Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia 9781447353270

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia Laura A. Dean

DIFFUSING HUMAN TRAFFICKING POLICY IN EURASIA Laura A. Dean

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Policy Press University of Bristol 1-​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 pp-​[email protected] www.policypress.co.uk

North America office: Policy Press c/​o The University of Chicago Press 1427 East 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637, USA t: +1 773 702 7700 f: +1 773-​702-​9756 [email protected] www.press.uchicago.edu

© Policy Press 2020 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 978-​1-​4473-​5283-​9 hardcover ISBN 978-​1-​4473-​5328-​7  ePub ISBN 978-​1-​4473-​5327-​0  ePdf The right of Laura A. Dean to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Clifford Hayes Front cover image: GettyImages-685046123 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Policy Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

I dedicate this book to the millions of human trafficking victims around the world today and their advocates who work tirelessly in the hope that governments will improve human trafficking policies to better serve all victims, regardless of gender, age, nationality, or citizenship status. The author’s proceeds from this book will be donated to human trafficking shelters for the rehabilitation of victims throughout Eurasia.

Contents List of maps, figures, and tables List of acronyms Map: The scope of human trafficking policies in Eurasia Note on transliterations, place names, and permissions Acknowledgements Preface Introduction: Diffusing the politics of human trafficking from Europe to Asia 1 Contrasting policy approaches to human trafficking in Eurasia 2 Diffusing human trafficking policy adoption 3 Tracing the development of anti-​trafficking institutions 4 Linkages among actors in anti-​trafficking networks 5 Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies 6 Empirical comparisons of human trafficking policy across Eurasia Conclusion: The implications of human trafficking policies Methodological appendix: Peeling back the research process Appendix 1: Semi-​structured interview questions Appendix 2: Human trafficking policies in Eurasia Appendix 3: Typology of human trafficking policies in Eurasia Appendix 4: Code book for content analysis of laws and policies Appendix 5: Code book for content analysis of interviews Appendix 6: Quantitative variable coding and sources Appendix 7: Scores for Human Trafficking Policy Index Bibliography Index

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vi vii viii ix x xii 1 23 47 73 99 121 149 177 197 221 223 229 231 233 235 237 239 265

List of maps, figures, and tables Map The scope of human trafficking policies in Eurasia

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Figures 0.1 1.1 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 6.1 6.2

Diffusing human trafficking policies in Eurasia Patterns of policy diffusion: human trafficking policies Anti-​trafficking network in Ukraine Anti-​trafficking network in Latvia Anti-​trafficking network in Russia Anti-​trafficking network intersections Human Trafficking Policy Index in Eastern Europe Human Trafficking Policy Index in the Caucasus and Central Asia

5 30 104 108 112 116 156 156

Human trafficking policy typology Influence of policy adoption variables by country Effectiveness of anti-​trafficking institutions by country Number of initiated criminal cases and rehabilitated victims 2005–​15 by country Variable influence on policy implementation by country Human Trafficking Policy Index variables Compliance with Human Trafficking Policy Index Determinants of human trafficking policy adoption Determinants of human trafficking policy implementation Mixed method analysis summary findings Human trafficking policies in Eurasia Typology of human trafficking policies in Eurasia Code book for content analysis of laws and policies Code book for content analysis of interviews Quantitative variable coding and sources Scores for Human Trafficking Policy Index

25 65 95 125

Tables 1.1 2.1 3.1 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7

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140 153 157 165 168 170 223 229 231 233 235 237

List of acronyms AHTNET Transnational Partnership Networking against Human Trafficking AIC Advanced industrialised countries BISS Baltic Institute of Social Sciences CBSS Council of Baltic Sea States EU European Union GDP Gross domestic product GRETA Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings HTPI Human Trafficking Policy Index IDP Internally displaced person ILO International Labour Organization IOM International Organization for Migration IPU Inter-​Parliamentary  Union MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs MOU Memorandum of Understanding NC National coordinator NGO Non-​governmental organisation NRM National referral mechanism OECD Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development OLS Ordinary least squares OSCE Organization for Security and Co-​o peration in Europe SDG Sustainable development goals UN United Nations UNGIFT United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime USAID United States Agency for International Development TIP Trafficking in persons VOT Victim of trafficking

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Estonia Lativa Lithuania Belarus

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Ukraine

Kazakhstan

Moldova Uz

be

Georgia Armenia Azerbaijan

Low

Tur k

Medium

me

kis

tan

nis

Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan

tan

High

Note: This map displays the average policy ranking each country received on the Human Trafficking Policy Index described in Chapter 6. Country scores ranged from zero for an un-​encompassing policy to 15 for an encompassing policy. A high ranking denotes countries with an average score 9–​15, medium ranking is a score from 6 to 8.9, and a low ranking is an average score 5 and below. Thanks to Brett Chloupek for constructing the map for this book.

The scope of human trafficking policies in Eurasia

Russia

Note on transliterations, place names, and permissions Transliteration of Ukrainian and Russian words follow the Library of Congress system. For readability, standard Russian place names are used for cities like Moscow (instead of Moskva) and Chelyabinsk (instead of Cheliabinsk) and soft signs for words such as Kazan (instead of Kazan’) are removed. Latvian diacritical marks are used for place names and respondent pseudonyms with no transliteration. Ukrainian place names and respondent pseudonyms use the Ukrainian spelling for example Kharkiv and Kyiv. If a Russian, Ukrainian, or Latvian author published their work in English, their personal transliteration of their name is preserved –​for example Tyuryukanova (instead of Tiuriukanova) and Eglitis (instead of Eglītis). Permission was granted by Taylor & Francis for reprinting sections from my earlier articles ‘The Diffusion of Human Trafficking Policies in the Post-​Soviet Region: Case Studies of Policy Adoption in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia’, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 2017, 19(5): 403–​18 and ‘Criminalizing Human Trafficking in Latvia: The Evolution and Implications of Human Trafficking Policies’, Journal of Baltic Studies, 2018, 49(2):129–​55.

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Acknowledgements This book would have not been possible without all of the people in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia who were willing to take time out of their busy lives and talk to me about their experiences advocating for better human trafficking policy in their country. They are truly an inspiration to me and I am so thankful to have been able to learn from them through their amazing anti-​trafficking work. My fieldwork was supported by Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship, Amerikas Latviešu Jaunatnes Apvienība (ALJA) scholarship, and numerous awards from different entities at the University of Kansas. A  Social Science Research Council Eurasia Program Dissertation Development Award Fellowship supported my dissertation writing in 2013–​14. The Kennan Institute’s Title VIII Summer Research Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and an American Research Publication Grant from the American Association of University Women supported my summer book writing. Finally, a Williams Professorship from Millikin University provided a course release and research funding to help me complete this book manuscript. There are several people who also helped me immensely during my field research. In Ukraine, I would like to thank Hanna Antonova from the International Organization for Migration in Kyiv who was instrumental in facilitating interviews in several NGOs around the country. I would also like to thank my research assistant in Ukraine, Alla Bernadska, for helping me set up interviews throughout Ukraine and for her perseverance with one particular Ukrainian official who shall remain nameless. Kyra Gordon and Kali Sutton were great anti-​ trafficking advocates and friends while I was in Ukraine. In Latvia, the Iluta Lāce and Marta Centre have always been supportive of my research and willing to help me in whatever way they can. Lāsma Stabiņa and Dmitrijs Trofimovs at the Ministry of Interior were also instrumental in facilitating contacts in Latvia. Jānis Kļaviņš transcribed all of my Latvian interviews and I  appreciate his commitment and  tenacity to finish the job. Monika Hanley has also been a great friend and supporter of my research over the years. I am also thankful for the research assistance I received from Anh Nguyen at the IOM Regional Office in Vienna in triangulating my policy lists and providing contacts in the region. My research assistant Anastasia Dovgaia at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars proved

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Acknowledgements

invaluable in helping me update my datasets, policy lists, and getting the manuscript into book form. Thanks to the many advisers, colleagues, and friends who offered comments and support during the book-​writing process, including Alesha Doan, Erik Herron, Hannah Britton, Steven Maynard-​ Moody, Matt Miles, Donald Haider-​Markel, Heather Yates, Lauren McCarthy, Nicole Butkovich Kraus, Erin Trouth Hofmann, Dana Johnson, Catalina Hunt, Cindy Buckley, Brett Chloupek, Kateryna Ivashchenko-​Stadnik, Irina Zherebkina, Dan Monroe, Amber Lusvardi, and my editor at Policy Press, Laura Vickers-​Rendall. Igor Maslennikov and Galina Berezovskaya helped me navigate the intricacies of Ukrainian bureaucracy. I  would also like to thank my host parents Saiva and Andris Spūlis, my Latvian professor Iveta Grīnberga, and my undergraduate professor Paulis Lazda for sharing their love of Latvia with me and helping me on this journey. Last, but certainly not least I would like to thank my family for their support, especially my husband Matthew Flaten. He has been a tireless supporter of my educational endeavours and this book would not have been possible without him.

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Preface Čaka iela, a main street running through the Latvian capital of Rīga, was named for the famous Latvian writer Aleksanders Čaks, but in the post-​communist period it has become synonymous with something more sinister. I first crossed this street in 1999, while studying abroad at the University of Latvia through my undergraduate institution, the University of Wisconsin-​Eau Claire. I crisscrossed the infamous Čaka Street daily, naive to the working women of Čaka Street, the main street for prostitution in Rīga. One evening, while returning home with friends, the women on Čaka Street began yelling things to me, but not knowing Latvian or Russian at the time, I could not understand what they were shouting. Arriving home to my apartment, I asked my landlady about the women and she told me, very matter-​of-​factly, that they were prostitutes and it was their choice to stand on the street and sell themselves. This thinking symbolises the Latvian mindset toward prostitution for me and it was not until many years later that I learned first-​hand that this was not the whole story; that many of these women did not have the luxury of choice. This experience has shaped my life and research as I went on to study Latvian and then the Russian and Ukrainian languages in order to be able to work and conduct research in this region. As a Fulbright Research Fellow in 2007–​08, I  also volunteered for a year at the Resource Centre for Women, Marta, the leading women’s organisation in Latvia and the only organisation at the time rehabilitating victims of human trafficking. Volunteering was the only way I could gain direct experience with this issue. At Marta Centre, I witnessed the battle ground for trafficking first-​hand through training seminars with police and border guards and work lobbying the Latvian government. My volunteer work led me to want to examine the role of government and effectiveness of human trafficking laws in the region more thoroughly and was the inspiration for this book.

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Introduction: Diffusing the politics of human trafficking from Europe to Asia Muratbek along with his cousin and neighbour were promised agricultural jobs by an acquaintance in their home country of Uzbekistan. Instead of employment they were forced to work as indentured servants for 14 hours a day on a cattle ranch in the Caucasus region of Russia. They suffered frequent beatings from their captors on the farm because they were Uzbek. When they finally escaped, they could not report what had occurred to the police in Russia because they entered the country illegally and would be deported if they reported the crime (Narizhnaya, 2012). Beyond the physical injuries male victims1 of forced labour endure, the long-​term effects include post-​traumatic stress disorder, depression, disabilities, and victims often have a hard time holding stable jobs in the future (Surtees, 2008). When they returned home to Uzbekistan there were limited rehabilitation services available to them because they were male trafficking victims. Without rehabilitation services and with limited opportunities for employment in Uzbekistan they are likely to look for work abroad and possibly become victims of forced labour once again, perpetuating the cycle of human trafficking. Muratbek and his friends are the new face of human trafficking from Europe to Asia. They are a far cry from the female victims of sex trafficking, dubbed ‘Natashas’ because of their seemingly similar Slavic features (Hughes, 2000) that most people associate with Eurasia and that most trafficking legislation is designed to help. Acknowledging male victims and forced labour requires governments in this region to take a holistic approach to combating human trafficking by adopting laws and offering rehabilitation services for all victims of human trafficking. It necessitates human trafficking institutions such as police and social

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

services being open to providing rehabilitation to different types of victims and shelters to house men and children as well as women. Including all victims of trafficking also demands international actors focus on more than just sex trafficking in the signals that they send to states on the importance of combating this problem. Expanding the idea of victim beyond ‘Natashas’ requires governments to take a renewed focus on labour trafficking as an important aspect of this crime and include labour ministries in their anti-​trafficking efforts and networks. This book analyses these anti-​trafficking efforts in Eurasia2 and how they have diffused to the national level through policy adoption, anti-​trafficking institutions,3 human trafficking networks, and policy implementation in order to determine how human rights-​ based approaches transfer to national-​level policy making in different regime types. Human trafficking is a form of gender-​based violence recognised as a human rights violation and a crime against humanity by the United Nations (UN) Security Council, while the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pinpoint the importance of human trafficking and its links to poverty, gender inequality, and political instability. Human trafficking is an issue that is particularly important in Eurasia, which has seen a dramatic increase in the number of persons trafficked into and through the region since the collapse of communism. During this transition from a command economy to a market economy, women were among the first to feel the burden. The rise in human trafficking in Eurasia has resulted from the economic polarisation and its disproportionate effect on women, which has been enhanced by this feminisation of poverty, corruption, ethnic conflict, and porous borders. With links to prostitution and migration, human trafficking carries a moral policy element, and economic inequalities are often played out in stereotypes of trafficking victims portrayed in trafficking policy. The gender order in Eurasia shapes notions of masculinity and femininity into power relationships, where there is a bifurcation of the human trafficking policy subsystem into law enforcement focusing on criminalisation aspects of trafficking policy and victims’ services provision with the rehabilitation of victims. It produces an unequal power relationship and a gendered division of labour where governments prioritise human trafficking as a crime over a victim-​ centred approach. These inequalities are found not only in policy adoption and implementation but also in the anti-​trafficking institutions and networks designed to implement the policies often perpetuating these gendered disparities. Victim blaming is also prevalent and many of the chapter vignettes and quotes from respondents demonstrate the

2

Introduction

gender problematics in societies across Eurasia. This is why a gendered lens is necessary to analyse human trafficking policy approaches with criminalisation and rehabilitation programmes meeting the needs of a wide array of victims. The region between Europe and Asia is one of the largest source regions in the world for victims of human trafficking (Hughes and Denisova, 2004), due to the socio-​economic conditions in the region, high profits from trafficking, and the nascent stage of many of the laws and policies aimed at combating trafficking in the region (Bartilow, 2008). All 15 countries in Eurasia are categorised as source and transit countries for trafficking victims, while Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Kazakhstan are increasingly seen as destination countries for the trafficking of men, women, and children (TIP, 2015). Victim stereotypes, perpetuated in the trafficking policies of Eurasia, have produced their own regional type of ideal victim ‘Natashas’ (Hughes, 2000) but increasingly men and children from this region are victims of labour exploitation, suggesting that there are factors at play within these countries that encourage human trafficking. Women and girls account for 72% of global human trafficking victims identified, but almost 50% of the identified victims in Central Asia were men and boys (UNODC, 2018). In Eurasia, authoritarian regimes use human trafficking, masked in the language of international human rights norms, to increase their power and control their citizens. Adopting human trafficking policy is a means to demonstrate that regimes care about gender-​based violence while avoiding other human rights abuses like freedom of speech and press. While many of the challenges faced by women in this region have been extensively documented (Einhorn, 1993; Buckley, 1997; Gal and Kligman, 2000; Eglitis, 2002; Kuehnast and Nechemias, 2004), human trafficking is one of the most pervasive and deadly issues, spanning not only Eurasia but the entire globe. Scholars and practitioners in the field have defined the characteristics and scope of the problem in Eurasia (Hughes, 2000; Shelley, 2002; Tyuryukanova, 2002; Stoecker and Shelley, 2005; Schuckman, 2006; Buckley, 2009b, 2018; McCarthy, 2015). This book contributes to the growing scholarship on human trafficking by developing a theoretical framework to understand policy diffusion in different regime types. Public policy and international politics scholars are interested in how policies and norms are passed down or diffused from the international level to the national level and how these policies change and adapt to particular contexts. This book uncovers how the international norms against human trafficking have diffused to Eurasia and how policy makers have adapted policies to fit their national environments. It takes the policy diffusion framework,

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

which has been predominantly tested on cases within the United States and expands its application to include a policy variation and implementation in a multi-​country and mixed-​methods study of Eurasia. The main research question examines why some countries adopt and implement policies while others do not and the subsequent institutions and networks that form as a result of these policies or the lack thereof. More specifically, the diffusion of innovation framework is used to examine whether variations in Eurasia concerning human trafficking policy adoption and implementation are due to internal determinants such as the type of political system, level of democracy, bureaucracy, and economic factors, or from external pressure from the US and the international community. This nuance is critical because policies develop due to different factors and human trafficking is a unique policy type in that the US and international community have had a significant impact on this policy development around the world. Assessments of the laws in this region reveal holes in the current policy that, if filled, could reduce human trafficking. Thus, understanding the scope and policy implementation of the human trafficking laws in this region is vital so that governments can develop more effective ways to combat this problem and tackle underlying causes of trafficking. I theorise that the same elements that influence a country to adopt a piece of legislation will also influence how successfully a country will implement policies. While the theory of diffusion has been tested mostly in the US and advanced industrialised countries (AIC), it is argued that many of these same influences will affect authoritarian and semi-​authoritarian regimes as well, especially when human trafficking is framed as a human rights issue. The diffusion of human trafficking policies in Eurasia is displayed in Figure  0.1 and visually demonstrates the bottom-​up and top-​ down influences on policy adoption and implementation. Gendered regulatory and redistributive policies4 embodied in human trafficking laws and policies in Eurasia are typologised into five different policy approaches, not just one amorphous policy. Previous studies have ignored internal elements and over-​emphasised external pressures, whereas this research breaks apart the different external pressures into four different categories displayed in Figure 0.1. The top-​down external pressures found diffusing to the national level with human trafficking policy are from the Palermo Protocol, US, European Union, Council of Europe, and they are country dependent. These are balanced with grassroots bottom-​up pressures influencing human trafficking adoption and implementation with a few differences

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Figure 0.1: Diffusing human trafficking policies in Eurasia External pressure: top-down diffusion processes Palermo Protocol

United States

Feedback loops

Council of Europe

European Union

Feedback loops

5

Introduction

Human trafficking policy adoption and implementation

Corruption

State capacity

State commitment

Law enforcement

Bureaucratic influence

Policy entrepreneurs

Issue salience

Interest groups

Street-level bureaucrats

Internal determinants: bottom-up diffusion processes Note: This figure visually demonstrates the diffusion of human trafficking policies in Eurasia with internal determinants from the bottom-up diffusion processes and external pressure from the top-down diffusion processes influencing policy adoption and implementation. Feedback loops provide information about adoption and implementation barriers and successes.

