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This thesis assesses the governance of irregular migration and the practicalities of human smuggling in southern Algeria. It looks at the drivers, functionalities and institutions governing irregular migration and human smuggling in Algeria’s south and along its borders with Mali and Niger. After a brief overview of the history of irregular migration in the Sahara, the study analyses the mechanics and instruments through which the Algerian authorities manage irregular migration. It shows that they often attempt to play a balancing act between enforcing a hard security agenda while taking into account the role of the irregular migration economy for borderland people. Moreover, the thesis offers a micro assessment of migrant strategies and smugglers' modus operandi in the villages and cities along Algeria's borders with Mali and Niger, drawing from extensive fieldwork conducted across the region. Human smuggling appears to be a highly 'regulated activity' through a network of rules shared between the borderland actors. The study presents the features associated with the politics of informal rules of human smuggling, portraying them as contingent on their political and security environment. Finally, the research develops a chapter on the daily lives of migrants in the city of Tamanrasset, Algeria's southern main city, showing how migrants' presence shapes the city's character. It looks in particular at how lodging places, known locally as 'foyers', play an essential role in a migrant's life trajectory. Moreover, the research analyses the complex relationship between smugglers and migrants, notably via the activities of former smugglers ('passeurs') who became owners of 'foyers', playing a critical social role for new migrants.

Governments and leaders across the globe almost universally agree that human trafficking is a modern atrocity that has harshly negative effects for individuals, communities, entire states and the international community. Nevertheless, they are not in agreement on how best to investigate cases and provide aid to victims. Many states lack the resources to effectively create and implement policies. Governments must act to protect their citizens and people within their borders. Policies are necessary to correctly identify victims, investigate accusations, bring cases to trial and prevent vulnerable populations from becoming victimized through awareness. This thesis asserts that there is a link between the development level of a state and its ability to limit the grotesque crimes of trafficking that occur within its borders. Using the United Nation's annual report which details the development ranking of individual states, it is possible to comparatively analyze the ability of these states to comply with international standards established by the United States of America in the protection of victims of human trafficking. Special attention is paid to the challenges that societies face when there are drastic changes to states' economic activity or political stability and how these affect the frequency of trafficking occurrences and a government’s ability to respond.

Human Trafficking involves the various forms of coercion and force against millions of individuals all over the world into situations of unpaid labor, sexual exploitation, and organ sales. Attention to the phenomenon is relatively new and there is complexity both in how to address it and study it. When looking at human trafficking, issues of development, poverty, immigration, gender, international cooperation, social stigma, among others, are considered. The purpose of this research paper is to compare and analyze local law interpretations of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, or just "the Palermo Protocol", in a sample of countries who have ratified the international agreement. The countries selected for analysis vary from each other in how they stand as dominant "origins" or "destinations" of human trafficking and how well they do in eradicating the problem as categorized by the United States Trafficking in Persons Report (US TIP Reports) "Tier" statuses. Through asking a set of questions of each law, trends are revealed. The study found that local law documents used many elements from the Palermo Protocol to frame their documents; there were fewer differences than expected. The major differences were in how laws were integrated into the existing legal framework or if a comprehensive separate act was defined. Implications and the role of morality politics and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are theorized. Many studies in this field are laden with ever changing statistics, very specific case studies, or material that speaks to how the situation is stigmatized. All contribute to deeper understanding, but by objectively looking at how the major international mechanism works at a local level we may inch towards learning more about how the issue continues to pervade globally.

In this thesis, I explore how law enforcement officials in Mississippi and Alabama make sense of and respond to human sex trafficking cases. The central questions guiding this research project are: How do law enforcement officials perceive sex trafficking and what does this mean for victim identification and treatment? By conducting 20 interviews with law enforcement officials, I offer insight into how the training, or lack of training, officers receive impacts victim identification, labeling, and treatment. Further, I examine how perceptions, experiences, and training work to influence officer responses to those that do not fit a typical victim narrative, such as sex workers, immigrant, and migrant populations.

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Human trafficking, the cruel and inhumane crime that it is, exploits the lives of millions of people around the world. My study explores the common vulnerabilities that exist for victims of cross-national human trafficking. First, I analyze literature discussing individual and country- level victim demographics to identify characteristics that predict recruitment or abduction into human trafficking. Using the 2017 Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative, I demonstrate the applicability of Cohen and Felson's 1979 Routine Activity Theory (RAT) to explain the vulnerabilities to victimization further. More specifically, I use VIVA to assess the methods of control and types of exploitation utilized by domestic and international traffickers. A sociological study that combines the work of RAT and VIVA in relation to human trafficking victimization is yet to exist, therefore I am seeking to fill this research gap. The overarching goal of this study is to form a victim profile through cluster analysis and logistic regression in order to locate the unique patterns of victimization. My findings demonstrate that there is a significant relationship between the three clusters formed, the methods of control used by the perpetrator (physical, psychological, and economic abuse), and the types of exploitation suffered by the victim (sexual and labor exploitation). / Master of Science / Human trafficking is the abduction and exploitation of individuals, in which victims are manipulated into sex or labor trafficking in unfamiliar environments without compensation. Trafficking occurs beyond national borders, therefore I look at victims originating from all over the globe. The literature I utilize looks at individual-level demographics and national-level characteristics. I then use a database to link certain social and theoretical elements of these demographics and characteristics to the methods of control and types of exploitation traffickers enforce upon their victims. Overall, this study forms a victim profile and locates the unique patterns of trafficking victimization through multiple data applications. My thesis concludes with findings on clusters that combine age, gender, recruiter relations, literacy rates, and trafficking laws and regressions that link these clusters to physical, psychological, and economic control as well as sexual and labor exploitation.

Human trafficking within and across nations is a pervasive, insidious global criminal enterprise that endangers human rights and impedes social justice. Sex and labor are two fundamental types of human trafficking, but media and policies prioritize the former. Social work calls for empowering marginalized groups, and labor trafficking survivors—who are more likely women and immigrants of color—certainly fall into this category. Since 2003, every U.S. state has criminalized human trafficking, yet the issue persists. Most human trafficking analyses focus on federal or international, not state, policies. Thus, this critical analysis aimed to explore how human trafficking is conceptualized at the state level so that policies can be equitable. The research questions of this qualitative multiple-case study were: How do state policymakers conceptualize the problem of human trafficking, and how does this conceptualization differ among states? For answers, this dissertation applied content analysis to a purposive sample of legislative speeches about old and new state human trafficking laws. This dissertation adopted an intersectional lens to uncover what types of survivors (i.e., demographics, labor or sex trafficking survivors) policymakers emphasize when publicly justifying their stances. This study found that, on the whole, state human trafficking policymaking does not consider survivors’ intersectionality, primarily focuses on sex trafficking and prostitution, employs a prosecution-heavy frame, and highlights children and girls as prototypical survivors—minimizing the experiences of women, trans, and immigrant survivors of color. These findings lend empirical support to the observation that U.S. policies prioritize the prototypical young female survivor and sex over labor trafficking. The study carries implications for survivors, policymakers, and social workers, including helping equivocate sex and labor trafficking and ensure that policymaking better reflects the experiences of marginalized groups.

Miss Kathy is a documentary film that tells the story of Kathy Griffin-Grinan, a lead recovery coach for prostitution and human trafficking with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Her non-profit organization —We’ve Been There, Done That – works in conjunction with law-enforcement to offer the survivors of prostitution a chance at rehabilitation. With endless enthusiasm, she mentors survivors as they struggle to escape a destructive lifestyle. This film also explores the relationship between human trafficking and prostitution, while addressing issues of victimization and exploitation.