, governmental responsibility, the role of the medical professions, gendered experiences, artistic representation, and best practice in genocide education. Importantly, genocide prevention and the role of the global community is also explored within this collection. This volume of Genocide Perspectives is dedicated to Professor Colin Tatz AO, an inspirational figure in the field of human rights, and one of the forefathers of genocide studies in Australia. Kirril Shields is a member of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He teaches at The University of Queensland and The University of Southern Queensland. Kirril is an Auschwitz Jewish Center Fellow, and a Fellow of the Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilisation, Royal Holloway. Nikki Marczak is a member of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute’s 2016 Lemkin Scholar. Her research focuses on Armenian women’s experiences and the current Yazidi Genocide by ISIS.

Sydney:  UTS ePRESS, University of Technology Sydney, 2017. 24p.

Edited by Nikki Marczak and Kirril Shields  

Genocide Perspectives VI grapples with two core themes: the personal toll of genocide, and processes that facilitate the crime. From political choices governments and leaders make, through to denialism and impunity, the crime of genocide recurs again and again, across the globe. At what cost to individuals and communities? What might the legacy of this criminality be? This collection of essays examines the personal sacrifice genocide takes from those who live through the trauma, and the generations that follow. Contributors speak to the way visual art and literature attempt to represent genocide, hoping to make sense of problematic histories while also offering a means of reflection after years of “slow violence” or silenced memories. Some authors generously allow us into their own histories, or contemplate how they may have experienced genocide had they been born in another time or place. What facets contribute to the processes that lead to, or enable the crime of genocide? This collection explores those processes through a variety of case studies and lenses. How do nurses, whose role is inherently linked to care and compassion, become mass killers? How do restrictions on religious freedom play a role in advancing genocidal policies, and why do perpetrators of genocide often target religious leaders? Why is it so important for Australia and other nations with histories of colonial genocide to acknowledge their past? Among the essays published in this volume, we have the privilege and the sorrow of publishing the very last essay Professor Colin Tatz wrote before his passing in 2019. His contribution reveals, yet again, the enormous influence of both his research and his original ideas on genocide. He reflects on continuing legacies for Indigenous Australian communities, with whom he worked for many decades, and adds nuance to contemporary understanding of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, two other cases to which he was deeply committed.

Sydney;  NSW: University of Technology Sydney, 2020. 217p.

Edited by Ilke Adam Tundé Adefioye Serena D'Agostino Nick Schuermans Florian Trauner

"Migration, Equality and Racism trigger ever more salient societal debates. More than 80 VUB academics and co-authors joined forces for this book. Philosophers, lawyers, psychologists, health scientists, sociologists, geographers, criminologists, communication and political scientists … look at migration, equality and racism from different disciplinary angles. Together they aim to contribute to an exercise of humanism as a praxis of criticism or a ‘technique of trouble-making’, in the words of Edward Said. Through 44 thought-provoking and informed opinion pieces, they question widespread beliefs on migration, equality and racism and propose solutions that might disturb. Let this book be a source of inspiration for those who want to spark an informed debate on the ever more salient issues of migration, equality and racism, for those who want to learn more on how and why humanism has often remained an empty box for migrants and racialized groups. Or for those who are in search of inspiration for a just future for all. Migration, Equality and Racism is the work of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) think tank POINcaré and was created under the direction of Ilke Adam, Tundé Adefioye, Serena D’Agostino, Nick Schuermans and Florian Trauner."

Brussels: ASP editions - Academic and Scientific Publishers, 2021. 260p.

Edited by El ˙zbieta M. Go´zdziak · Izabella Main

This open access book brings into dialogue emerging and seasoned migration and religion scholars with spiritual leaders and representatives of faith-based organizations assisting refugees. Violent conflicts, social unrest, and other humanitarian crises around the world have led to growing numbers of people seeking refuge both in the North and in the South. Migrating and seeking refuge have always been part and parcel of spiritual development. However, the current 'refugee crisis' in Europe and elsewhere in the world has brought to the fore fervent discussions regarding the role of religion in defining difference, linking the ‘refugee crisis’ with Islam, and fear of the ‘Other.’ Many religious institutions, spiritual leaders, and politicians invoke religious values and call for strict border controls to resolve the ‘refugee crisis.’ However, equally many humanitarian organizations and refugee advocates use religious values to inform their call to action to welcome refugees and migrants, provide them with assistance, and facilitate integration processes. This book includes three distinct but inter-related parts focusing, respectively, on politics, values, and discourses mobilized by religious beliefs; lived experiences of religion, with a particular emphasis on identity and belonging among various refugee groups; and faith and faith actors and their responses to forced migration.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023. 200p.

By Domenic Vitiello 

In The Sanctuary City, Domenic Vitiello argues that sanctuary means much more than the limited protections offered by city governments or churches sheltering immigrants from deportation. It is a wider set of protections and humanitarian support for vulnerable newcomers. Sanctuary cities are the places where immigrants and their allies create safe spaces to rebuild lives and communities, often through the work of social movements and community organizations or civil society. Philadelphia has been an important center of sanctuary and reflects the growing diversity of American cities in recent decades. One result of this diversity is that sanctuary means different things for different immigrant, refugee, and receiving communities. Vitiello explores the migration, settlement, and local and transnational civil society of Central Americans, Southeast Asians, Liberians, Arabs, Mexicans, and their allies in the region across the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Together, their experiences illuminate the diversity of immigrants and refugees in the United States and what is at stake for different people, and for all of us, in our immigration debates.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022. 311p.