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

between the two policy processes. State commitment, interest group strength, policy entrepreneurs, and issue salience facilitated policy adoption while bureaucratic influence and state capacity impeded it. All of these variables also influenced policy implementation, but issue salience was dropped during implementation, policy entrepreneurs were exchanged for street-​level bureaucrats, law enforcement and corruption were added because they facilitated and impeded policy implementation. The figure also shows the feedback loops on policy implementation and adoption from interest groups and other entities in the policy subsystem that produce implementation monitoring reports and based on their knowledge of the policy-​making process circumvent unresponsive anti-​trafficking intuitions, sometimes supplanting the government institutions when the government fails to act. All the case studies had both top-​down and bottom-​up diffusion processes with human trafficking policy but only Latvia was able to balance this top-​down approach with a grassroots bottom-​up policy adoption and implementation processes. Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia theorises that human trafficking policy follows this pattern of policy making as policies diffuse to the national level via policy adoption, anti-​trafficking institutions, human trafficking networks, and policy implementation through national-​level human rights-​based approaches to combat human trafficking in different regime types.

The scope and definition of human trafficking Human trafficking is defined differently in every country of Eurasia. Despite these differences, all the countries in this region have signed and adopted the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000, otherwise known as the Palermo Protocol.5 According to the protocol, human trafficking is defined as: the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or

6

Introduction

services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. (Palermo Protocol, 2000) Therefore, for the purposes of this book, trafficking shall be defined according to this international law, recognised by all the countries in this study. Human trafficking in Eurasia takes on many different manifestations, and almost every country possesses different facets of this crime. While this region has been recognised for sex trafficking, labour trafficking has become more prevalent in recent years (IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2012a). Countries are struggling to deal with this transformation, as the gender dynamics of the crime have also changed from mostly female victims of sex trafficking to include increasing numbers of male victims of forced labour, with each type of trafficking and victims requiring their own unique kind of assistance. In fact, by 2012 Armenia did not have any rehabilitation centres for male victims, and existing shelters were tasked with rehabilitation when necessary (TIP, 2013), demonstrating that the victims of this crime have changed, and countries are struggling to keep up with these recent developments. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Ukraine, the decline in sex trafficking cases ‘is linked to increased levels of awareness among risk groups as well as relative impunity for labour trafficking crimes’ (2012a: 5). They also argue that the level of coercion and length of detention in labour cases is subtler than in sex trafficking cases, ‘which carry fewer grave consequences and create barriers to (self-​)identification’ (IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2012b: 1). Therefore, governments need a multifaceted approach to combat women, men, and children exploited for sex but also need to develop programmes and policies to combat recent manifestations of this crime such as labour trafficking of women, men, and children. Human trafficking is an evolving global crime that requires resilient policies that can respond to these emerging and cutting-​edge trends. Assessments on the scope of human trafficking in Eurasia vary. The Migration Research Center estimates the number of people in exploitative labour conditions in Russia alone to be around one million (TIP, 2013: 310) while the Global Slavery Index estimates that over 1.6 million people are currently enslaved in Eurasia (2018). This index situates Turkmenistan at 17th place in the world for the prevalence of modern slavery, Belarus in 20th place, while Estonia is the last in the region at 94th (Global Slavery Index, 2018). Gender inequality, large-​scale external labour migration, corruption, inefficient law enforcement, lack of trafficking awareness among the population, and

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stigmatisation of victims are all recognised as push factors for human trafficking (Gerasymenko, 2011). Important causal factors contributing to human trafficking include weak legislation, ineffective law enforcement, increased illegal migration due to economic instability, absence of the rule of law, and established trade routes for the slave trade within this region (Mukomel, 2013: 2). Internal trafficking within and among countries in Eurasia facilitated by employment opportunities occurs due to porous borders, visa-​free travel, and linguistic similarities as Russian is still the lingua franca in many of these countries. Additionally, the relative size of many countries in the region, such as Russia, provide a plethora of trafficking routes for traffickers from the poorer to the more affluent countries in Eurasia (Tverdova, 2011). The factors for internal trafficking also influence external trafficking as victims are sent from this region or transited through the region to other countries around the world. Buckley argues that human trafficking is more prolific in countries ‘where the demand for prostitutes is high and where Slavic women are prized as exotic and beautiful’ (2009b: 121). Patriarchal norms in post-​Soviet society make women vulnerable to trafficking (Abiala, 2006). Gender-​based violence, which is especially prevalent in Eurasia, also contributes to victims’ vulnerability with human trafficking; 75% of sex trafficking victims in Moldova were also victims of abuse or domestic violence (TIP, 2013). Mail-​order bride arrangements are a prevalent avenue for trafficking (Global Slavery Index, 2013), facilitated by corruption and organised crime; police, border guards, and customs officials have also been implicated as playing a role in the trafficking chain (TIP, 2013). In addition, child sex tourism has been a problem for boys and girls in Moldova both within the country and abroad (TIP, 2013). State-​run orphanages and foster homes have been implicated in trafficking throughout the region as well (TIP, 2013). Forced begging of children is a new type of trafficking seen in Moldova, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine (TIP, 2013). Labour trafficking can happen in almost any industry but there have been significant reports in the fields of domestic work, construction, agriculture, mining, factories, and open-​ air markets. There have been incidences of foreign workers dying while locked in factories, labour trafficking cases involving the construction of Winter Olympics and World Cup facilities, and North Koreans forced to work in the logging industry in eastern Russia (TIP, 2015). The unprecedented numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), because of protracted conflicts in Eurasia, are vulnerable to traffickers and the movement of this at-​r isk population has overwhelmed efforts to combat trafficking in some countries of the region.

8

Introduction

Setting the stage for human trafficking policy adoption The Palermo Protocol laid the foundation for national-​level policy on human trafficking around the world. This protocol was adopted in November 2000 by the General Assembly of the United Nations and opened for signatures in the city of Palermo, Italy (Hyland, 2001). Since the adoption of the Palermo Protocol and its entry into force in December 2003, countries around the world have expedited their own national policy responses that attempt to combat this modern form of slavery. To date, 175 countries are parties to this protocol. Article 9 of the Protocol states that countries must adopt their own policies and programmes to prevent and combat trafficking, and there are a number of other important provisions laid out in this document that set the stage for the adoption of country-​specific laws. Article 5 states that countries must criminalise human trafficking and organising or directing trafficking and Article 6 outlines the criteria for providing assistance to victims, creating a legal system that protects the identity of the victims, and providing monetary compensation for damages (Palermo Protocol, 2000). Articles 7 and 8 outline provisions that allow the victim to remain in the country to which they were trafficked, either temporarily or permanently, as well as to return safely to their country of origin with proper identification, if the victim decides they would like to return (Palermo Protocol, 2000). Other articles focus on prevention campaigns (Article 9), training for law enforcement and border control (Article 10), and cooperation and information exchanges among member states during investigations of traffickers (Palermo Protocol, 2000). All 15 countries in Eurasia have signed, ratified, or acceded to this international document. Russia, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan all signed the treaty in December 2000; however, it took most of the countries in the region until 2003 to ratify this convention on the national level. Avdeyeva’s analysis of domestic violence argues that countries in this region adopt human rights regimes because of ‘perceived or real social pressures to formally assimilate with other states in the global arena,’ but these countries have no intention or capacity to implement them (Avdeyeva, 2007: 877). However, in human rights-​based human trafficking policy there is a significant difference as, contrary to domestic violence policy, every country in the region has adopted some sort of national policy response to human trafficking, thus fulfilling at least part of their obligations to this international treaty. Additionally, while the Palermo Protocol set the foundation for trafficking policies, some countries in the region

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

adopted their own national policies before they ever signed onto this international treaty. Thus, arguing that the only reason countries adopted these policies is due to these international agreements and the coercion that came along with them does not explain the whole story. Even with the Palermo Protocol, adoption of national legislation and implementation of the protocol has been varied around the world. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report states that ‘the lack of specific and/​or adequate legislation on trafficking in persons at the national level is one of the major obstacles in the fight against trafficking. There is an urgent need to harmonize legal definitions, procedures and cooperation at the national and regional levels in accordance with international standards’ (UNODC, 2009a:  36). Despite the wide acceptance and adoption of this protocol in the international community, the phenomenon is increasing around the world, and many countries have not yet developed comprehensive policies to prevent human trafficking.

The politics of human trafficking Human trafficking encompasses many different policy areas, such as prostitution, labour, and immigration (Tyldum and Brunovskis, 2005). These topics are highly politicised, which, coupled with key actors who have their own political agenda, further complicates the situation and the policy environment around human trafficking (Tyldum and Brunovskis, 2005). Human trafficking is often conflated with prostitution and many policy adoption hearings and international agreements discuss different approaches to prostitution as part of the human trafficking policy debate (Doezema, 2002, 2005). For example, in Russia legalising the selling of sexual services was suggested as a way to reduce sex trafficking (Schuckman, 2006). While the nuances behind this debate are beyond the scope of this study, it is important to consider how often these terms are conflated when discussing the worthiness of trafficking victims, government-​sponsored rehabilitation services, and convicting traffickers. Since trafficking is often obfuscated with prostitution and sex work, this also makes policy formulation, coordination, and enforcement difficult for governmental and non-​ governmental entities (Kligman and Limoncelli, 2005). In addition to prostitution policy, responses to human trafficking have focused on several themes, including categorising victims as naive, the role of organised crime, the scale of the problem, the profits involved with human trafficking, and illegal migration (Jahic and Finckenauer, 2005). As a result of these different approaches, policy responses to

10

Introduction

human trafficking have ‘seemingly become a battleground for different positions on prostitution, immigration, and the position and status of women’ (Jahic and Finckenauer, 2005:  32). Corrin argues that the increase of human trafficking in Eastern Europe demonstrates ‘how considerations of migration and prostitution, when politically framed, can be decisive in the formulation of adopted policy strategies’ (2005: 543). Human trafficking is also conflated with immigration, another politicised issue around the world, especially in Eurasia, as Russia is the third largest country for immigration in the world after the US and Germany (Chudinovskikh and Denisenko, 2017). Policies on human trafficking, when framed as a migration issue ‘can appease both those for and against migration, as on one hand it can be presented as a fight against irregular migration and smugglers, while on the other hand it can be presented as an attempt to protect the rights of migrants who end up being enslaved and exploited’ (Jahic and Finckenauer, 2005: 36). Goodey critiques the conflation of smuggling and trafficking in many policy responses and laws, including the Palermo Protocol, which she argues was really an addition to a convention whose main goal was to combat organised crime concerned with ‘crimes against state parties rather than on individual victims of trafficking’ (Goodey, 2008: 423). She cites examples of clauses from the protocol that, instead of requiring change, state that actions should be taken to the degree possible or where it is deemed appropriate (Goodey, 2008). Illegal immigration and prosecution of trafficking can be contradictory in their implementation because a successful policy for illegal immigration is measured by the number of people in detention centres and these numbers can include victims of trafficking (Marinova and James, 2012). Consequently, a human rights approach to the adoption and implementation of human trafficking policy is one ‘where [the victims] are not merely regarded as illegal aliens and deported’ (Marinova and James, 2012: 11). The similarities between human trafficking and smuggling have led to conflicting interpretations that ‘have hindered international efforts in both assessing the scale of such problems and in directing policy towards addressing these crimes and their underlying causes’ (Corrin, 2005: 551). Furthermore, the confusion between irregular migrants and trafficking victims has led to the prosecution of victims and demonstrates that many countries lack legislation on protecting the human rights of these individuals (Oxman-​Martinez et al, 2005: 21). Tverdova (2011) argues that the major obstacle impeding effective policy in Eurasia is corruption. Organised crime is linked to corruption and officials in Eurasia have argued that combating organised crime

11

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

also fights human trafficking (Stoecker, 2000; Stoecker and Shelley, 2005; Schuckman, 2006). This strategy is not that effective because police are often reluctant to take on organised crime networks due to the fear of reprisals (Schuckman, 2006). Jahic and Finckenauer (2005) argue that trafficking policies are formulated to help governments keep migrants out of the country and police organised crime because they conceal anti-​immigration provisions that would be difficult to pass in legislatures. In doing this, countries over-​emphasise the policing aspect of trafficking with organised crime (Jahic and Finckenauer, 2005). Legislative and law enforcement efforts promoting the trafficker over the victim means that many victims are deported because they are in violation of migration laws and never testify against their traffickers (Orlova, 2005). Governments have also used human trafficking policy formulation politically to demonstrate ‘their concern for women’s issues, without venturing into the sensitive subjects of abortion, domestic violence, gender equality, etc’ (Jahic and Finckenauer, 2005:  36). Oxman-​Martinez and colleagues (2005) found gender dynamics in their analysis of national-​level policies with a focus on victims of the sex trade, most specifically women and children, while excluding other forms of trafficking and men. Thus, human trafficking policy is seen as a ‘women-​friendly’ policy even if the government does not really care about women’s issues and sometimes this policy is adopted and implemented at the expense of other victims. While every country in Eurasia has a different political context in which human trafficking policies were enacted, there are few interesting dynamics across the region that are important. First, the time period of this book, from 1998 to 2015, really underscores different political events in the region: fundamentally the rise Vladimir Putin and his consolidation of power. Through political developments in Russia we see an acceptance of international norms criminalising human trafficking but then entrenchment and retreat on the issue as he solidifies power and rebuffs external pressure. In 2014, Russia also had its voting rights suspended in the Council of Europe over its annexation of Crimea, which significantly influenced its relationship with that entity. The issue of human trafficking is politicised in Russia due to the involvement of the US government and the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report in naming and shaming countries that do not comply with their minimum standards for anti-​trafficking efforts. Second, there are also interesting dynamics in the region during the time period of this study from the EU as the Baltic States moved to membership and Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine shifted their sphere of influence from Russia to the West. Third, Russian annexation of Crimea and the war

12

Introduction

in eastern Ukraine have significantly changed dynamics in the region as the war has introduced reports of child begging, forced labour (with illegal mining), and sex trafficking throughout the separatist-​ controlled regions of Ukraine, while the number of people at risk for human trafficking has increased significantly. Anecdotal evidence has been reported of the use of child soldiers by the rebel forces as well as forced recruitment/​kidnapping of men and boys for exploitation in the armed conflict (IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2015). There have also been reports of kidnapping of women and girls for the ‘purposes of sex and labor trafficking’ by the anti-​government forces (TIP, 2015: 346) and an increase in child begging (IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2015). War, displacement, and the economic crisis in Ukraine coupled with the nature of irregular forced migration create an environment ripe for human trafficking. Ethnic differences in exploitation and the framing of worthy and unworthy victims provide an interesting social facet in Eurasia. Citizenship status influences the right of non-​citizens in Latvia and Estonia to work in the EU, as non-​citizens must obtain work and residence permits to be able to work in other EU countries (Ārlietu ministrija, 2014). Thus, vulnerabilities and deception in the migration process are especially susceptible to non-​citizens and ethnic minorities in those countries. Russia is truly an international destination country for human trafficking victims, with approximately 4–​9 million migrant workers in the country and an estimated 80% of those migrant workers coming from nine Eurasian countries (Ratha et  al, 2011) that use centuries-​old trade routes to provide a consistent flow of migrant workers to Russia (Global Slavery Index, 2013). A 2012 case involving 170 Vietnamese labour-​trafficking victims held against their will in a garment factory in Russia produced no criminal charges against the alleged perpetrators (TIP, 2013: 311). As these cases and the previous story about Muratbek and his friends demonstrate, there is a racial element to human trafficking, as most of the forced labour cases occur with migrants who are not ethnically Russian. Irina, a civil society representative in northern Russia told me:  “labour trafficking is a massive problem but there is no public interest in this issue because for most part it does not happen to citizens of Russia” (2013). This places governments in an ‘us and them’ dichotomy where policy makers and citizens alike do not think that they should have to support rehabilitation services for foreign victims of trafficking because they are not Russian and believe that they have freely chosen to come to Russia to work. It also affects source countries whose citizens are leaving and creating a brain drain and emigration problems in their wake. Finally,

13

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

racialised approaches to trafficking and migration policy make ethnic minorities in the region more vulnerable to human trafficking and re-​trafficking even when they do seek out assistance.

Internal and external human trafficking constraints Since Eurasia is a significant source for human trafficking, there is a considerable amount of research on human trafficking emanating from this region, but Tverdova (2011) categorises much of the research as anecdotal. A large proportion of the scholarship that looks at human trafficking laws and policies in Eurasia examines single country case studies of Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, and Moldova.6 These individual case studies are descriptive of human trafficking situations, seek to evaluate the laws and policies (Levchenko, 2012; Lulle, 2012), or offer recommendations on how to improve policy (AHTNET, 2007; Ivaschenko-​Stadnik, 2013). Although international organisations such as the IOM, Organization for Security and Co-​operation in Europe (OSCE), International Labour Organization (ILO), or the UNODC have conducted numerous studies on human trafficking, these studies have been limited in that they only analyse the impact of the problem, describe the laws, offer a model for improving national-​level laws and their effectiveness, or are a combination of these themes.7 Though recent reports from the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) also evaluate the implementation of human trafficking laws (GRETA, 2012b, 2013, 2014). Most of the literature dedicated to human trafficking does not systematically evaluate the policy content or include cross-​national comparisons (Britton and Dean, 2014). Even cross-​national studies do not compare the countries in the region but offer individual analyses of each country and do not attempt to look for overarching themes across regimes (IOM, 2003; Rios, 2006). Despite the reliance on descriptive policy studies in the literature, there are a couple of studies which examine why countries adopt trafficking policies. Several studies cite external factors as the reason why countries adopt trafficking policies. A UNODC report states that 35% of the 155 countries in the study had some sort of policy response to human trafficking in 2003 and by 2008 this figure had risen to 80% due to the passage of the Palermo Protocol (UNODC, 2009a). The report cites compliance with international treaties or law as the reason the vast majority of the countries adopted a human trafficking policy. Avdeyeva (2007) argues that countries in Eurasia adopt human rights-​based agreements because of pressure to assimilate with other

14

Introduction

countries around the world. Cho and colleagues (2011) posit that trafficking policies are adopted due to externality effects focusing on contiguous countries and main trading partners. Several authors have identified the impetus for human trafficking policy in Russia related to the 2003 criminal code additions as emanating from international influence (Shelley, 2005) or US intervention (Johnson, 2009). All of these studies emphasise the external influences on trafficking policy and discount internal factors in a country that work within the anti-​ trafficking policy networks and institutions to influence why countries adopt human trafficking policies and how they implement them. Internal factors recognised in the trafficking literature for policy adoption are women’s representation, economic burdens, and issue framing. Domestic politics, with gender representation and normative attitudes towards women, influence country compliance with international legal commitments by structuring state preferences (Bartilow, 2008). Monetary burdens on member states with Palermo Protocol compliance is also an internal factor determining policy adoption and implementation (Hathaway, 2002). Overall, preventative policies such as criminal code amendments are the most popular form of international treaty compliance because they are the cheapest (Cho and Vadlamannati, 2011). Issue framing is another internal reason for policy adoption because human trafficking has been framed as a serious transnational crime issue (Simmons and Lloyd, 2010). McCarthy (2011: 52) argues that both international and domestic pressure from law enforcement practitioners played a role in the adoption of the trafficking criminal code articles in Russia which, combined with a growing recognition that human trafficking was a threat to national security, compelled the Russian government to respond. My study adds to this literature because it focuses on why countries adopt national-​level policies on human trafficking and not international treaty compliance. Previous research over-​emphasises international actors and discounts how important political players within the policy subsystem such as networks and anti-​trafficking institutions can be in formulating policy. Therefore, despite several studies that explore reasons for human trafficking policy adoption, most studies focus exclusively on the external or the internal factors rather than a combination of the two, and discount the influence of anti-​trafficking institutions and networks. The literature also examines the problems associated with human trafficking policy implementation. One big problem with implementation around the world is that traffickers are not charged with human trafficking according to the articles in the criminal code. Instead, most of the convictions in Russia (McCarthy, 2015),

15

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

Ukraine (Pyshchulina, 2005), and Moldova are for lesser crimes, such as pimping, which prescribe shorter sentences (Kara, 2009). Corruption and organised crime have been blamed for the low prosecution rates for trafficking in this region, but McCarthy also argues that the ‘institutional structure and promotion criteria within Russian law enforcement agencies impede prosecutions’ (2010:  7). There is also a lack of cooperation to facilitate the prosecution of traffickers and assistance to victims (IOM, 2003). Despite outlining monetary provisions in the national policy (Kara, 2009), most of the implementation is done with funding from abroad, which puts the government at the mercy of international donors (Abiala, 2006). Consequently, once this international funding dries up and donors move on to another region or issue of importance, governments will struggle to fund anti-​trafficking programmes. Increased visa regulation and restrictive border controls have also been used in the region to limit illegal migration and human trafficking. These techniques have backfired and actually exacerbated the trafficking problem because as a result more dangerous measures are needed to transport people across the borders (Schuckman, 2006). The human trafficking literature calls for future studies to include several important elements. First, the human trafficking literature lacks reliable data, making quantitative studies of human trafficking rare (Goździak and Bump, 2008; Tverdova, 2011) while qualitative studies lack generalisable findings because they only examine one research site. Kligman and Limoncelli argue that more substantive and systematic policy research is needed because ‘without empirical data, policy formulation will be more limited in effectiveness and more subject to assumption in its making’ (2005: 135). Second, since most of the literature is focused on the international and regional level, Munro (2006) calls for studies focusing on national policy approaches and implementation. This book seeks to answer these calls by including both quantitative and qualitative elements with case studies in three different countries and then expand that analysis to the Eurasian region as a whole. It focuses on national-​level policy and evaluates the positive and negative aspects of human trafficking policies in the region by building an index to measure the scope of policies cross-​nationally.

