Human Trafficking of Men: A Gendered Perspective on Victimhood

Abstract

Dominant discourses regarding human trafficking have largely focused on the sexual exploitation of women and girls, leaving other profiles of victims out of discussion. Male victims remain under-considered within the aid sector and policymaking, leaving these victims inadequately represented in the law and without recourse. Combining insights from sociology, medical anthropology and criminology – through ethnographic methods and genealogical analysis –this study examines the reasons for and the implications of the invisibility of male victims of human trafficking, focusing on trafficking of men in Russia. Grounded in the constructivist and interpretivist tradition, this study examines the gender dimension of anti-trafficking programs and policies, the assistance available to male victims and how the international and Russian criminal justice systems respond to male trafficking. It examines male victimhood as experienced by the male victims themselves, and as narrated by the anti-trafficking actors. In analysing the empirical data, I build on an interactional approach to victimhood, and draw from theories regarding the hierarchy of victimhood, the ideal victim, social suffering, and gender. This thesis argues that the invisibility of male victims stems from how human trafficking has been defined in the law and from the gendered ways in which victimhood is understood and experienced. The thesis examines how knowledge about human trafficking was produced and at what point gender became embroiled in defining trafficking as a particular object for thought. Combining theories of gender and victimhood, the thesis demonstrates how the invisibility of male victims originated in interactionally constructed assumptions about victimhood and masculinity. These assumptions are not only reflected in the persistent misidentification of male victims, but reproduced in policy and advocacy, and mirrored in the practices of care in assisting trafficked men.