By  Rosita Fibbi • Arnfnn H. Midtbøen and Patrick Simon

This open access short reader provides a state of the art overview of the discrimination research field, with particular focus on discrimination against immigrants and their descendants. It covers the ways in which discrimination is defined and conceptualized, how it is measured, how it may be theorized and explained, and how it might be combated by legal and policy means. The book also presents empirical results from studies of discrimination across the world to show the magnitude of the problem and the difficulties of comparison across national borders. The concluding chapter engages in a critical discussion of the relationship between discrimination and integration as well as pointing out promising directions for future studies. As such this short reader is a valuable read to undergraduate students, as well as graduate students. IMISCOE Short Reader

Cham: Springer Nature, 2021. 105p.

Edited by Mirjam van Reisen, Munyaradzi Mawere, Klara Smits, Morgane Wirtz

Eritrean refugees are being trafficked and enslaved in Libya, where they are tortured to force relatives to pay a ransom for their release. Labelled with a digital code, they are moved along in the possession of the traffickers through a series of ‘black holes’, in which their access to digital technologies and connectivity is highly controlled. They are tortured, abused, extorted and subjected to sexual violence. Many die along the way. If they make it to the Mediterranean Sea, they risk being intercepted and returned to Libya or dying at sea. Over the period of this study (2017–21), it is conservatively estimated that at least 200,000 men, women and children have fallen victim to human trafficking for ransom in Libya, and the cumulative value of this trade for that period is estimated at over 1 billion USD. This detailed ethnographic study identifies the routes, modus operandi, organisation, and key actors involved in the human trafficking for ransom of refugees and migrants, who are desperately in need of protection. The book is part of the GAIC Research Network and African studies series published by Langaa RPCIG and makes an important contribution to the literature on human trafficking, migration studies, African studies, modern slavery, social protection and governance.

Cameroon: Langaa RPCIG, 2023. 821p.

By Sanae Youbi  

In September 2020, the European Commission proposed a reform of the current European Union (EU) approach to migration and asylum entitled a ‘Common European Framework for Migration and Asylum’. A major novelty of this ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ is the proposal to introduce a ‘Pre-Entry Screening’ procedure (Screening Regulation), allowing European authorities at EU external borders to channel irregular third-country nationals towards either an asylum or a return procedure. > As it stands, the proposed Screening Regulation seeks to address the issue of irregular entries and asylum-seekers’ mobility through policing via one single tool, namely a fast screening procedure. This may lead to policy incoherence and human rights abuses justified in the name of internal security and public safety. > Instead of endorsing this restrictive approach, this policy brief argues that the Council and the European Parliament should amend the proposed Regulation by designing an approach inspired by a solidarity-driven system, aligned with EU values. Detention outside the EU borders must not be generalized but based on real security risks, not assumptions based on threat perceptions. The instrumentalization of migration should be rejected, and the focus should be on more sustainable legal venues for humanitarian and labour migration.

Bruges, Belgium, College of Europe, 2023. 15p.

By Nancy Rodriguez and Rebecca Tublitz    

  Immigrants represent a substantial part of the United States: today, 41 million immigrants reside in the U.S., representing 13 percent of the population. Migration of people from different parts of the world to the U.S. have led to dramatic changes in the racial and ethnic make-up of the population. In 1970, Latinos represented 4.6 percent of the U.S. population. Today, just under 1 in 5 people in the U.S. self-identifies as being of “Hispanic or Latino origin”, making it the second largest racial or ethnic group after Whites.1 The 62 million people across the U.S. who identify as Latino represent an enormously diverse array of communities in terms of ethnic heritage, migration histories, citizenship status, and language. Latinos also identify with a wide variety of racial categories, including Black, White, multi-racial, and other.2 However, as the Latino population has grown, so too has the criminal justice system. Since 1970, the U.S. experienced unprecedented growth in the size and scale of its criminal justice system, driven largely by policies favoring the increased use of arrest and incarceration for offenses both minor and more severe.3 Today, 1.2 million people are incarcerated in the nation’s state and federal prisons, while nearly 550,000 are held in jail.4 Annually, almost 9 million are arrested and booked into jail each year. …

Irvine, CA:  UCI School of Sociology: Department of Criminology, Law and Society     2023. 31p.

By Nancy Rodriguez, Amalia Mejia, Rebecca Tublitz  

In this policy brief, we first outline the landscape of immigration policies across SJC sites. Next, we illustrate, across four SJC sites, the detainer trends as well as the immigration policies of the respective jurisdictions. In conclusion, we discuss the implications for criminal justice policy and reform, focusing on undocumented immigrants and Latino/as.