Research methods Several different mixed research methods were employed in this book, from fieldwork to network, and statistical analyses. The main data for the most-similar small-N research design are gleaned from fieldwork with

16

Introduction

interviews, participant observation, and items gathered in the field such as policy documents and archival materials. The fieldwork was aimed at gathering data to determine whether internal determinants such as political system, level of democracy, bureaucracy, and economic factors or external pressure from the US and the international community influence policy adoption and implementation, anti-​trafficking institutional formation, and network cohesiveness. Anti-​trafficking institutions are government institutions that were created directly or indirectly as a result of human trafficking policy to implement different aspects of human trafficking policy. These anti-​trafficking institutions are the formal (constitution, legislative, electoral) and informal (norms, rules) structures that determine the allocation of resources in policy making. I found five different anti-​trafficking institutions in the case studies: national coordinators, working groups, police units, shelters for victims, and victim certification processes. These institutions form networks that can facilitate human trafficking policy and feedback loops that can lead to further policy formation. Over a period of 15 months, from June 2012 until August 2013, fieldwork was conducted in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia. In total, I spent three months in Russia (June–​August 2012 and July–​August 2013), eight months in Ukraine (September 2012 to April 2014 and one week in August 2013), and three months in Latvia (May–​July 2013 and one week in August 2013). I also made a return trip to Ukraine in July and August 2015 to obtain interview updates on the changing political situation due to the war. This fieldwork was based on the diffusion of innovation policy frameworks with a focus on how these ideas for combating trafficking arise through policy adoption and diffuse through institutions and networks to influence policy implementation. Variables were adapted from the fieldwork to the diffusion of innovation framework to international policy making and it was ascertained if they are present in the data. The elite interviews in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia were semi-​structured and open-​ended, with stakeholders working with some aspect of human trafficking. In total, I conducted 112 interviews in four different languages: English, Russian, Latvian, and Ukrainian; I conducted 59 interviews in Ukraine, 31 in Latvia, and 22 in Russia in 2012–​2013 and 2015. The interviews in these three countries were conducted with governmental representatives and stakeholders from key ministries (38), local civil society organisations (34),8 academics or journalists (17), and international partners (23)9 at the national and regional levels working with the issues surrounding human trafficking. The interview questions are in Appendix 1. The interviews are anonymised, and pseudonyms are provided for first

17

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

names, month, year, area (for example north-​east, central, east), and country with the interview data. They can be differentiated from other quoted material by the double quotation marks, most block quotes, and first name sources, such as Irina mentioned previously. In addition to the interviews participant observation was also conducted at anti-​trafficking non-​governmental organisations (NGOs) in all three countries. I  spent 11  months at the Resource Centre for Women, Marta in Rīga Latvia in 2007–​08, two months at the Crisis Centre for Women Fatima, in Kazan, Russia in 2013, and then visited 18 different anti-​trafficking organisations during travels around Ukraine for eight months in 2012–​13. The interviews, participant observation, and archival data inform the findings in Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5. This fieldwork also motivated the gathering of quantitative data for Chapters 4 and 6 and the content analysis of the laws for Chapter 1. The network chapter was constructed with interview data focusing on the anti-​trafficking network in each country. Descriptive statistics about the network were calculated using Node XL. The networks are visualised to show the formal and informal networks that have developed from policy adoption to facilitate implementation. Process tracing was utilised to map the legal developments on human trafficking in Eurasia and a content analysis of 132 laws adopted on human trafficking from 1998–​2015 was conducted for the data in Chapter 1. Data from the qualitative and quantitative content analyses were used to construct the Human Trafficking Policy Index in Chapter 6. This 15-​point index measures the scope of human trafficking laws in each country and is the dependent variable for policy adoption. The models for policy adoption and implementation include time series data from 2003 to 2015 and from all 15 countries in Eurasia. Then the models were estimated based on measures from the literature using data similar to the case study methods. A more detailed explanation of the methods can be found in the Methodological appendix and Chapters 4 and 6.

Outline of book Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia is laid out in six chapters. Each chapter starts with a real human trafficking story related to the theme of the chapter. These vignettes are anonymised when the story is not public knowledge and demonstrate the diversity of victims from this region, showing how different aspects of policies affect human trafficking victims and perpetrators dependent on the country in Eurasia. This book contains personal accounts of human trafficking victims which bring to life the human consequences of policy successes

18

Introduction

and failures that demonstrate the real implications of policy adoption and implementation. In doing this, I  provide perspective to those who have been exploited through human trafficking and how these policies have affected every aspect of their lives from identification to rehabilitation. There are stark differences between the scope of trafficking policies and how they are implemented around Eurasia and these vignettes reveal that these policies affect real people and are not adopted and implemented in a political vacuum. In Chapter 1, a process tracing analysis of human trafficking policy development in all 15 countries of Eurasia is presented. All of the different types of policy responses are categorised into a human trafficking policy typology including: criminal codes, national action plans, national laws, decrees, and other miscellaneous policy documents. The rapid diffusion and development of these laws throughout the region are discussed, from 1998, when the first law was adopted, until 2015. Although all of the countries in Eurasia have adopted some sort of policy approach to human trafficking, there is significant variation regarding the scope of these laws across the region, showing the leaders (adopting policies more quickly than others) and laggards (countries that were slower to respond with policy changes). Chapter 2 focuses the analysis on Russia, Latvia, and Ukraine and examines how human trafficking policies diffuse in these three most-​similar case studies from Eurasia. It is determined that internal determinants such as state commitment to human trafficking policy and interest group strength are more important to policy adoption than external pressures from the international community. Conversely, state capacity and bureaucratic restructuring impede policy adoption. The results demonstrate that human trafficking policy entrepreneurs are not limited to women, as much of the literature suggests, but men also play a key role in the adoption of human trafficking policy. I argue that policy making, even in authoritarian regimes, is more nuanced than unequivocal compliance with international treaties. This type of policy making shows that interest groups and policy entrepreneurs work within the constraints of national policy making to adopt human trafficking policies even in non-​democratic political systems. The next chapter, Chapter  3, builds on policy adoption, tracing different anti-​trafficking institutions created directly or indirectly as a result of that adoption. The chapter analyses and compares the establishment and development of five different anti-​trafficking institutions in the case study countries. The anti-​trafficking institutions created include: national coordinators, working groups, police units, shelters for victims, and victim certification processes. Although many of these institutions were developed as a result of policy adoption,

19

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

they are not always codified and even some that are established, fail to work effectively and are just hollow Potemkinesque institutions.10 It is demonstrated that once anti-​trafficking institutions are entrenched in countries and there are mechanisms to ensure the institutions’ survival, they have the potential not only to oversee effective implementation but also are effective actors in the policy subsystem working to develop better and more responsive policy in the future. Chapter 4 discusses anti-​trafficking networks showing the connections among the different anti-​trafficking institutions. It uses a network analysis to examine implementation networks, focusing on how different actors in the human trafficking policy subsystem come together and the ties that bind them. The networks of anti-​trafficking institutions in each country reveal a stark divide and disconnect between the criminalisation aspects of the policy with law enforcement and police and the social aspects, with rehabilitation for victims mostly performed by NGOs and women’s advocacy networks. Kinks in the linkages and a lack of cooperation between the policing and victims’ services sides of the network are identified in some countries, which makes capturing traffickers and finding victims difficult. These anti-​trafficking institutions and networks facilitate policy implementation in Chapter  5, as some countries (Latvia) are more effective at implementing policy than others (Ukraine and Russia). I revealed that top-​d own implementation (from the national government) was apparent in all three countries as the government entities attempted to guide implementation. Only Latvia was able to balance this top-​down approach with a grassroots bottom-​up implementation processes facilitated by their working group and the strength of the interest groups in that country. The influence of internal factors including law enforcement measures to combat trafficking and interest group strength are the most significant facilitators of policy implementation. Interest groups also provide feedback loops, policy evaluations, and guide implementation when the government fell short. Chapter  6 broadens the analysis to the whole region of Eurasia, with quantitative measures that examine policy adoption and implementation, mirroring the findings from the case studies. The chapter examines the quantitative determinants of policy adoption and implementation across all 15 counties in Eurasia in a similar time period to the case study analyses from 2003 to 2015 with a pooled time series analysis. A new and innovative Human Trafficking Policy Index is constructed which measures the scope of human trafficking policies in Eurasia and ranks it on a 15-​point scale every year. An original dataset is compiled to analyse the determinants of policy adoption

20

Introduction

and implementation, adapting variables for internal determinants and external pressure to the international policy-​making environment. The findings mirror the qualitative results and reveal that internal political conditions and monetary factors inside the country such as state commitment, policy entrepreneurs, bureaucracy, and state capacity determine how the countries adopt policy while policy entrepreneurs, bureaucracy, and police effectiveness influence policy implementation. The mixed-​method comparison demonstrates that state commitment and policy entrepreneurs had a positive influence on human trafficking policy adoption while bureaucratic impediments inhibited policy adoption. Comparisons across the qualitative and quantitative methods also demonstrated that the Palermo Protocol, the US, and the Council of Europe were influential in pressuring countries across Eurasia to adopt trafficking policy, while the case studies were more varied. The results were less cohesive with the policy implementation model but revealed the influence of internal determinants such as street-​level bureaucrats, bureaucratic impediments, and conflicting policing results. The Conclusion explores the limitations of human trafficking policy in combating the phenomenon of human trafficking. It also analyses how progress in anti-​trafficking adoption and implementation was affected by the different political developments in masculinised political environments. It reveals the social contexts in which these policies were enacted and implemented, including how human rights-​based values influenced society’s focus and framing of human trafficking. At the end of the day, this book seeks to demonstrate how policy can play a role in not just punishing human traffickers but also in rehabilitating the victims of this crime and preventing it from happening in the first place. Notes I use the term victim instead of survivor to describe someone who has experienced human trafficking in order to reflect the terminology utilised in Eurasia. 2 The 15 countries of Eurasia included in this study are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. 3 Human trafficking institutions are defined as a formal or informal government institution created directly or indirectly as a result of human trafficking policy to implement different aspects of human trafficking policy. 4 According to Lowi (1972), regulatory policy is policy that shapes human actions and influences the behaviour of a specific group of people. So in this instance criminal code amendments that make human trafficking illegal and prescribe jail sentences regulate traffickers through the use of sanctions or incentives. Redistributive policy with human trafficking redistributes resources to trafficking victims for social services and rehabilitation programmes (Lowi, 1972). 1

21

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia This protocol was adopted with the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air and the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition as a supplement the 2000 Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Convention). In this book it is referred to singularly as the Palermo Protocol (a legal instrument that complements a treaty in international law) and not the plural Palermo Protocols, which references all three protocols. 6 For more information see Stoecker, 2000; IOM, 2001, 2002; Eglitis, 2002; Tyuryukanova, 2002; Hughes and Denisova, 2004; Kalikov, 2004; BISS, 2005; Hughes, 2005; Orlova, 2005; Pyshchulina, 2005; Riiskjær and Nielsson, 2005; Shelley and Orttung, 2005; Abiala, 2006; Schuckman, 2006; Iekšlietu ministija, 2007; Shapkina, 2008; Surtees, 2008; Buckley, 2009a; Johnson, 2009; Jonsson, 2009; Kara, 2009; Vitkovskaya and Tyuryukanova, 2009; McCarthy, 2010; UNODC, 2010a; Tverdova, 2011; Vijeyarasa, 2012; Davydovych and Subotenko, 2013; Mukomel, 2013; Dean, 2018. 7 For more information see Farquet et al, 2005; OSCE, 2006, 2011; OSCE et al, 2006; UNODC, 2008, 2009a, 2010a, 2010b; IOM Mission to Russia, 2009; Danailova-​Trainor and Laczko, 2010; IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2011. 8 In this book the terms civil society, non-​governmental organisations (NGOs), and interest groups are used and they all have slightly different meanings. A civil society organisation is a group of people which operates in the community and can include community-​based organisations and NGOs in a way that is distinct from both the government and market. NGOs are normally non-​profit voluntary organisations that operate independently of any government to address a social or political issue. Finally, interest groups consist of international organisations and NGOs working to influence human trafficking public policy. 9 International partners are comprised of international organisations, foreign embassy representatives, or intergovernmental representatives. 10 A Potemkinesque institution comes from Potemkin villages, denoting the façade used to mask something undesirable such as structures built by Grigori Potemkin along the route that Catherine the Great travelled to Crimea in 1787. 5

22

1

Contrasting policy approaches to human trafficking in Eurasia Natasha’s body was thrown in the courtyard of the casino, where everyone would notice, for edification. On their way to work, the other girls witnessed what awaits the disobedient. This young woman from the Chelyabinsk region of Russia was killed for refusing to work as a prostitute. She repeatedly tried to escape but she was detained and returned to the owner, even the most severe beatings could not break Natasha. Eventually she was beaten to increase fear and make the rest of the girls submissive. This tragedy, like dozens of similar stories, has been widely publicised because the Egyptian government decided to ban the recruitment of dancers and tour guides from Russia. Due to this ban, the girls who knew Natasha were resold by the owner to another country. ‘Girls are fools, so they fall into a life of prostitution’ or ‘They know very well where and why they are going’. These are the two most popular opinions [in Russia] that allow the state to avoid a solution to this burning problem (Chistoserdova, 2003). This story about Natasha, published in the Chelyabinsk Worker, a weekly socio-​political newspaper in central Russia, demonstrates the prevalence of human trafficking in Russia, the lack of empathy by some in society, and the muted response by the government to this growing problem. The story reveals how countries failed to adequately respond with policies while push and pull factors from other destination countries largely facilitated migration flows. It also demonstrates the stereotypes of human trafficking victims from Eurasia. It exemplifies the lack of policy making in a masculine political environment due to victim blaming in Russia. Is it possible to move from heart-​wrenching stories like this with victim stereotypes to policy documents and solutions? Today, most countries in Eurasia support anti-​trafficking initiatives through some combination of policy tools on the international, regional, and national levels. This chapter

23

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

examines the evolution of human trafficking policy in the region as a whole and the types of policy tools countries have adopted in Eurasia. A  typology was also created for these different human trafficking policy approaches that categorises 132 different laws and policies on human trafficking in Eurasia. The human trafficking literature examines the different policy approaches to human trafficking policy and includes descriptive accounts of international, regional, or national policy. It mostly concentrates on the content of trafficking policies and posits that trafficking policies focus on a number of different themes including the 3Ps (protection, prosecution, and prevention), migration, human rights, development, and state-​centred and victim-​centred policy approaches. There is a common theme of law enforcement emphases and migration control at the expense of protection and prevention measures (Askola, 2007). Others have found that policies embed the intersections of migration, crime, and security (Lindstrom, 2006), which means that the policies are ineffectual and, in some cases, even counterproductive (Askola, 2007). By focusing on prosecution at the expense of prevention approaches that prioritise human rights and economic development these countries may have opted for the path of least resistance and may be defaulting to a type of policy choice that is familiar, replicable, and easily audited. It is easier to keep track of the number of traffickers arrested and jailed than to alleviate the underlying causes of poverty or change societal attitudes about gender and human rights  –​the very things that prevent trafficking. (Britton and Dean, 2014: 20) Munro (2006) argues that the ambiguity of the policies on the international level has led to policy variation on the national level because policy makers want to compromise between competing perspectives. Agendas, public opinion, and moral panics are often included in trafficking policies because very little is known about the scope of the problem (Jahic and Finckenauer, 2005), which makes it difficult to legislate a solution. Policies need to focus on combating all forms of human trafficking and all types of victims. Research found that by 2008, 27 countries around the world did not have encompassing definitions of human trafficking that excluded forced labour and/​or male and child victims (UNODC, 2009a). We see similar trends in Eurasia, where framing policy to fit certain kinds of victims at the

24

Contrasting policy approaches to human trafficking in Eurasia

expense of other victims is problematic because data suggest most trafficking victims are labour trafficking victims and include women, children, and men. This chapter lays the groundwork for the book by comparing the different human trafficking policy approaches on the national level across all 15 countries in Eurasia. A  database was compiled of 135 human trafficking policies in Eurasia and then 132 located policies were coded for specific themes. More information on the policy compilation and coding schemes is available in the Methodological appendix and the specific policy names, amendments, and adoption dates from all 15 countries are outlined in Appendix 2. This chapter begins by examining the five policy typologies for human trafficking. This is followed by a discussion of the evolution of national-​level policies in Eurasia and the patterns this policy making has produced. Different overarching themes including sentencing guidelines, definitions, democratisation, corruption, and anti-​trafficking institutions are also examined across the entire region.

Human trafficking policy typology There are a number of different policy approaches taken by governments in Eurasia that attempt to combat human trafficking. Based on content analysis of the policies in the region, a typology of human trafficking policies was created and displayed in Table 1.1. It demonstrates how these policy responses to human trafficking in Eurasia can be categorised into five different types of documents:  criminal codes, national action plans, national laws, decrees, regulations, or decisions, and miscellaneous policies. Table 1.1: Human trafficking policy typology Policy document

Initiator of change

Criminal code

Promulgated by the legislature, usually with other changes to the criminal code and then signed by the executive.

National action plan

Promulgated by the executive branch Cabinet of Ministers, president, or prime minister dependent on the country.

National law

Promulgated by the legislature usually as a singular piece of legislation and then signed by the executive.

Decree, regulation, decision

Promulgated by the executive branch Cabinet of Ministers, president, prime minister, or different ministries.

Miscellaneous

Amendments, working group policies, or residency statutes.

Note: This table shows the five different types of human trafficking policy in Eurasia that emerged from a content analysis of 132 different human trafficking policies in the region.

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

Criminal code The first type of policy document is a change or amendment to the criminal code. This usually includes adding a small paragraph establishing that human trafficking is illegal, outlining the types of human trafficking included in this article, and then prescribing sentencing guidelines for perpetrators of this offence. For the most part, trafficking provisions are found in the criminal or penal code, but some are also found in the administrative code and code on social services. For the purposes of typology categorisation, changes to any code in a country are lumped together under the criminal code documents. Here is an example of a basic addition to the Criminal Code in Georgia: Article 143¹ Trafficking in Persons 1 Selling or buying of persons, or subjecting them to other illegal deals, also recruiting, transporting, harbouring, or taking them on for purposes of exploitation, with the use of force, blackmail, or deception is punishable by imprisonment from 5 to 12 years. 2 The same offence, committed repeatedly; against two or more persons; against a pregnant woman, knowing about her pregnancy; with the abuse of official authority; by taking a victim abroad; with the use of life threatening or health threatening coercion, or threatening to use such force; knowingly, against a vulnerable person, or against a person who is financially or otherwise dependent on the offender; is punishable by imprisonment from 8 to 15 years. 3 Offence, stipulated by first and second paragraphs of this article committed by an organised group which resulted in a death of a victim or caused other serious consequences is punishable by imprisonment from 12 to 20  years. (Criminal Code of Georgia 2003) Changes to the codes are, for the most part, initiated by the legislative branch of government and voted on by parliament. These changes are the most onerous of the policy types to track because they are usually passed with several other changes and difficult to uncover in parliamentary databases. National action plan The second type of policy document adopted in the region is the national action plan or programme. The national action plan is typically

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a document formulated by the executive branch of the government by the president, prime minister, and/​or the ministries. They are adopted for a certain number of years and outline specific measures the country will undertake to combat trafficking over the time period of the plan. After the action period is completed there is a sunset clause so that if the government fails to adopt a new action plan then the plan ceases to exist, and the country must rely on its other pieces of legislation to combat trafficking. National law The third type of policy document is a national law, which is a policy document approved by the legislative branch of the government. A national law is similar to the national action plan but is less specific, since it lacks a temporal component. The main difference is that a trafficking law is in force once it is adopted (unless it is repealed), while the national action plan with sunset clauses can simply expire. Thus, laws are more enduring policy approaches to human trafficking, but they are a lesser-​used response to the problem of trafficking in this region.1 Usually, the government prescribes an overall action plan and establishes a main agency or organisation to work with the problem of human trafficking. The trafficking laws are more general in their content, whereas the national action plans have concrete dates for implementation and tend to assign ministries and budgetary funds to implement the projects they prescribe. Decree, regulation, or decision The fourth type of policy document is a decree, regulation, or decision usually given by the executive branch of government. While most of the decrees, regulations, or decisions related to human trafficking in Eurasia come from the president, some are issued by the prime minister, council of ministers, or even individual ministries. There is one decree from Supreme Court of Kazakhstan to clarify and unify judicial interpretations of trafficking in persons under the law, but this judicial decree is the exception as most emanate from the legislative or executive branches. Decrees, regulations, or decisions can be related to victims’ assistance, the establishment of shelters, or creation of human trafficking funds. They can also provide details of working groups on human trafficking. Some post-​Soviet presidents are limited in their ability to issue decrees (Frye, 1997), but all of the countries in Eurasia have the ability to issue decrees; the only difference across the

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region is that decrees originate from different parts of the executive branch. Decrees, regulations, or decisions can be on different topics related to trafficking, such as recommendations on fighting trafficking, establishing a working group, or asking the legislature to adopt a certain policy. Most of the decrees clarify or expand upon previous legislation, so they would be defined as administrative and regulatory decrees that are issued ‘within the confines of authorizing statutes and not those that supersede the legislature’ (Shugart and Haggard, 2001: 72). Decrees were included in the analysis because Eurasia contains a wide variety of regime types, ranging from democratic to semi-​authoritarian and authoritarian regimes. Thus, decrees from different regime types are policy documents. The only difference between these decrees and other policy documents is that they are, for the most part, not approved by a legislature or cabinet and are instead promulgated by a single entity. Decrees have only been promulgated in a small number of countries related to human trafficking in Eurasia and are another policy tool utilised by governments to combat human trafficking. Miscellaneous policy documents The fifth type of policy documents are miscellaneous policies that do not fit into any of the other typology categories. These include the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) or policies aimed at increasing cooperation and identification of victims. For a complete list of decrees, laws, and policies in every country, please see Appendix 2. These different policy documents on human trafficking demonstrate the variety of approaches that countries in the region have utilised to combat trafficking. They are included in the analysis because they are directly related to human trafficking and expand upon the other four policy types. They also demonstrate that there is not just one way to combat human trafficking through policy documents in this region and why it is necessary to look beyond one type of policy approach.

Human trafficking policy development in Eurasia Human trafficking policy developed gradually for some policy types such as the national action plan and national laws while for others, such as the criminal code, it was rapid and categorised as a policy outbreak. Ukraine was the first country in the region and one of the first countries in Europe to adopt a policy response to human trafficking. In March 1998, Article 124-​1 was added to the criminal code, almost two years before the Palermo Protocol was adopted.

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Lithuania followed Ukraine in July 1998 and added Article 131.1 Trafficking in Human Beings to its criminal code. In 1999, Belarus adopted changes to its criminal code, while the Cabinet of Ministers in Ukraine enacted a programme to combat trafficking focusing on women and children. Then, in 2001, the Council of Ministers in Belarus decreed a human trafficking state programme from 2002 to 2007 to combat human trafficking and the spread of prostitution, while Ukraine amended its earlier criminal code. In 2002, the first criminal law changes were adopted in Latvia and Moldova, while Lithuania and Ukraine adopted national programmes to combat trafficking. The following year, Georgia adopted changes to its criminal code and a plan of action. Russia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan also changed their criminal code in 2003, while Kazakhstan passed an amendment that established an interagency commission to combat trafficking. In 2004, the number of new policies on trafficking adopted in the region increased to eight. Tajikistan passed the first national law on human trafficking, while Armenia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia adopted national action plans. Kazakhstan and Armenia also adopted criminal code articles on human trafficking. In 2005, the number of new human trafficking policy adoptions rose to 13, with Estonia and Moldova adding their first policies on human trafficking. In 2006, ten more countries adopted policies and eight countries adopted policies. The first policy on human trafficking in Turkmenistan was adopted in 2007. Uzbekistan was the last country in the region to adopt anti-​trafficking legislation. It adopted all four pieces of policy in 2008: a national law in March, a national action plan in April, a presidential decree in July, another law about the changes to the criminal code and the acceptance of the national law in August, and then, finally, the formation of a national rehabilitation centre in November. That brings the total to 18 new policies adopted in the 15 countries of Eurasia, making 2008 the biggest year for new policy adoptions. In 2009, seven new policies were adopted, in 2010 there were five and in 2011 only four new policies were adopted. There was a sharp increase of policy adoptions in 2012, with 12 new policies and in 2013 another 10 new policies were adopted on human trafficking in the region. The trend continued in 2014 with 17 new policies. Finally, in 2015, the new adoptions dropped to six, bringing the total of human trafficking policies in Eurasia to 135. Although these were all new policies, in later years of the analysis a number of countries let their action plans expire. Belarus’ state programme lapsed in 2013 and was never replaced. Tajikistan let its national action plan lapse in 2013 and replaced it with a more

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encompassing law while also declaring the previous law adopted in 2005 as invalid. Kyrgyzstan’s expired in 2012 and then it adopted another one from 2013 to 2016. Georgia allowed its national action plan to lapse in 2009 and adopted a replacement plan in 2011. Uzbekistan waited a long five years between the expiration of its previous plan in 2010 until it adopted a replacement in 2015. Other countries merged their trafficking plans or programmes into state security or crime prevention (Lithuania) which dissipated the impact and attention of anti-​trafficking programmes. Estonia let its plan lapse in 2009, replaced it with the Strategy for Preventing Violence for 2015–​20, and grouped it together with ‘violence between children, abuse of children, domestic violence (intimate partner violence), sexual violence and trafficking in human beings’ (2015) which lessens the government’s attention to this issue. When policy adoptions are examined by year, a pattern of diffusion begins to emerge. Figure 1.1 displays the patterns of policy diffusion for human trafficking policies in Eurasia. In ten years, all of the countries in the region had some sort of policy related to human trafficking, and this diffusion is categorised as a policy outbreak since there was a 100% adoption rate of the criminal code (Boushey, 2010). Comparing this adoption speed to other policies in the literature, human trafficking

2015

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Cumulative number of adopters 5 10 15

Figure 1.1: Patterns of policy diffusion: human trafficking policies

Year National action plan Decree/regulation/decision

Criminal code Law

Note: This figure displays the cumulative number of policies on human trafficking adopted in Eurasia from 1998 to 2015 with the four main types of policy. Once a country adopts the policy, it is counted for that country with the exception of the national action plan, which has an expiration date. Therefore, if the plan expires, it is subtracted from the total unless the country adopts another plan to replace it.

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has diffused across Eurasia very quickly, with a large burst of activity. Although the national action plan, national law, and decrees do not have 100% adoption rates in the region, the speed of adoption for the criminal code demonstrate a policy outbreak in human trafficking policy, not incremental adoption (Boushey, 2010). While the number of trafficking policies increases every year from 1998 to 2015, patterns in the type of policy adoption emerge. Eight countries adopted changes to the criminal code as the first policy related to human trafficking in their country, which shows that more than half of Eurasia chose to adopt criminal code changes over other types of policy. However, three countries adopted a national action plan and two countries adopted a national law as their first policy response to human trafficking. Kazakhstan adopted a decree that established a working group before any other type of policy on human trafficking, and Estonia adopted a miscellaneous policy. After the first policy, there were no discernible patterns to determine the second policy that countries adopt. Four countries adopted changes to the criminal code as their second policy on human trafficking, six adopted a national action plan, and four adopted a law. This demonstrates that most countries in the region adopted criminal codes first and chose from one of the other policy types for their second policy adoption. All of the countries in Eurasia adopted at least two different policy types with the exception of Russia, which only had one criminal code amendment. Conversely, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan had four main types of human trafficking policies.

Varying definitions and sentencing guidelines in Eurasia The content analysis of the laws reveals other interesting information about the scope and variation of human trafficking policy in Eurasia. As mentioned previously, most criminal code articles contained a definition of trafficking that included sex trafficking, forced labour, and elements of force, fraud, or coercion. Some countries also had provisions for the recruitment, transport, transfer, concealment, or harbouring of persons for exploitation. However, a few countries moved beyond this basic definition to include other categories. For example, Georgia, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan had provisions in their criminal code or national policies for organ trafficking or tissue removal. Kyrgyzstan and Belarus included adoption provisions, specifying that people adopt children and then traffic them, which could suggest that this has been a problem in both these countries in the past. Belarus included regulations for bridal agencies and mail-​order

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brides, while Uzbekistan banned forced marriage. These types of crimes have seen a resurgence because of the post-​Soviet transition and are prevalent in Eurasia (Racioppi and See, 2009), so the fact that only two countries included such crimes in their policy is notable. Finally, Tajikistan included surrogacy in its definition of human trafficking as a ‘woman who gave birth to a child as a result of using the medical method of artificial insemination or embryo implantation’ (Law of the Republic of Tajikistan on the Fight Against Human Trafficking, 2004). The law states that ‘depending on the activities of the victims of human trafficking, the exploitation may be according to exploitation of human physiological organs, namely for transplantation of organs and tissues, as well as the use of woman as a surrogate’ (2004). It was rare to include this in a definition of human trafficking, and, although the law does seem to recognise that not every case of surrogacy is human trafficking, it makes Tajikistan’s policy unique. The issue of consent is another issue that was present in some definitions of human trafficking. Consent refers to the fact that there are some people who choose to work as prostitutes, thus consenting to sex work. The issue surrounding consent goes back to the adoption of the Palermo Protocol in 2000, when two different groups, one that viewed prostitution as legitimate work and another that saw prostitution as a form of violence against women, debated the use of coercion in the protocol’s definition of human trafficking (Doezema, 2002). The abolitionist group advocated for the elimination of prostitution by arguing that prostitution leads to human trafficking and, by eliminating it, they would also eliminate human trafficking (Lobasz, 2009). Conversely, the sex work group argued ‘for an alternative solution to human trafficking that involves legalizing prostitution and establishing legal frameworks to ensure human rights protection for all workers, including sex workers and those in low-​wage and low-​status jobs’ (Lobasz, 2009: 344). The abolitionist group then argued against the inclusion of fraud and coercion in the definitions because they believe it is not necessary to constitute human trafficking. However, the sex work group argued that it is necessary because, without fraud and coercion, it is likely to be confused with someone who chose to work as a prostitute. Many of the countries in Eurasia include coercion in their definitions of human trafficking. In Uzbekistan consent is described as an aggravated offence that includes ‘violence, threats of violence, or other forms of coercion’ and prescribes five to eight years in jail for this offence versus the three to five years under the former definition (Criminal Code, 2008). Ukraine also tries to balance both sides of the debate and includes ‘with or without consent’ in its definition of

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trafficking (Criminal Code, 1998). Although coercion is described in a few different ways, such as violence, alcohol, drugs, and debt bondage, the lack of clarity in the previously discussed definitions demonstrates how easy it is to conflate human trafficking with prostitution in human trafficking policy. The definitions of human trafficking vary significantly in the region and these differences also correspond to variations in sentencing guidelines. Kazakhstan has the lowest sentencing guidelines for human trafficking, prescribing a fine of the following: one hundred or up to five hundred monthly assessment indices, or in an amount of wages or other income of a given convict for a period from two to five months, or by correctional labour for a period up to two years, or restriction of freedom for a period up to two years, or detention under arrest for a period up to six months, or deprivation of freedom for a period up to one year. (Criminal Code, 2004) This definition demonstrates how open the interpretation is for human trafficking sentencing guidelines in that country. Belarus has numerous penalties for trafficking, arrest up to six months; or restriction of freedom up to three years; or imprisonment up to six years. Russia prescribed up to five years in its 2003 Criminal Code, which means that traffickers could get a few months in jail with the open sentencing guidelines in that country as well. Estonia has recommended a sentence of one to five  years for human trafficking, which was amended to one to seven  years in 2012. Most other sentences range from two to ten years in Lithuania, three to eight years in Latvia and Ukraine, three to five in Uzbekistan, four to ten in Turkmenistan, five to eight in Tajikistan, and five to ten in Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. Moldova and Georgia have the most stringent sentencing guidelines in the region, prescribing five to twelve years for regular human trafficking. Sentencing guidelines increase in most countries if the crime involves more than one person or is particularly heinous and includes the trafficking of pregnant women and/​or children. But even here this varies, as Moldova had particularly stringent penalties for trafficking in children (20–​25 years if it results in the death of the child) while Lithuania had none at all. The sentencing guidelines clearly demonstrate the gendered elements of trafficking in Eurasia and the emphasis on female victims in trafficking policy. Despite this, it is evident that human trafficking is illegal according to the criminal codes of all the

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countries in the region, although they prescribe different sentences for committing this crime. Thus, these provisions, laws, and policies can be seen as a strategy governments are utilising to discourage people from committing these crimes within their territory, but there is significant variation in deterrence mechanisms across Eurasia.