Irvine, CA: University of California, Irvine. Department of Criminology, Law and Society2023. 18p.

By Mark Olden

Every year an estimated 5,000 migrant seasonal workers come to Sweden to do the back-breaking work of clearing landscapes and planting trees. They make up 85 – 90 per cent of the workforce and are employed by firms sub-contracted by the companies that dominate Sweden’s forest sector. "Duped” sheds a light on the endemic mistreatment they face. From earning less than promised, to being employed under unlawful terms. From working in poor conditions to being overcharged for their accommodation: the evidence is consistent and overwhelming. It contains testimonies from migrant workers, a union, investigative journalists and a small forest owner - stories of exploitation and harm that challenge the claim that such forestry is sustainable. This briefing shows that this exploitation is rooted in the economic logic which underpins the Swedish forestry model, and which is also driving nature destruction.

Bruxelles Belgium: FERN, 2023. 18p.

By Amarat Zaatut and Stephanie M. DiPietro  

Ethnographic studies of immigration and crime were prominent in the early decades of the twentieth century, yet contemporary scholarship has been dominated by quantitative approaches. In this review, we heed the call of those who have lamented the “collective amnesia” and “newness fetish” that characterize much of contemporary criminology and revisit classic ethnographies of immigration and crime, with an emphasis on the unique methodological contributions of this early work. Next, we synthesize the small but growing body of contemporary ethnographic research on immigration and crime, which includes the policing of immigrant communities in the age of “crimmigration;” the lived experiences inside contemporary deportation/ detention regimes; the integration experiences of Muslims, a highly marginalized but understudied population; and immigrants’ unique vulnerabilities to and experiences of victimization, to illustrate the value of qualitative approaches for capturing the nuances of immigrants’ experiences in the new age of immigration.

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2023. 6:285–306 

By Nicole Chávez, Suma Setty, Hannah Liu, and Wendy Cervantes

Over two decades, immigration enforcement in the country’s interior has separated families and caused lasting damage to children in immigrant families and communities. These policies, resulting in worksite raids, arrests, and deportations, have undermined the health and well-being of more than 5 million children with at least one undocumented parent. In the meantime, Congress has failed to enact meaningful immigration reform that centers the dignity and humanity of immigrant families. Long-standing community members continue to suffer.

A new report from CLASP and UnidosUS analyzes trends in interior enforcement and documents the negative impact on children’s economic security, access to food, housing stability, mental health, and educational outcomes.  Although there has been a downward trend in interior enforcement actions since 2009, harmful policies remain in place and more humane policies–such as the DACA program, parental interest directive, and protected areas policy–remain stalled in the courts or face implementation challenges. 

Washington, DC: Center for Law and Social Policy, and UnidosUS , 2023. 27p.

By Jennifer Heath and Ashraf Zahedi

Book of the Disappeared confronts worldwide human rights violations of enforced disappearance and genocide and explores the global quest for justice with forceful, outstanding contributions by respected scholars, expert practitioners, and provocative contemporary artists. This profoundly humane book spotlights our historic inhumanity while offering insights for survival and transformation.

Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2023. 369p.

Edited by Janne E. Nijman, Barbara Oomen, Elif Durmuş, Sara Miellet and Lisa Roodenburg  

Increasingly, urban actors invoke human rights to address inequalities, combat privatisation, and underline common aspirations, or to protect vested (private) interests. The potential and the pitfalls of these processes are conditioned by the urban, and deeply political. These urban politics of human rights are at the heart of this book. An international line-up of contributors with long-term engagement in this field shed light on these politics in cities on four continents and eight cities, presenting a wealth of empirical detail and disciplinary theoreticalisation perspectives. They analyse the ‘city society’, the urban actors involved, and the mechanisms of human rights mobilisation. In doing so, they show the commonalities in rights engagement in today’s globalised and often deeply unequal cities characterised by urban law, private capital but also communities that rally around concepts as the ‘right to the city’. Most importantly, the chapters highlight the conditions under which this mobilisation truly contributes to social justice, be it concerning the simple right to presence, cultural rights, accessible housing or – in times of COVID – health care. Urban Politics of Human Rights provides indispensable reading for anyone with a practical or theoretical interest in the complex, deeply political, and at times also truly promising interrelationship between human rights and the urban.

New York; London: Routledge, 2023. 249p.

Edited by Hastings Donnan, Madeleine Hurd and Carolin Leutloff-Grandits  

Migrating Borders and Moving Times analyses migrant border crossings in relation to their everyday experiences of time, and connects these to wider social and political structures. Sometimes border crossing takes no more than a moment; sometimes hours; some crossers find themselves in the limbo of detention; for others, the crossing lasts a lifetime to be interrupted only by death. Borders not only define separate spaces, but different temporalities. This book provides both a single interpretative frame and a novel approach to border crossing: an analysis of the reconfiguration of memory, personal and group time that follows the migrants' renegotiation of cross-border space and recalibrations of temporality. Using original field data from Israel and northern and south-eastern Europe, the contributors argue that new insights are generated by approaching border crossing as a process with diverse temporalities whose relationship to space has always to be empirically determined.
Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2017. 201p.