Divergent policy themes in Eurasia Human trafficking is often conflated with many different topics, such as prostitution, migration, organised crime, and corruption and these themes are found throughout the content of the trafficking policies as well. Prostitution is legal in five countries in Eurasia:  Armenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Latvia. In the countries where prostitution is illegal, it is included in the names of the policies (see Appendix 2), as countries such as Belarus and Lithuania seek to combat prostitution alongside human trafficking. Most of the references are related to combating trafficking and prostitution, but a few go beyond that and call for research on the phenomenon by tracking prostitutes and evaluating public opinion on the issue. In their policies, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all discuss the demand for prostitutes in Western Europe as a contributing factor to the human trafficking problem in those countries, demonstrating the presence of migration push and pull factors in trafficking policy. In the trafficking policies, prostitution is also linked to a number of other issues such as sex tourism, forced marriage, and pornography. Lithuania’s national action plan includes mass media campaigns that seek to raise awareness of human trafficking and also include information about sex tourism (Programme for the Prevention and Control of Trafficking in Human Beings and Prostitution, 2002). Lithuania and Latvia both sought to organise campaigns to counter sexual services and sex tourism advertisements on television. Forced marriage is mentioned in policies from Lithuania, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan has an article in its criminal code that makes forced marriage illegal, while Tajikistan’s programme states that ‘legal dependence associated with the adoption or guardianship or fictitious marriage’ is one form of exploitation that victims endure (Integrated Programme on the Prevention of Human Traffic in the Republic of Tajikistan, 2006). Pornography, especially child pornography, is a topic also discussed in the policies as an issue relating to, or as a result of, human trafficking. Every country in Eurasia, except for Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, has a law banning child pornography (International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2005), but a few go beyond

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Contrasting policy approaches to human trafficking in Eurasia

that in their trafficking legislation and attempt to demonstrate deeper connections between child pornography and human trafficking. In Belarus, this is not limited solely to child pornography, as producing any type of pornographic material for the purpose of dissemination is illegal (State Programme for Combating Trafficking in Humans, Illegal Migration, and Illegal Activities, 2008). In Lithuania, profiting or using someone to produce pornographic materials is illegal (Criminal Code, 2005). Both Belarus and Lithuania outline awareness campaigns on pornography to educate their population about child pornography and its dangers on the internet. Moldova also discusses how it would like to identify funding sources to increase child pornography investigations on the internet in its national action plan (National Action Plan for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings in the Republic of Moldova, 2012). Corruption and issues of transparency were mentioned frequently in the policies. Azerbaijan’s law on human trafficking ‘aims at providing effective protection against the exposure of participants to corruption and the possibility of persons who committed a crime connected with human trafficking to have an influence on participants’ (Law of Azerbaijan Republic on the Fight against Human Trafficking, 2005). The policy stated Azerbaijan was weary of the traffickers bribing the special police force or people from the executive, NGOs, international partners, and other bodies that coordinate anti-​trafficking activities. Moldova discussed corruption found in law enforcement, criminal investigation bodies, and the courts and called for increased transparency to ‘diminish the means and possibilities to bribe employees’ (National Action Plan for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings in the Republic of Moldova, 2012). Kyrgyzstan has increased penalties for human trafficking or organising illegal migration with ‘actions committed by an organised group or with abuse of official powers’ (Criminal Code, 2006). Since the literature has extensively discussed connections between corruption and human trafficking, it is noteworthy that the policies in the region also acknowledge this connection. Organised crime was another prevalent theme in the policies of Eurasia. Many of the countries in the region recognised organised crime in their definitions of human trafficking. This supports previous research, which argued that organised crime was the main intent of the Palermo Protocol and subsequent national policies (Reilly, 2006). However, here it is contended that, if this was the case, organised crime would be mentioned in every aspect of the policies. While most of the countries mention the subject, few of the policies devote more

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than a few sentences to organised crime. In the analysis of the most significant theme in the policies, a concentration on organised crime at the expense of victim-​centred rehabilitation programmes was not found (Jahic and Finckenauer, 2005). Belarus mentions organised crime in its criminal code and prescribes harsher sentencing for crimes committed by organised groups (Criminal Code, 1999). Therefore, the policy, while not explicitly mentioning the mafia or organised crime, has included provisions for these groups. Azerbaijan states that it will fight human trafficking by ‘uncovering contacts of transnational organised criminal groups with human traffickers, preventing transnational organised criminal groups that deal with human trafficking, disclosing them, and eliminating them’ (Law of Azerbaijan Republic on the Fight against Human Trafficking, 2005). The Estonian national action plan takes this one step further and states that ‘trafficking in human beings is a phenomenon which is directly connected to organised crime, poses a threat to international and internal security, and violates the basic rights and freedoms of human beings’ (Development Plan for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, 2006). It also links human trafficking and organised crime with drug trafficking, money laundering (Laulasmaa Declaration on Crime preferences, 2005), document falsification with passports and visa applications, and corruption of government officials (Development Plan for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, 2006). The Turkmenistan policy also acknowledges ‘possible links between international terrorist organisations and organised crime groups, on the one hand, and human traffickers, on the other’ (Law of Turkmenistan ‘On Combating Trafficking in Persons’, 2007). Finally, the Kyrgyz law, instead of focusing on the policing aspect of organised crime, emphasises victims by ‘providing effective protection against the exposure of participants to corruption and the possibility of persons who committed crimes connected with human trafficking to have an influence on participants’ (Law on the Prevention and Combating of Human Trafficking, 2005). From these excerpts it is evident that organised crime is a popular substantive topic in Eurasian trafficking policy. Although it is often employed in the content of the policies, these policies do not focus entirely on this theme or at the expense of other themes, it being one of the sparsest themes in the policies. Human trafficking policies in Eurasia also contained authoritarian elements, where countries have used trafficking policy to increase the surveillance of their people and decrease democratic principles. Out of the 15 countries in the region, only 3 are categorised as ‘free’ by Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Index (2014). In fact, Eurasia ranks among the worst region in the world for political rights, with five

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Contrasting policy approaches to human trafficking in Eurasia

countries categorised as ‘partly free’ and seven categorised as ‘not free’ (Freedom House, 2014). Thus, it is not surprising that authoritarian governments would take every opportunity they have to consolidate power, even through a human rights-​based issue such as human trafficking. As the examples demonstrate, some countries are trying to capitalise on trafficking as an excuse to curb democratic values like free speech or freedom of movement with provisions such as requiring a special government permit for citizens to work abroad. For example, Armenia requires registration of all pregnant women (including passport data) in a database operated by the Ministry of Health (National Anti-​ Trafficking Response in the Republic of Armenia, 2010). Kazakhstan sought to increase the monitoring of migration organisations that export labour across the borders (National Action Plan for the Government of Kazakhstan to Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2012). While Kyrgyzstan looks to identify and record individuals crossing or attempting to cross the Kyrgyz state border, strengthen the control over agencies in the field of tourism (Plan of Action for Combating Human Trafficking in the Kyrgyz Republic for the Period 2008–​11), and finally, control the adoption process, boarding schools, nursing homes, children’s homes, family homes, and rehabilitation centres (Programme Combating Trafficking in Human Beings in the Kyrgyz Republic, 2013). Ukraine plans to collect information, including identification numbers, on Ukrainians detained abroad for prostitution (Programme for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women and Children Decree of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers, 1999). Belarus is by far the country to utilise authoritarian elements in its policies most widely. Citizens departing and entering Belarus are monitored for anti-​trafficking purposes. Belarus also seeks to collect data on children who were adopted by foreign citizens and are residing abroad in order to prevent trafficking. Additionally, living conditions are required by law to be investigated twice a year and reported to the Ministry of Education. Belarus also wanted to introduce a monitoring mechanism to identify dysfunctional and broken families as a preventative tool for trafficking. According to the law, it is illegal to publish and disseminate advertisements on the employment of Belarusian citizens outside of Belarus without their knowledge (Law on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, 2012). Students who would like to study abroad need written permission from the Ministry of Education. Tourism agencies must report information to the Ministry of Interior if a Belarusian goes on one of their tours and does not return. Also, gathering information on eligible women or men for bridal agencies (for the purpose of introducing them to potential spouses) is

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illegal and businesses that conduct this type of activity need a special permit (Law on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, 2012). According to the Human Trafficking Policy Index, Belarus has relatively encompassing trafficking policies (discussed in Chapter 6), but these examples demonstrate that authoritarian regimes have good trafficking policies on the surface but utilise these policies to monitor their citizens. Since authoritarian regimes have more control over their populace, they also might be better able to combat human trafficking through different policy approaches because they can monitor population movements without backlash. Thus, one unforeseen consequence of trafficking policies is that authoritarian leaders utilise trafficking policies, masked in the language of international human rights norms, to increase their power and control their citizens.

Stereotypical sex trafficking victims Data revealed that there are a number of stereotypes surrounding victims of human trafficking that permeate the different policy approaches to solving this problem. Azerbaijan’s rules for identification of human trafficking victims contend that police officers can identify trafficking victims as the following: Scatter-​brained, in a state of confusion, sleep and memory disorder, impulsive actions, and other factors form the average psychological symptoms of trafficked persons … A victim of sexual exploitation in most cases: is younger than 30; frequently changes the place of his/​her exploitation and works in various workplaces; works and acts as if under control; tattooed and other signs on himself/​herself showing his/​her relation with exploiter; is provided with a short day off or works without a break; lives in his/​her workplace. (Rules for the Identification of Victims of Trafficking, 2009) Although some of these characteristics could be true, they are hardly true for all victims as there is not a one-​size-​fits-​all type of trafficking victim. According to Hoyle and colleagues, thinking that all victims fit into a certain type of model is problematic as ‘the language of slavery oversimplifies our understanding of the range of causes and experiences of trafficking’ (2011:  314). Perpetuating these stereotypes in public policy only makes the victims more difficult to identify because they do not fit into the model provided in these policies and do not self-​identify as victims. The stereotype of the ‘ideal victim’ (Christie, 1986) or a

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Contrasting policy approaches to human trafficking in Eurasia

hierarchy of victims influences victim identification (Hoyle et al, 2011), awareness campaigns (O’Brien, 2012), and policy content (Britton and Dean, 2014). This hierarchy is described by Hoyle and colleagues: Ranging from ‘ideal victims’ such as young girls abducted from an orphanage and trafficked into prostitution, down to women already working in the sex industry who are persuaded that the money could be better if they migrate to another country, and then find themselves trapped in unacceptable conditions or in debt bondage. (Hoyle et al, 2011, 315) These stereotypes are present in the policies of Eurasia, as they have produced their own regional type of ideal victim: ‘Natashas’. Another stereotype evident in some of the policies is the assumption that the women knew they were going to be working as prostitutes and consented to work in this industry. The Lithuanian action plan states that ‘the organisers of the various business advertisements offering women work abroad (in bars, cafes, hotels, nannying, and modelling agencies, etc.), about 70% of the women responding to ads know what kind of work is waiting for them (to provide sexual services)’ (Programme for the Prevention and Control of Trafficking in Human Beings and Prostitution, 2002). On the other hand, the Latvian action plan contends that ‘some of the women responding to employment offers abroad are aware of the fact that they will be involved in the provision of sexual services’ (National Programme for the Elimination of Trafficking in Human Beings in Latvia, 2004). From these excerpts it is evident that stereotypes disseminated by the media and society have a way of transferring to public policy, thus perpetuating these stereotypes. Many of the early policies focus heavily on the sexual exploitation of women and children, completely discounting men or other types of victims. In fact, the first action plan in Ukraine was entitled the Programme of Prevention of Trafficking in Women and Children, and even the international standard for trafficking legislation, the Palermo Protocol, focused on women and children. Beyond the titles, there are many examples within the policies themselves that focus only on female victims. Armenia has a poverty reduction strategy and employment-​generating programmes for rural women, support projects for women entrepreneurs, refugee and unemployed women, and awareness-​raising campaigns for human trafficking with at-​r isk groups focusing on women and youth (National Plan of Action to

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Combat Trafficking, 2007). Belarus also discussed its need to establish rehabilitation and crisis centres for women and children, where victims of trafficking can receive consultative and psychological assistance (State Programme of Comprehensive Measures for Combating Trafficking in Persons and Spread of Prostitution, 2001). Lithuania sought to develop social support systems so that women and children would not be involved in prostitution (Programme for the Prevention and Control of Trafficking in Human Beings and Prostitution, 2002). Ukraine provided programmes for women graduating from university to stem unemployment, trafficking prevention programmes for girls in secondary school, and organised workshops for unemployed women (Programme for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women and Children, 1999). Moldova focused its repatriation efforts on women and children (National Plan on Prevention and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, 2012), while Tajikistan discussed organising conferences to debate methods to combat trafficking of women and children (Integrated Programme on the Prevention of Human Traffic in the Republic of Tajikistan, 2006). Kyrgyzstan is one of the only countries to recognise the trafficking of men in their policies by discussing the scope of the trafficking problem in that country with 60% male victims (Plan of Action for Combating Human Trafficking in the Kyrgyz Republic for the Period 2008–​2011). Thus, trafficking policies have been framed to meet the needs of female and child victims. While not all policies suffer from this shortcoming, it is a problem that permeates trafficking policies over a number of years in Eurasia. The examples mentioned earlier demonstrate that rehabilitation programmes in a number of countries only account for the needs of women and children, and are designed for the rehabilitation of sex trafficking victims, leaving out the needs of other victims who do not fit into this model. Additionally, trafficking prevention programmes that only seek to target women are problematic, because they are aimed only at stopping the trafficking of women. There are also a few policies that have harsher penalties for sex trafficking than other types of trafficking, like forced labour or child begging. For example, the Lithuanian criminal code’s definition is the ‘selling of a person or any other transfer or acquisition of a person for the purpose of sexual exploitation, forced prostitution, or for the purpose of receiving payments or any other personal benefits’ (Criminal Code, 1998). While it is clear that sexual exploitation and forced prostitution are illegal, the law is somewhat vague on other types of labour trafficking. The definition was amended in 2005 to

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include all kinds of trafficking, but in the first criminal code, only sexual exploitation was recognised. In Georgia, a trafficker can get 8–​15 years in jail for trafficking pregnant women compared to 5–​12  years in prison for non-​aggravated trafficking offences (Criminal Code, 2006). Kyrgyzstan has a similar provision for trafficking pregnant women in its criminal code (2003) suggesting more gendered dimensions in human trafficking policy making. Provisions that prioritise certain types of trafficking over others and demonstrate that sex trafficking constitutes a harsher offence than other types of trafficking are troubling when incorporated within public policy. Although the gendered language seemed to dissipate in the later years of the analysis, these examples show that human trafficking policies were geared toward this ideal type of female sex trafficking victim in Eurasia. In more recent years, governments had to expand their approach to include other types of victims. Still, the language of these policies needs to shift to include more recent manifestations of the crime, such as child begging and forced labour. Since most of the victims rehabilitated are now men (IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2016), governments have to move beyond the preconceived notion of a sex trafficking victim. As the traffickers changed their tactics from targeting women for sexual exploitation to targeting men for labour exploitation, policy makers needed to be more responsive to these changes. Consequently, soon after the initial legislation was passed, it was already outdated and governments in Eurasia had to amend their policies to account for changes in the crime of trafficking and the different types of victims. These amendments can take years to revise since the policy feedback loops in most countries are not rapid. This results in unidentified victims because they do not fit the stereotypical definition and are excluded from social and rehabilitation services. This evolving definition of human trafficking demonstrates that policy learning has occurred. The policy problem began with governments defining victims as only female victims of sex trafficking; then, as human trafficking became recognised as a wider problem, male victims of forced labour were included. This reveals that countries have learned more about the problem of trafficking and adapted their policies to fit this expanded idea of the crime. Policy makers need to find a balance between a focused definition of trafficking that excludes some forms of trafficking and one that is too broad and could be conflated with other issues such as migration, prostitution, or bride kidnapping. More recent policies seem to fit this assertion but there are still a number of countries, such as Belarus, Estonia, and Ukraine, which, at least in their policies, only have rehabilitation facilities and rehabilitation

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programmes for women or children. This demonstrates that there is still work to do in order to create human rights-​based policy approaches so that they not only combat the sexual exploitation of women but other forms of labour trafficking affecting men, women, and children.

The emergence of anti-​trafficking institutions These policies also constructed anti-​trafficking institutions in some countries, created to engage the multifaceted problem of human trafficking. As mentioned previously, anti-​trafficking institutions are government institutions that were created directly or indirectly as a result of human trafficking policy to implement different aspects of human trafficking policy. Following the criminal code additions, in the vast majority of countries, the first institution designed to work with human trafficking was an investigative unit within the Ministry of Interior or police officers tasked with investigating the crimes of human trafficking. In Moldova, there is a Centre for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings within the Ministry of Interior, but most countries just have a special unit or a couple of investigators within a larger criminal or organised crime unit. Another important institution is a national-​level working group or taskforce. All of the countries in the region, with the exception of Russia, Belarus, Estonia, and Turkmenistan, have a working group or taskforce established within their policies that facilitates cooperation on trafficking-​related activities. Some countries only have working groups within the Ministry of Interior tasked with investigating the crimes, while others have interagency commissions that combine the efforts of numerous ministries and work more broadly with all issues of human trafficking; still others include numerous ministries, non-​ governmental, and international organisations. Working groups are directed by a national coordinator and housed in different ministries and branches of government. For example, in Kazakhstan the working group is led by the Ministry of Justice; in Latvia the Ministry of Interior directs the group; in Ukraine the Ministry of Social Policy; in Moldova the deputy prime minister; and in Uzbekistan the president leads the group. In addition to working groups, there are also state trafficking shelters or centres to rehabilitate victims established under anti-​trafficking policies. Kyrgyzstan has a state-​run crisis centre called ‘Sezim’ (which means ‘feeling’ in Kyrgyz) in the capital of Bishkek, and one in Osh for children. Moldova has the state-​run Assistance and Protection Centre for Victims and Potential Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings,

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and Uzbekistan has the National Rehabilitation Centre for Assistance and Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking, demonstrating that there are a variety of state-​run rehabilitation centres across the region. Several countries have also established a human trafficking fund to pay for the implementation of policies, investigative units, rehabilitation services, or all of the above. Georgia has a State Fund for Protection and Assistance to Victims of Trafficking in Persons, which is almost entirely devoted to victim rehabilitation services and compensation. Azerbaijan has a relief fund for victims of human trafficking under the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to the Law of Azerbaijan Republic on the Fight against Human Trafficking, ‘All the property obtained from human trafficking (real estate, financial means, securities and other property) shall be confiscated by the court … and shall be transferred to a specially established assistance fund for the victims of human trafficking’ (2005). Finally, Belarus established the International Centre on Migration and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings to train and educate specialists throughout Belarus about human trafficking (Law on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, 2012). Anti-​trafficking institutions are discussed in more depth in Chapter 3. However, this brief analysis demonstrates the significant number of institutions that have been established under human trafficking policy and then built from the ground up to combat trafficking in Eurasia. While it is unclear from the policy analysis if these institutions have the capacity to combat trafficking and implement many of the programmes, it is still noteworthy to analyse the emergence of a large variety of anti-​ trafficking institutions formulated as a result of these policy documents.

Conclusion This chapter has examined the variation of human trafficking policy content that exists in Eurasia and traced its development from 1998 to 2015. It has surveyed the patterns of policy diffusion in Eurasia related to human trafficking policies. From this analysis it is clear that there are a variety of approaches taken to solve the problem of human trafficking in Eurasia. Some countries, such as Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, and Lithuania, were quicker to adopt policies than other countries, like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Also, these policies were adopted within a fairly short time and, from 1998 to 2015, 135 policies on human trafficking were adopted in this region as a whole. The analysis demonstrates that all of the governments have fulfilled the minimum obligations set forth in the Palermo Protocol and formulated laws and policies to combat human trafficking in the region. The first policy

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in the region on human trafficking was adopted in 1998 and within ten years every country had a criminal code article making trafficking illegal, categorised as a policy outbreak and not incremental adoption (Boushey, 2010), with 100% adoption rate of the criminal code within ten years. While all the countries in the region have criminalised human trafficking, Estonia, Russia, and Turkmenistan still lack laws concerning trafficking victims’ assistance and rehabilitation programmes. By analysing the types of policies and their evolution, this chapter provides a regional standard with which to compare policy developments, as well as the background information on policy development and how these policies diffused within the region. Policies in Eurasia have expansive definitions of human trafficking, sentencing guidelines for traffickers, and encapsulate the consent versus coercion debate started in the Palermo Protocol. In this region, depending on which country the trafficker is apprehended, they could receive between two  months and 15  years in jail for trafficking someone, demonstrating the significant variation of policy and sentencing guidelines in this region. Human trafficking policy in the region as a whole is often conflated with topics such as prostitution, sex tourism, forced marriage, pornography, and even adoption and surrogacy. Other themes found in policy language contained discussions of organised crime, corruption, and authoritarian verbiage which suggests that authoritarian regimes utilise trafficking policies, masked in the language of international human rights norms, to increase their power and control their citizens. Eurasia has also seen the establishment of anti-​ trafficking institutions through public policy that work with the issue of human trafficking in a number of interesting ways. Finally, the analysis of trafficking policies in Eurasia revealed, at least in the earlier years of the study, that policies were framed to fit the needs of female sex trafficking victims. This perpetuates stereotypes of trafficking victims. While this gendered language dissipates in the later years of policy development, many of the services continue to be gendered toward female sex trafficking victims and governments in Eurasia need to move beyond these stereotypes to provide a human rights-​based encompassing policy approach to the problem of human trafficking. This chapter demonstrated how some governments in Eurasia have attempted to prevent stories like Natasha’s from happening again by adopting policies aimed at curbing human trafficking. However, policies are just pieces of paper and are ineffective unless they are implemented. In searching for policy solutions, policy makers cannot forget the people like Natasha that these policies are meant to

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serve and the thousands more victims like her that never have their story told. Note A comparison of policy adoptions by type across all 15 countries is located in Appendix 3.

1

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2

Diffusing human trafficking policy adoption Kristīne met an acquaintance in Latvia who said that he could help her find a job in Dublin, Ireland. When she arrived in Dublin, she was met at the airport by two Pakistani men who took her to live in a house with eight other men. Finding a job was difficult for her because she did not speak English well. After a few months, one of the Pakistani men asked if she would marry him in exchange for money. After the wedding, Kristīne was not paid, and his attitude toward her changed drastically. She was no longer able to leave the house, forbidden to have a phone or go on the internet, and beaten often. Eventually, she gave birth to a child from her husband, and she was allowed to go to the Latvian Embassy in Ireland and register the child. At the embassy, the consular officer recognised the signs of abuse and reported the crime. Kristīne was freed from her captor and returned to Latvia with the help of NGOs. Since she willingly entered into the marriage, there was little that the Irish officials could do to prosecute Kristīne’s husband (TVNET, 2012). When Kristīne appealed to the embassy for help, this type of crime was something they had witnessed many times before –​fictitious or sham marriages, where third country nationals recruit women on Latvian social networking sites and force them into marriage to get EU residency rights in countries such as Ireland (Jolkina, 2011). At least 300 cases of fictitious or sham marriages have come to light in Latvia since news of this crime first broke in 2009 (TVNET, 2012), and the crime has been linked to sex and labour trafficking (TIP, 2013). The EU directive on free movement and Ireland’s absence of a law against marriages of convenience meant that Ireland was targeted for these marriages (Smyth, 2009: 145). In response to this growing crime, Latvia was the first country in the EU to adopt a law making fictitious or sham marriages illegal in 2012 (Imants, 2013).

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This story demonstrates what can happen when governments are responsive to complex and wicked policy problems1 such as human trafficking. When this new facet of the crime started in Latvia, the government working group recognised that it was a problem not covered in policy. Then they took steps to make sham marriages illegal and worked with other governments to recognise that this was a problem. This story shows the resiliency of the Latvian working group on human trafficking and how quickly governments can respond legislatively to the dynamic phenomenon of human trafficking by filling legal gaps to help identify victims and obtain the services that they need. This chapter expands on these legislative differences and policy gaps in human trafficking legislation from Chapter 1 and examines why some countries have adopted more policy approaches to solve this problem than others. Public policies diffuse or transfer from one country to another for a variety of reasons, including elements internal to the country such as type of political system, regime type, level of bureaucracy, and economic conditions, as well as external influences originating from outside the country, including pressure from the US government and international community. This nuance is critical because policies develop as a result of different factors and human trafficking is a unique policy type in that the US and international community have shaped this policy development around the world. This chapter seeks to understand how human trafficking policies have diffused to three countries in Eurasia  –​Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia –​focusing on policy adoption and what compels countries to adopt more comprehensive anti-​trafficking policies. It begins with an examination of the diffusion of innovation theory and the variables that lead to policy adoption. The analysis examines internal and external factors influencing human trafficking policy development in Eurasia. The results follow the internal determinants model of policy diffusion, where policy adoption was more heavily influenced by internal factors such as state commitment to trafficking policy and the strength of interest groups over time, than external pressure. Policy adoption was impeded by bureaucratic factors and state capacity.

Diffusion of innovation framework in the international context The diffusion framework has been used to describe different processes such as norms transfers across countries specifically related to war/​ conflict and the spread of democracy due to the convergence of policies and democratic standards across countries (Graham et al, 2013).

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Diffusion is also utilised in public policy to discuss why and how states adopt new policies. These discussions focus on the speed of adoption and address horizontal diffusion across states and among regions, top-​ down diffusion with national-​level pressure, and bottom-​up diffusion from cities to the state level (Shipan and Volden, 2006). Scholars of public policy diffusion have found that there are two main facilitators of policy adoption that explain why and how policies diffuse across borders: diffusion effects and internal determinants (Berry and Berry, 2007). Diffusion effects are the ways that policy makers are influenced by what has been successful in other states, competition among other states for resources and economic advantage, and external pressure on states to conform to the nationally accepted standards. By looking at the policies enacted in other states, policy makers learn what elements have worked and how policies can be improved. Diffusion effects are used to examine these influences and aim to predict the pattern in which public policy innovations spread across states (Berry and Berry, 2007). To better understand diffusion influences, the literature has utilised a variety of external pressures including geographic proximity, globalisation, and policies at other levels of governance (Berry and Berry, 2007). These examples of diffusion effects are adapted to international human trafficking policy adoption by breaking down external influence into four categories: international treaties, the US, Council of Europe, and EU. These variables, which emerged out of the interview coding, reflect the diverse external influences on human trafficking policy development. While the literature recognises the importance of external influence, the data revealed that this influence is more nuanced, with a multitude of external factors that can influence policy development. The data demonstrate that there are different external pressures on policy adoption in international policy making compared to those depicted in the US-​based literature. This US-​oriented research focuses on compliance with federal policy structures (Shipan and Volden, 2006), whereas my research reveals the complex world of international policy making and the diverse array of actors influencing policy development on the international level. This influence focuses on compliance with international or regional policy or norms from different actors on the international level with the UN, regional level with European influences and the Council of Europe, and even from other powerful countries like the US that advocated for human trafficking policy. However, policy making in the international sphere has fewer enforcement mechanisms compared to the US federal system so the pressure is applied using different methods such as shaming, incentives, and monitoring.

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Although the diffusion literature is limited, human trafficking studies have identified external factors that explain the causal mechanisms in policy making. Compliance with the Palermo Protocol was identified as the reason 124 countries around the world have adopted a form of human trafficking policy (UNODC, 2009a). International influence was identified as the most significant pressure to adopt anti-​trafficking legislation in Russia (Shelley, 2005). Avdeyeva (2007) argues that countries in the post-​Soviet region adopt human rights-​based agreements because of pressure to assimilate with other countries around the world. However, policy adoption has also been significantly influenced by US intervention (Johnson, 2009), and in Russia this intervention exerted more long-​term influence (Buckley, 2009b). Conversely, Cho and colleagues (2011) argue that trafficking policies are adopted due to externality effects such as contiguous countries and trading partners. Another theoretical lens for explaining the causal mechanisms in policy making are key internal factors such as the economic, political, and social characteristics of a region or country that can determine if and when a policy will be adopted (Grossback et al, 2004; Berry and Berry, 2007). The literature has demonstrated that a number of internal factors can influence policy adoption, such as legislative professionalism, electoral systems, party competition, government ideology, and the type of policy (Berry and Berry, 2007). In this chapter, these internal determinants have been adapted and operationalised to the international context and human trafficking policy subsystem. In applying this theoretical lens to international human trafficking policy making, some variables explored in other diffusion studies were not present while others were prevalent. Previous studies have shown that policy makers can become more aware of an issue through media coverage and the salience of the issue (Nicholson-​Crotty, 2009; Simmons and Lloyd, 2010). Other studies have suggested that policy adoption can be influenced by the power of interest groups and policy entrepreneurs (Mintrom, 1997), as well as state commitment to policy adoption through innovative programmes (Weiner and Koontz, 2010). Despite the acknowledgement that internal determinants and diffusion effects explain why and how policies are diffused across borders, there is considerable variation in the speed and scope of public policy adoption across states (Nicholson-​Crotty, 2009; Makse and Volden, 2011; Boushey, 2012). Internal factors that function within the policy network to influence policy adoption are also addressed by the human trafficking literature. Domestic politics, with gender representation and normative attitudes

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towards women, influence country compliance with international legal commitments by structuring state preferences (Bartilow, 2008). Monetary burdens on member states with Palermo Protocol compliance is another internal factor determining policy adoption (Hathaway, 2002). In fact, preventative policies such as criminalisation statutes were identified as the most popular form of international treaty compliance regarding human trafficking because they are the cheapest (Cho and Vadlamannati, 2011). Issue salience is another internal reason for policy adoption because the media has framed human trafficking as a serious transnational crime issue (Simmons and Lloyd, 2010) or a threat to national security (Shelley, 2005). Finally, McCarthy (2011) argues that international pressure, as well as domestic pressure from law enforcement practitioners, played a role in Russia’s adoption of the trafficking criminal code articles.

Ukraine: the early innovator On 24 March 1998, Ukraine became the first country in Eurasia, and one of the first countries in the world, to pass any kind of policy related to the issue of human trafficking. The Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, adopted Article 124-​1 Human Trafficking with a number of other changes to the criminal code almost two years before any international legislation was developed on the issue of human trafficking. Since then Ukraine has adopted 11 policy changes including changes to the criminal code, numerous national action plans in the 2000s, decrees by the Cabinet of Ministers, a national law in 2011, and many other policies adopted in between. While Lidiya (2012), a civil society representative in eastern Ukraine, said early criminal code articles made human trafficking illegal in Ukraine, these articles were never intended to help the victims. It was not until 2011 that the Ukrainian government passed a comprehensive law, standardising Ukrainian legislation, aimed at systematically combating human trafficking and rehabilitating victims of this crime. The issue of human trafficking was brought to light with a series of high-​profile illegal adoption cases involving foreigners and stories of sex trafficking involving women and children published in the media from 1994 to 1998 (Karpachova, 2002). Vadim (2013), a regional government official in western Ukraine told me: “Trafficking reached such a level where people started talking about the problem. Before, there were fewer cases and the problem was not out in the open but recently victims began to come forward and speak out about the problem of trafficking. Because of this we needed laws.” The salience

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of the issue of human trafficking in the Ukrainian media not only brought the issue to the forefront in society but also put it on the agendas of policy makers who could initiate policy changes to combat trafficking. Svitlana, an international partner in central Ukraine, noted that the issue of human trafficking was discussed in parliamentary hearings, which also helped raise awareness to the issue because “after learning about the scope of the problem and statistics on victims in Ukraine, it was difficult to ignore that this was a problem in Ukraine, and people began to realise some kind of draft law or policy needed to be developed” (Svitlana, 2013). Thus, the salience of human trafficking in Ukraine influenced policy development significantly over the years and helped convince policy makers to adopt policy to combat it and rehabilitate the victims. Interest groups including NGOs and international organisations also influenced policy adoption in Ukraine and they were mentioned frequently as one of the major stakeholders concerning human trafficking policy. Female-​dominated anti-​trafficking NGOs operated in many oblasts around Ukraine from the late 1990s. The work toward the initial additions to the criminal code in 1998 was spearheaded by international organisations and NGOs (Ivaschenko-​Stadnik, 2013). The IOM, OSCE, and International Women’s Rights Centre La Strada also helped form a working group together with representatives from the Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports in late 2008 to begin preparing a new law on human trafficking, according to Anna (2012), a civil society representative from central Ukraine. The IOM had a network of 28 reintegration partners, NGOs around Ukraine that provided rehabilitation and reintegration services to victims (Olena, 2012). These are mostly service providers and, since they work on the regional level, most of their political lobbying is focused on that level of government. Only the IOM and La Strada operate on the national level and attempt to influence legislation and policy making. Olya (2013), a civil society representative from southern Ukraine felt that the influence of interest groups in anti-​trafficking policy development was minimal because organisations still do not receive financial support from the government. According to the law, the government is unable to contract out services, such as training and rehabilitation services, to the NGOs, so many of the services provided in Ukraine are supported by international donors. Consequently, these organisations have been integral in lobbying for policy change in Ukraine. There have also been individual policy entrepreneurs who have lobbied for better human trafficking legislation on the national level. In the Ukrainian case these policy entrepreneurs proved integral in

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facilitating the adoption of trafficking policies even if their work has sometimes been obfuscated in the literature which argues that policy adoption is only undertaken to satisfy international commitments set forth by the Palermo Protocol. News of these high-​profile cases in the mid-​1990s came across the desk of Nina Karpachova, the Deputy Chairperson of the Committee for Human Rights, National Minorities, and International Relations of the Verkhovna Rada, who decided that Ukraine needed to take steps to make this crime illegal within its borders (Karpachova, 2002). Karpachova gave reports on human trafficking to the Verkhovna Rada in an effort to rally support behind the criminal code amendment, and the first criminal code amendments were adopted. When the new criminal code was developed in 2001, there was opposition to the inclusion of the human trafficking articles and in the first drafts of the new code it was excluded, Alisa (2013), a government official in central Ukraine, said. Karpachova then spoke with European and international organisation leaders who in turn wrote letters to the Speaker of the Rada on the importance of these articles, and they were consequently included (Alisa, 2013). Thus, at first glance it appears that the impetus for policy adoption was pressure from the international community, as the literature suggests. A closer inspection of the process and interviews with key actors revealed that a larger impetus was pressure spurred by local policy entrepreneurs. Many respondents spoke about the personal factor involved in policy adoption in Ukraine as a significant reason why policies were adopted in that country. These policy entrepreneurs in Ukraine influenced policy development in their country with respect to human trafficking, before many international commitments existed. State commitment to human trafficking policy was viewed by respondents as both an impediment and catalyst to policy adoption at different times during the policy development process in Ukraine. The 2011 national law emerged out of the NGO working group, mentioned previously in cooperation with the Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports, the ministry tasked with working on human trafficking. The working group formulated a final draft of the Law of Ukraine on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and sent it to the Cabinet of Ministers for adoption. The cabinet took no action on this law, the Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports was dissolved due to an administrative reform in December 2010, and the adoption process came to a halt. Given the administrative reforms and the stall tactics of the Cabinet of Ministers, government bureaucrats in the executive branch decided to circumvent the cabinet and went straight to parliament. Normally, legislation of this kind would originate

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from the Cabinet of Ministers. However, since it was taking such a long time to get this legislation off the ground and there was no clear successor that would deal with human trafficking within the ministries, going through parliament seemed the only viable option. These actions demonstrate a level of government commitment to the development of human trafficking policy. Although this government commitment could be superficial, as Ivaschenko-​Stadnik (2013) argues that the presidential regime headed by Viktor Yanukovych was only interested in adopting human trafficking policies as a symbolic gesture to increase the visibility of Ukraine’s commitment to international migration policies like the Palermo Protocol and the Council of Europe Convention. In fact, respondents linked the government’s desire to adopt a more comprehensive human trafficking policy with the European Commission’s Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation to Ukraine that would give Ukrainians a visa-​free regime for short-​term travel to the EU (MFA of Ukraine, 2012). The action plan requested that Ukraine develop a migration management strategy (ILO, 2012) including adapting, and expanding judicial cooperation in human trafficking (MFA of Ukraine, 2012). In addition to passing its own legislation on human trafficking, Ukraine needed to adopt the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. This liberalisation plan was identified by many respondents as the impetus Ukrainian officials needed to pass additional legislation on human trafficking. Although Ukraine signed the convention in 2005, it did not ratify it until 2010, as a result of this external pressure. Olena (2012), an international partner, said that the visa-​free regime was a high priority for Ukraine leading up the parliamentary elections of 2012. Thus, the president saw the adoption of this trafficking legislation as a step to visa-​free travel, which could help his party win votes in the upcoming election, and therefore state commitment to adopting this legislation was significant. State capacity and bureaucracy were two elements identified by respondents as impeding human trafficking policy development in Ukraine. Administrative reforms dissolved the main agency dedicated to human trafficking policy four different times since the first legislation was adopted in 1998. A final reform in 2011 abolished the Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports and moved anti-​trafficking to the Ministry of Social Policy. Olena (2012), said that on the national level, many of the personnel simply moved over to the new ministry, but on the local and regional levels there was a complete overhaul of personnel working in anti-​trafficking. Policy adoption was delayed due to this restructuring, and numerous policies had to be amended in

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order to accommodate these bureaucratic changes. This significantly impeded policy adoption in Ukraine. The lack of financial support from the Ukrainian government devoted to the state programmes in 2002 and 2010 were also mentioned as an impediment to policy development. Olya (2013) acknowledged that funding was the reason for the legislative gap because the financial situation was serious and the amount was not codified in policy. Financing is considered on a yearly government budget and subject to the political and economic climate in Ukraine. Although a number of programmes are supported by international donors the economic longevity of many of these policies had impeded the further development of policy. Respondents often cited international commitments as reasons for policy adoption, but these commitments were to Europe and not set forth by the international community in the Palermo Protocol, since Ukraine met the basic requirements of this protocol two years before it was even adopted and six years before ratification by the Verkhovna Rada. Even though the early laws were adopted before international standards were determined, later policy adoptions were influenced by international agreements. This is evidenced in the wording of some of the policies, which was taken directly from the Palermo Protocol. Pyshchulina (2005) argues that the criminal code amendments in 2001 were adopted in accordance with international standards –​more so than the previous amendments. Amendments to the criminal code in 2006 were also almost entirely based on the Palermo Protocol, as they included a new definition with the same verbiage as the protocol (Wijers and Haveman, 2006). Despite the fact that Ukrainian legislation surpassed the Palermo Protocol, interview respondents continued to cite the need to adapt the policies to international standards. European influence, in connection with the visa liberalisation and Council of Europe convention requirements, was cited as the reason for policy adoption by the majority of respondents. “Ukraine aspires to be part of Europe and it was understood that the state had an obligation to fulfil its commitments, so it was time to do it”, said Sofiya (2013), a regional government official in eastern Ukraine. The European Commission submitted an Action Plan on Visa Liberalisation to Ukraine in November 2010 and requested that Ukraine adopt its own legislation on human trafficking as well as the Council of Europe Convention (Olena, 2012). This liberalisation plan was the impetus Ukrainian officials needed to pass additional legislation on human trafficking. Kostya (2013), a national government official, said the government saw the necessity of visa-​free travel in Europe as a way to move closer to a successful dialogue with Europe and support

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the European model of development. Therefore, many viewed the adoption of human trafficking policy as another step towards European integration, and possibly someday EU membership. This influence through treaties and financial assistance for anti-​trafficking projects from Europe is, however, self-​interested because money was donated to source countries for victims of human trafficking with the hope of stemming the influx of migrants along EU borders. When external influence is mentioned in the trafficking literature as the impetus for policy adoption, most of the authors focus on influence from the US and not Europe (Bartilow, 2008; Cho et al, 2011). However, none of the respondents in Ukraine mentioned pressure from the US or rankings on the TIP report as influencing them to adopt human trafficking policy. Almost every respondent interviewed mentioned visiting the US on some type of US Embassy organised study tour or observational learning exchange –​examples of ‘soft’ influence with human trafficking policy. Instead of the TIP report rankings wielding significant power and influencing countries, the influence from the US seems much more subtle.

Latvia: the status quo Latvia has been proactive and reactive to human trafficking policy development since the country restored its independence in 1991. Its policy development has been a gradual mix of amendments to the criminal code and then successive national anti-​trafficking programmes. Since 2003 there have been five changes to the criminal code articles dealing with articles 154.1 Human Trafficking and 165.1 Sending a Person for Sexual Exploitation. In addition to the criminal codes, Latvia had two national programmes and one national strategy on the prevention of human trafficking. Latvia also had two decrees from the Cabinet of Ministers that outlined victim rehabilitation services and one law on the residency of third-​country victims. Even though human trafficking policy is seen as a priority by many respondents, Latvia still has fewer policy instruments on human trafficking than Ukraine. However, all but one respondent said that Latvia did not need more policies to combat human trafficking because the legislation is flexible and legislative amendments related to human trafficking are adopted quickly. International influence in Latvia is more pronounced than in the Ukrainian case. For example, the definition of human trafficking in the Latvian amendments to the criminal code was almost verbatim from the definition in the Palermo Protocol. Latvia adopted these

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amendments more than six months before it signed the Palermo Protocol in December 2002. Aigars (2013), a national government official, spoke about the diffusion from the international level: “With the development of international law it was necessary to add amendments to the national legislation. Our national legislation does not stand still. It develops and progresses along with international law like the Palermo Protocol and such things. All of this affects us most directly.” The Palermo Protocol influenced Latvia’s adoption of the criminal code amendments in 2002, and the programme in 2004, but the Latvian government took these international commitments and made them fit to the Latvian policy subsystem, which indicates that they are not just symbolic policy in that country. Thus, the influence is evident, but this is not the only impetus for policy development. The period following the adoption of the criminal code articles is categorised by Latvia’s increased aspiration to align its policies with Europe. The first national programme states that it was developed to facilitate the prevention and combating of human trafficking (Latvia National Programme for the Elimination of Trafficking in Human Beings, 2004). This required amendments to be harmonised with requirements set forth by international agreements from the UN, EU, Council of Europe, Europol and other international organisations. Latvia became a member of the EU in 2004, and as a result was subject to the human trafficking agreements. EU Directives on human trafficking were more effective than the Palermo Protocol and the Council of Europe convention on policy development because they offered the most precise requirements for member states and are binding agreements (Osterdahl, 2009). The Latvian government utilised EU recommendations concerning victim identification, assistance and rights, and combating trafficking in human beings (National Programme for the Elimination of Trafficking in Human Beings in Latvia 2009–​2013). The criminal law was also amended in 2007 to increase trafficking penalties and align with European standards. However, this harmonisation of the criminal code in 2012, instead of increasing sentencing guidelines, lowered its penalties in order to correspond with EU minimum standards. One criticism of Latvia’s policy development is that, at times, ‘it seems that anti-​ trafficking efforts are determined by the EU directives and programmes rather than by the trafficking consequences suffered by nationals or migrants in Latvia’ (Bite, 2012:  171). Latvia has been significantly influenced by external pressures –​mainly attaining membership in the EU, and most of its policy decisions have been aimed at gaining this membership.

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Influence from the US was more pronounced in Latvia compared to the other two countries. Although in all three countries the US government supported study visits related to human trafficking, programme support, training of police, prosecutors, and judges, and the annual Trafficking in Persons Heroes Award (Evita, 2013). Mārtiņš (2009), a national government representative, said that the national programme in 2004 was formulated with support from the US Embassy in Latvia. But the overwhelming topic demonstrating the influence of the US on policy development in Latvia was the fact that a vast majority of respondents discussed the influence of the TIP report on policy development and Latvia’s ranking. The TIP rankings in Latvia are a topic of discussion, and many of the policy developments were seen as a direct result of this report. After the initial policy adoptions, Latvian policy development occurred more within the ministries and the anti-​trafficking working group than it did in parliament. This is based on the types of policies that were adopted and demonstrates that the influence of policy entrepreneurs and interest groups was muted compared to Ukraine. The amendments were supposed to be coordinated at the Ministry of Interior, but instead the ministry was stalling and Linda Mūrniece. a member of the Saeima, the Latvian parliament, introduced the changes. Most respondents mentioned that the Ministry of Interior and the working group significantly influenced policy development in Latvia. There are two NGOs run by women that work on the issue of human trafficking: the Resource Centre for Women ‘Marta’ and the Shelter ‘Safe House’ in Latvia. These NGOs provide services to victims and they are both members of the anti-​trafficking working group. The IOM also works on migration issues; however, Ivars (2013), an international partner, said that in recent years they have been focusing more on migration issues. They are all based in Rīga and provide services throughout the country. As members of the government-​supported working group, they have the ability to influence and change policy as they have direct access to the government. but at times this relationship is strained. Ēriks (2013), a national government official, told me: Previous evaluations of Latvia in the US TIP Report were unreasonably low, because NGOs make the situation seem worse to get extra funding for themselves. To get them their money, they say that everything here is bad, that Latvia is full of victims, because they need the money and government grants. (Ēriks, 2012)

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This mistrust on both sides lessens the influence of the NGOs on policy making and demonstrates that, even though they are members of the anti-​trafficking working group with policy makers, they still struggle in Latvia to influence the adoption of human trafficking policy. The Latvian government’s commitment to anti-​trafficking efforts was one of the biggest indicators of policy adoption. Aigars (2013) discussed this and said that “at the political level it was recognised that [anti-​ trafficking policy] was a priority. In the absence of political will, there would be no legislative changes or specialised police units.” Political will was also mentioned as one of the motives for policy adoption with the anti-​trafficking programme in 2009; there were gaps between the first programme that ended in 2008 and the second programme that was adopted on 27 August 2009. There are also examples in Latvian policy development where trafficking policy was not on the agenda after the changes of government, such as the criminal code amendments in 2004. Therefore, human trafficking policy is a priority for some Latvian governments, but it is unclear if this topic will continue to be a priority, which could hurt future programme adoptions and affect the continuation of policy development in the future. One factor that was continually discussed in the interviews was the personal or human factor with Latvia. Andrejs (2013), a regional government official, noted that the difference between Latvia and other countries “is the human factor, where we invest in all of society, so we are responsible for every human being”. Turnover of people in the anti-​trafficking movement and in the working group has been minimal; they have all established relationships with each other. The small size of Latvia, with around 2 million people, has helped with policy development. These personal factors have led to the development of Latvian anti-​trafficking policy and the bureaucracy has facilitated human trafficking adoption. Data showed that, contrary to Ukraine, the capacity of the Latvian government to implement human trafficking policies was never questioned by interviewees. While no respondents said that Latvia lacked the capacity to implement these policies, financial support for anti-​trafficking programmes was discussed often. Financing from the Latvian government is varied, and both national programmes had implementation problems due to a shortage of financial resources. This absence of monetary commitment to both programmes demonstrated a pattern of policy making in Latvia where any policies concerning human trafficking that cost money were ignored (Dean, 2018). Funding from the state and international donors was limited, which, coupled with the economic crisis that hit Latvia particularly hard in 2008, meant that the funding of these programmes was always in flux. Consequently,

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state capacity was not an issue in Latvia, but an economic commitment from the government seemed to be a more pressing issue with anti-​ trafficking policy development. Issue salience and a human trafficking working group made up of NGOs and officials from different ministries influenced the first national programme in Latvia and more recently amendments to the criminal code made sham and fictitious marriages illegal. As the vignette at the beginning of the chapter discusses, that crime came to the forefront after reports began to surface in the media. The working group identified the problem of sham marriages and systematically worked to solve it, which indicates that to be able to develop effective policy, there need to be people within the bureaucracy willing to adopt realistic policies and fit them to the national context.

Russia: the holdout Russia is the last case study examined and has the least encompassing legal framework in place to fight trafficking in Eurasia. It has one human trafficking policy tool and it took three attempts to adopt the two amendments to the criminal code related to human trafficking. Amendments to the civil code on human trafficking were proposed in 1999 in the Legislative Committee of the Duma, the Russian parliament, but rejected in 2001 (McCarthy, 2011:  49). A  second attempt to adopt legislation on human trafficking came from a working group composed of members of parliament, women’s organisations, and international partners. They drafted an encompassing anti-​trafficking bill that was discussed in the Legislative Committee of the Duma in February 2002 but failed to be adopted (Buckley, 2009b) due to a lack of financing (McCarthy, 2011). Finally, the third attempt was successful, as members of the working group negotiated, with the support of the presidential administration, to include two criminal code articles related to human trafficking in a bill already introduced to the Duma (McCarthy, 2011). In October 2003 Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech on the necessity of these articles in the criminal code, and they were adopted by the Duma in December 2003 (McCarthy, 2011). This suggests that policy adoption in Russia related to human trafficking necessitates some level of state commitment to the issue. Even though there was significant pressure on Russia to adopt a policy from the US and the international community, this pressure was rebuffed and instead a solution from the presidential administration was adopted. Johnson argues that instead of accepting the policy

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recommendations of women’s organisations and a working group created to formulate the legislation, Putin introduced his own weaker version of the human trafficking legislation that offered no monetary weight, social services for the victims, or safe houses (Johnson, 2009). The lack of political will by the government impeded policy adoption in Russia. Yuri (2013), an academic in central Russia, told me that Russia did not have further policy development with human trafficking because the president has not yet seriously concerned himself with this problem. Oleg (2013), an international partner, affirmed this and said that “a new law will happen when the senior officials in government decide it is a priority, no one has told anyone else to do it, so that is why Russia doesn’t have a better law”. These comments allude to the fact that the presidential administration is a necessary component to policy adoption in Russia. Thus, there was evidence of political will in the presidential administration to make human trafficking illegal in Russia, and this political will enabled further policy development. Bureaucratic influence and the lack of clear leadership also encumbered policy adoption in Russia. Administrative reforms in the Ministry of Internal Affairs aimed at the human trafficking investigative police force around 2007–​08 eliminated the special investigative units on human trafficking. However, Mikhail (2013), an academic in central Russia, contended that despite this reform and name change, the police continued to be ineffective and little has changed. Therefore, administrative reforms impeded policy adoption and the lack of a lead agency and clear leadership means that there is no oversight on anti-​ trafficking activities. Ministries also work with no knowledge of what the other ministries are doing on this issue. Yuri (2013) commented that Russia’s slow development of trafficking policy is partly because Russia is a large country so adopting legislation there is a more complex and bureaucratic process. The influence of NGOs and policy entrepreneurs has been greatly reduced as a result of the closure of several NGOs through the Law on Foreign Agents. Alexander (2013), an academic in central Russia, said that many of the NGOs in Russia working with human trafficking emerged out of women’s rights organisations, gender centres, or domestic violence organisations in the mid-​2000s. These groups formed an interagency working group in the Duma in October 2002 to draft a law on counter-​trafficking (IOM, 2003) consisting of ministry officials, international organisations, and NGOs and supported by the presidential administration (McCarthy, 2011). Advocacy groups were also formulated around Russia on human trafficking. The IOM Moscow Office’s network of rehabilitation

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and assistance NGOs at one time numbered 18, but now, according to Katerina (2013), a civil society representative in central Russia, more than 50% of them have closed because of the foreign agent law and government supervision resulting from this law. Although influence on the national level is difficult, individual organisations in the regions have found it more effective to utilise local or regional contacts to influence their republic-​or municipal-​level governments through letter-​writing campaigns or personal relationships with local and regional authorities. Alyona (2012), a civil society representative from south-​western Russia, said that this provides an effective way to influence governance on the regional and republic levels as some of these organisations have received grants for anti-​trafficking programmes. Organisations in several Russian cities including Vladivostok, St. Petersburg, and Moscow even receive housing for shelters or office space, according to Vera (2013), a civil society representative in eastern Russia. Some respondents also discussed policy entrepreneurs within the policy subsystem as people who pushed for human trafficking legislation. While Yelena Mizulina, a deputy in the Duma, has been identified in the literature as a policy entrepreneur with the 2003 criminal code amendments (Johnson, 2009: 134), many respondents in 2013, including Alexander (2013), thought that Mizulina was a politician who saw human trafficking as a political opportunity and then abandoned it when the presidential administration did not support it. Human trafficking is a popular subject in the Russian media, and many of the respondents mentioned the deluge of news articles focusing on sex trafficking. Most people in Russia are aware of sex trafficking, because it is written about often in the media:  “this is a favourite theme of journalists, a girl becoming a victim of sexual slavery because the people read it willingly” (Mikhail, 2013). The issue of human trafficking in Russia started in the late 1990s and there was increased coverage in the early 2000s with the adoption of the criminal code articles (Buckley, 2018). However, human trafficking had low salience among politicians, as many confused human trafficking with helping prostitutes, there was little time to adopt the legislation, and the cost of witness protection and other rehabilitation services put the issue of trafficking far down the government agenda (Buckley, 2009b). Despite continued stories in the media, conferences throughout the country, and limited awareness campaigns, the Russian government’s first response was that human trafficking does not happen in Russia (Buckley, 2009b), and that is a perception which continues to this day. When officials did finally admit that trafficking occurred in Russia, it

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was still far from a policy priority in the government. This was affirmed by Vera (2013), who thought that the issue of trafficking had always been low on the government agenda and has not been taken seriously on the state level. By 2004, trafficking was framed as an issue of national security and government officials began to pay more attention to the issue, but still no government agency wanted to take responsibility due to the significant cost of anti-​trafficking programmes (Buckley, 2009b). Despite a plethora of media coverage on human trafficking this issue is still not important to Russian policy makers or society and does not significantly influence policy adoption. Russia signed the Palermo Protocol in 2000, ratified it in 2004, and it has been cited in the literature as the biggest influence on policy development in Russia (Shelley, 2005). A number of respondents also identified it as the most significant influence on policy adoption in Russia. Alexander (2013) told me that “signing and ratification of Palermo Protocol was the most important impetus that created the anti-​trafficking movement. Russia signed and ratified the Palermo Protocol, so it was obligatory to include something in our national legislation”. The Palermo Protocol was also used as the model for the Russian criminal code additions and adapted to the Russian system of legislation, according to Galya (2013), a civil society representative in central Russia. Thus, the influence of the Palermo Protocol in the 2003 criminal code adoptions can be seen as the impetus for policy adoption and is evident within the content of the policy, but it is not the only influence. The antagonistic relationship between the US and Russia on the issue of human trafficking has made the issue political to a much greater extent in Russia than in Ukraine or Latvia. Russia was downgraded from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 3 in 2013 in the US TIP report for failing to comply with the US minimum standards (TIP, 2013: 310). This downgrade was mentioned by several respondents as negatively affecting US–​Russian relations. Yelena (2013), a civil society representative in central Russia, said that when the Americans put Russia in the third tier of countries, it caused only resentment. “Human trafficking is political. The US TIP report does not help our work. On the contrary, it makes everything very hard. Although as a researcher I respect the effort. I think the tier rankings are not helpful” (Alexander, 2013). The literature argued that pressure from the US government was productive in the development of the 2003 criminal code amendments (Buckley, 2009b), but in 2013 I  found that this influence on human trafficking policy development had hindered the government from adopting human trafficking policies.

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Interview respondents identified that human trafficking in Russia was a political issue because it was associated with prostitution while others argued that it was a political subject because of the links to migration. All but one interview respondent said that they believed Russia had the capacity to adopt and effectively implement anti-​ trafficking policy, but the government chose not to devote resources to anti-​trafficking work. The financial situation of the government was not discussed by respondents as an impediment to policy adoption compared to Ukraine and Latvia, where this was a significant issue. Larisa (2013), a civil society representative in northern Russia, said “sometimes this topic is used as a political game because trafficking is often discussed as a very thin line between a child protection issue and political censorship or as one of the things that is regarded as a sign of a more democratic regime”. This, coupled with the TIP report rankings and international pressure to adopt encompassing trafficking laws, is why many people in Russia, including the presidential administration, were cautious at the prospect of further policy adoption. According to some respondents, Russia did not have a better human trafficking policy because it was simply not a priority for the government. They said that the government had bigger issues to worry about, like drugs or the war in Chechnya. Oleg (2013) said “when Russia finally does get an action plan or better policy on human trafficking it will be a Russian policy and not based on anything else or any other model”. Respondents also said that the commitment from the president’s office to an issue was fundamental to policy adoption because even if a member of parliament was interested in this issue, unless it originated from the presidential administration human trafficking policy would never be discussed in parliament.

Cross-​case comparison Different variables influenced human trafficking policy adoption in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia. Table 2.1 displays the diffusion variables and ranks the impact of each variable on policy adoption in that country on a three-​point scale (positive, adding to the policy adoption process; neutral, no influence on the process; or negative, influence impeding policy development). These results follow the internal determinants model, where internal factors such as state commitment to human trafficking policy and interest group strength were, over time, more important and consistent determinants of human trafficking policy adoption than external pressures.

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Diffusing human trafficking policy adoption Table 2.1: Influence of policy adoption variables by country Ukraine

Latvia

Russia

State commitment

Positive/​negative

Positive

Positive/​negative

State capacity

Negative

Neutral

Neutral

Interest group strength

Positive

Positive

Positive

Policy entrepreneurs

Positive

Neutral

Neutral

Bureaucratic influence

Negative

Positive

Negative

Issue salience

Positive

Positive

Neutral

Neutral (Palermo) Neutral (US) Positive (Council of Europe) Positive (EU)

Positive (Palermo) Positive (US) Neutral (Council of Europe) Positive (EU)

Positive (Palermo) Negative (US) Neutral (Council of Europe) Neutral (EU)

Internal determinants

External pressure International influence

Note: This table shows the level of influence (positive, neutral, or negative) that the variable has on policy adoption in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia. This table is modelled after Weiner and Koontz (2010) and adapted to fit the comparative international and human trafficking policy contexts.

Internal determinants The results suggest that state commitment to human trafficking policy is the biggest influence on policy adoption, in line with other diffusion literature (Weiner and Koontz, 2010). In Latvia, state commitment to anti-​trafficking policy facilitated policy adoption through consistent national action plans. In Ukraine and Russia, state commitment was viewed as both an impediment and stimulant to policy adoption at different times during the policy development process. While state commitment appears to be evident in most policy making, in authoritarian regimes these results alter the perception that all policies are initiated by the authoritarian leader. The eventual policy success suggests that policy adoption in Russia related to human trafficking necessitates some level of state commitment and that the lack of political will impeded policy adoption. Thus, there was evidence of the presidential administration’s commitment to criminalising human trafficking in Russia, and the political will stopped there, hindering further policy development. Instead of a black box of policy making, the case studies of authoritarian (Russia) and semi-​authoritarian (Ukraine) regimes demonstrate that it takes more than an authoritarian leader

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dictating policy for a policy to be adopted. Similar to democratic leaders, authoritarian leaders need other variables, such as interest groups or issue salience, to advocate for policy importance, bring topics to their attention, and provide policy templates. In Russia, international pressure facilitated the establishment of a working group, although the presidential administration only took a small number of the working group’s recommendations in the final policy adoption. This international pressure, coupled with interest group pressure, and policy entrepreneurs, enabled policy making on human trafficking in the country. State commitment in Ukraine helped policy entrepreneurs circumvent the normal policy process and adopt a policy that was in compliance with its Council of Europe commitments. The Latvian government’s commitment from bureaucrats in the Ministry of Interior helped push forward trafficking policy and was a catalyst to policy adoption and not an impediment as in the other two cases. Many respondents remarked that encompassing human trafficking policy was possible due to political will or, in the case of Russia, impossible due to the lack of political will to change the status quo. State commitment was a vital variable for policy adoption across the three case studies over time. While state commitment is integral to policy adoption, the state does not act on its own, and other actors in the policy subsystem are also important players in the adoption of policy, mainly interest groups –​a positive variable in all three cases –​and policy entrepreneurs. Their active role in the process demonstrates that players beyond the state were essential to policy adoption, in accordance with the literature (Mintrom, 1997). Policy entrepreneurs and interest groups in Ukraine navigated the adoption process in order to put the issue on the government agenda and bring about policy change. State commitment in Ukraine helped policy entrepreneurs circumvent the normal policy process to adopt a policy in compliance with its visa liberalisation commitments. In Latvia, issue salience and a human trafficking working group influenced amendments to the criminal code that in 2012 made sham and fictitious marriages illegal, crimes that came to the forefront after reports began to surface in the media. Interest groups and policy entrepreneurs in Russia worked to raise awareness in the presidential administration and make human trafficking illegal in that country, but many of the groups have disbanded due to the foreign agent law (Alexander, 2013). Although individual organisations in the regions have found it difficult to influence national-​level politics, they have effectively utilised local or regional contacts to influence their republic-​or municipal-​level governments through letter-​writing

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campaigns or personal relationships with local and regional authorities. Thus, even in the most authoritarian regimes, NGOs and policy entrepreneurs, based on their knowledge of policy making, have found ways to circumvent the road blocks and work with the government to accomplish their goals. Issue salience and the media are also important facilitators of trafficking and evidence of this variable was found in Latvia and Ukraine, a finding which is supported in the literature (Nicholson-​ Crotty, 2009; Simmons and Lloyd, 2010). The media’s reporting on sham marriages in Latvia put this new form of trafficking on the government agenda and prompted the human trafficking working group to fill a policy gap. In Ukraine, the salience of human trafficking not only brought the issue to the forefront in society but also put it on the agendas of policy makers. In Russia, despite the prevalence of the stories in the media on human trafficking, they did not influence policy adoption in that country. Data showed that bureaucratic influence was identified as an impediment to policy adoption and ranked as a negative influence in Ukraine and Russia. This variable adds to the diffusion literature, which does not discuss impediments. In Ukraine, administrative reforms have dissolved the main government entity dedicated to human trafficking four times since the first legislation was adopted and a successor was not identified for almost a year. This was happening while drafts of the bill on human trafficking were being developed, and impeded adoption. Bureaucratic influence and the lack of clear human trafficking leadership also encumbered policy adoption in Russia. Administrative reforms affected the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Russia, and there was no lead agency tasked with directing human trafficking work and advocating for human trafficking policy. Therefore, administrative reforms created no lead agency and no clear leadership, which impeded policy adoption. This resulted in no oversight on anti-​ trafficking activities –​and ministries that worked with no enforcement or knowledge of what the other ministries were doing on this issue. In Latvia, the continuity of members of the working group facilitated policy adoption and, even before this working group existed, individual policy entrepreneurs circumvented bureaucratic issues to adopt policies. Although monetary impediments to international treaty compliance were acknowledged by Hathaway (2002), my data provide empirical evidence of state capacity as a policy impediment. In Ukraine, a lack of government financial support for the state programmes in 2002 and 2010 was mentioned as an impediment to policy development. Funding, which is considered on a yearly basis in the government

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budget, is subject to Ukraine’s political and economic climate. Even though several programmes are supported by international donors, the economic longevity of many of these policies has impeded further policy development on trafficking. On the other hand, in Latvia the state adopted policies even if it could not afford them during the economic crisis, sometimes adding an addendum to the policies the next day that withdrew most of the funding. The government sponsors some anti-​trafficking programmes and rehabilitation in Latvia, but EU funding was also available to NGOs for these types of programmes. The capacity of the Russian government was also seldom questioned, with many people thinking that the level of economic development was sufficient to support social programmes, if the government decided that they were important. External influence Numerous external elements also influenced policy adoption in the three countries, but these are less uniform across the cases than the internal determinants. Although the literature has identified international influence associated with international treaties as the most important determinant influencing policy adoption, the data demonstrate that this influence comes from a number of different international stakeholders. The data revealed that it is not a singular unitary external force but pressures working in tandem to influence policy development. Thus, external influence is more nuanced than the literature suggests. Influence from the US government was exemplified by TIP report evaluations, study visits, and financial support for anti-​trafficking programmes. While all three of these elements were evident in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia, they affected policy development differently in each country. In Ukraine and Latvia, US influence and TIP report rankings have motivated the adoption of better anti-​trafficking policies. Conversely, in Russia the US influence has severely hindered the government from adopting human trafficking policies. Pressure from the US was evident throughout the policy process but this influence, identified in the literature (Buckley, 2009a; Johnson, 2009), was rebuffed and instead a solution from the presidential administration was adopted. The antagonism between the US and Russia regarding human trafficking has made the issue political. As such, the US impact can be seen both positively and negatively, as pressure from the US seemed to backfire and have the opposite effect than intended in Eurasia.

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European influence, which was not identified in the literature as an impetus for policy development, also varied across the three cases. The requirements of the Council of Europe convention, coupled with visa-​ free travel to Europe, were the driving force influencing the adoption of the Ukrainian human trafficking law. Thus, European influence was significant in Ukraine but is minimal in Russia, a Council of Europe member, but non-​signatory to the Council of Europe convention. Human trafficking policy development in Latvia was significantly shaped by the requirements of EU membership. The Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS) was the only type of European influence in Russia, and this organisation was able to coordinate cooperation with the Russian government when other international forces had failed. However, this organisation had no influence in Latvia, which was also a member state because its laws and development were so far ahead of Russia’s. This could suggest that intergovernmental organisations like the CBSS are more influential with policy change with the laggard countries in the region instead of those with encompassing policy. Overall, it suggests that these organisations are more effective at influencing some countries than others, even though further policy development has not occurred in Russia. As a result of the influence of this organisation, they have been effective in opening a dialogue with Russia on anti-​trafficking activities where there was formerly none on this issue. Overall, these results suggest that European entities were more effective at influencing countries if they were signatories to European conventions or laggards. The Palermo Protocol had more influence in the early 2000s on policy development than it did in the later years of this study. This finding contrasts with earlier studies (Shelley, 2005; Avdeyeva, 2007; UNODC, 2009a) but suggests that over time the influence of this protocol has dissipated. Once countries met the minimum requirements of the protocol, some did not develop their trafficking policy further. Meeting the requirements of the protocol meant criminalising trafficking, establishing comprehensive programmes to prevent and combat trafficking, and assisting victims. Because Ukraine met these minimum requirements before the Palermo Protocol was written, the protocol had little influence in the country. Although the protocol sets forth these guidelines, countries are able to interpret them as they see fit, and some countries, such as Russia, did the bare minimum to meet the requirements. However, since there are no real repercussions for failing to meet these requirements, Russia has not developed its legislation further and refrained from signing any other legislation, such

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as the Council of Europe convention, that would necessitate further policy development.

Conclusion This chapter demonstrates that both external pressure and internal determinants led to human trafficking policy adoption in Eurasia. It builds on the binary promulgated in the literature, by adapting the diffusion of innovation framework for international policy making and expanding the types of influence in policy adoption. Internal determinants emphasising state commitment and interest group strength were more important and consistent to this adoption across the three cases than external pressures. Thus, the data support the internal determinants model of policy diffusion. Human trafficking policies were adopted in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia due to internal factors such as state commitment to trafficking policy and the strength of interest groups. Many of these interest groups and policy entrepreneurs working to get policies adopted were predominately women operating in a masculinised political space, revealing a gender dynamic to human trafficking policy making. In authoritarian, semi-​authoritarian, and democratic countries, the commitment of the state and political actors within the policy subsystem influenced policy adoption more than any of the other variables discussed in the literature. While previous literature focuses on elements that facilitate policy adoption, this chapter revealed elements that both facilitated and impeded policy adoption. In the three countries studied, the capacity of the state and bureaucratic impediments were deterrents to policy adoption, factors that have not been found in AIC, where most of the diffusion literature is concentrated. The results showed that policy development was impeded by bureaucratic elements and state capacity, impediments that have not been examined in previous literature. Monetary burdens were also evident as Hathaway contends (2002), but the data revealed that international donors helped offset this impediment to state capacity with policy adoption. The story at the beginning of the chapter shows how these impediments can harm victims and delay necessary services if policies are not adopted that make new aspects of trafficking illegal or provide services for victims. The story demonstrates the importance of responsive and resilient government institutions and public policies equipped to handle changing policy problems. Also diverging from the literature are the findings on external pressure. Instead of identifying international influence as an

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all-​encompassing reason for policy adoption, in-​country fieldwork data suggested that policy adoption was influenced by multifaceted pressures. By exploring factors that promote and impede policy adoption, the findings add another dimension to policy making, with regulatory policy embodied in criminalisation statutes and redistributive policy illustrated with victims’ service laws. They demonstrate that when considering gendered regulatory and redistributive policies like human trafficking, governments do not just haphazardly adopt policies to satisfy international agreements. Instead, NGOs within the countries must lobby for their adoption and the government must also be committed to the policy. Previous studies have ignored internal elements and over-​ emphasised external pressures, whereas my research demonstrates the value of internal elements in policy adoption and in-​country research in order to examine policy making on the ground. This chapter suggests that policy making is more nuanced than blind compliance with international treaties, as the literature suggests, and reveals that in authoritarian regimes policy making does not occur in a vacuum. Even non-​democratic governments, despite their rejection of some international norms, have demonstrated a commitment to minimal human trafficking policy adoption. Note According to Head wicked policy problems ‘are generally seen as complex, open-ended, and intractable. Both the nature of the “problem” and the preferred “solution” are strongly contested’ (2008: 101).

1

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Tracing the development of  anti-​trafficking institutions Yuliana was born in Moldova but spent most of her life in state orphanages in southern Ukraine. After graduating from the orphanage, she looked for a variety of jobs to support her brother but ended up being trafficked into domestic servitude after accepting a housekeeping job with a wealthy Roma family. After months in captivity, the family made their way to Russia, where Yuliana’s documents were not in order and she was freed. She received rehabilitation services in Kyiv, and applied to obtain the victim of trafficking status in accordance with a policy adopted by the Ukrainian government in 2011. As a citizen of Moldova who was now on the radar of the Ukrainian government, she needed to obtain the victim of trafficking status to be able to remain in Ukraine. In order to obtain this status, she had to travel back to her village and the site of her exploitation, 12 hours away by train, to file the paperwork. She had to make numerous trips to her village in order to fill out paperwork, identify her traffickers, provide testimony for the police investigation, sign paperwork, and testify against her traffickers. The process for application was very unclear and she had to visit numerous government agencies including lawyers, social workers, and police in order to navigate the ambiguous application process. After weeks of travel and document preparation, she was the first person in Ukraine to obtain victim of trafficking status in January 2012. The granting of this status meant that she was able to receive a one-​time monetary payment from the Ukrainian government, which, after numerous tries by the NGO that was assisting her, was never obtained. According to the new law, she was also able to apply for a temporary residence permit in Ukraine, but again repeated attempts to obtain a residency permit were rebuffed by government bureaucrats who did not know what the status was, how to apply for residency with it, or how long it entitled Yuliana to stay in

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Ukraine. To this day Yuliana has only the certificate stating that she is a victim of trafficking to show as her legal claim of residency in Ukraine (Lena, 2014). This case of the first victim to obtain the government status victim of trafficking (VOT) is typical of how this anti-​trafficking institution works in Ukraine. These policies are adopted with big fanfare, but the actual application of formal and informal anti-​trafficking institutions is Potemkinesque and very ambiguous. This chapter discusses several different anti-​trafficking institutions that were created directly or indirectly as a result of human trafficking policy adoption. These institutions were developed to tackle human trafficking, bring perpetrators to justice, and rehabilitate survivors of this crime. This chapter also focuses on institutional formation and transformation as human trafficking policies diffused to the local level. It seeks to determine how these anti-​trafficking institutions were created, how effective they are, and the different actors in these institutions. It examines the kinds of institutions that have developed, how they have changed over time, and the similarities and differences in how these anti-​trafficking institutions diffused across countries. Using process tracing, I trace the establishment and development of five different anti-​trafficking institutions, including:  national coordinators, working groups, police units, shelters for victims, and victim certification processes. The effectiveness and ineffectiveness of these formal institutions are evaluated and the different approaches employed across the three different case studies, Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia, are compared to determine how these institutions are used to guide human trafficking policy implementation. The results suggest that the more effective the anti-​trafficking institutions are in a country, the better equipped a country is for effective policy implementation. It is determined that although formal and informal anti-​trafficking institutions existed in all three countries, only police units were effective across all three cases. Working groups and national coordinators were found to be integral to effective policy implementation and can guide strong networks for implementation.

Formal and informal anti-​trafficking institutionalisation Once human trafficking policies were adopted, several institutions were formed or adapted to implement policy. Many of these institutions have developed over time and shape the effectiveness of policy implementation. Without effective anti-​trafficking institutions such as

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human trafficking units within the police, it is difficult to investigate human trafficking crimes. Likewise, with no formal process for identifying victims of trafficking and no specified social services for them, it is challenging to locate and rehabilitate victims of this crime. The human trafficking literature recognises trafficking institutions individually concentrating on police units (McCarthy, 2015), task forces (Foot, 2016), or norms that cover victims’ assistance (Christie, 1986; O’Brien, 2012). The literature overlooks how these institutions work in tandem to combat trafficking or examine the effectiveness of their efforts on policy implementation. Anti-​trafficking institutions are an important facet to the policy process because they influence the effectiveness of implementation. As stated previously, government institutions are the formal (constitution, legislative, electoral) and informal (norms, rules) structures that determine the allocation of resources in policy making. Political institutions are a vital aspect of government and policy implementation. Institutions can be designed to solve the collective action problem (Ostrom, 1990) by enhancing local capacity to govern, improving individual decision making, and providing a forum for deliberation and negotiations (Schneider et al, 2003). Public policies create institutions but most of the public policy literature focuses on institutional capacity, legislative professionalism, constitutional systems, bureaucratic organisational structures, social policy management, and regulatory policy (Hill and Hupe, 2014). Institutions shape policy outcomes ‘because they carry incentives for certain behaviors and disincentives for others; they reduce uncertainty about the decision-​making process, and they try to provide stability in collective choices that otherwise would be chaotic’ (Clingermayer and Feiock, 2001: 3). Previous research has found that institutions, through values, rules, and ideas, ‘can provide a means of understanding how a number of different organizations can interact effectively in the implementation of public policies’ (Peters, 2014: 142). Institutions form relatively stable relationships among actors in the policy subsystem that can be used to implement policies (Hjern and Porter, 1981). Institutions can also reduce transaction costs and produce more effective policy by fostering collective efforts toward policy implementation, working through challenges, and resolving differences. (Schneider et al, 2003). Institutions are dynamic and fluid, as they can form, develop, evolve, and perish. The longevity of institutions within a policy subsystem can promote incremental change by sustaining work on an issue even after it is no longer salient (Baumgartner and Jones, 2009). Institutions play a big part in the policy process, especially with policy adoption over time and

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the diffusion of policy innovation as states with more innovative policy approaches have better institutionalisation of the policy area (Tolbert et al, 2008). Incremental changes ‘promote continued experimentation and expansion [and] the creation of supportive institutions may have broad implications for the capacity to innovate over time’ (Tolbert et  al, 2008:  558). However, there are also difficulties transplanting institutions into different cultural contexts with slow-​moving (culture, beliefs, social norms) and fast-​moving (political) institutions (Roland, 2004). This chapter discusses such institutionalisation over time and how anti-​trafficking institutions innovate and sometimes cease to exist due to bureaucratic reforms or lack of government commitment. The findings demonstrate that different institutional arrangements do influence institutional effectiveness which affects human trafficking policy adoption and implementation.

Precarious Ukrainian anti-​trafficking institutions Several anti-​trafficking institutions were created to implement these policies and emerged from the encompassing human trafficking policies adopted in Ukraine. These institutions include a national coordinator, Interagency Council, specialised police units, rehabilitation centre, and the victims of trafficking status. National coordinator The Ministry of Social Policy was designated the national coordinator for human trafficking in 2012 by a regulation from the Cabinet of Ministers (On National Coordinator in the Field of Combat against Human Trafficking No 29, 2012). The regulation re-​established the national coordinator after administrative reforms dissolved the previous coordinator and showed that this institution was created by policy, with responsibilities given to an existing ministry. The national coordinator role was first assigned to the Ministry of Family and Youth Affairs in 1999, when it was charged with implementing the first national programme on human trafficking (UNICEF et al, 2005). The Ministry of Family and Youth Affairs was disbanded shortly after the programme was adopted and reorganised as the State Committee for Family and Youth Affairs (UNICEF et al, 2005). Then the State Committee for Youth and Family Affairs was also disbanded, and the programme was not reassigned to another committee or ministry (Pyshchulina, 2003). The implementing body was again changed to the Ministry for Family, Youth, and Sports, after the adoption of the third national programme

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in 2007. This marked the third time the head organisation tasked with implementing trafficking legislation in Ukraine had changed hands. According to Natalka (2012), a government official in central Ukraine, the Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports was dissolved due to another administrative reform in December 2010, and finally in 2012 the Department of Gender Policy, Combating Human Trafficking, and Protection of the Rights of Deportees within the Ministry of Social Policy was named the national coordinator. This department was not created from scratch for anti-​trafficking implementation but merged with other departments in the bureaucratic reforms. In the most recent state programme, it was again recognised as the state contractor-​ coordinator and the vice prime minister of Ukraine was named as the programme manager. The main goal is to coordinate and implement human trafficking policy in Ukraine. Bureaucratic impediments and the ministry’s increased responsibility working with IDPs because of the war in eastern Ukraine demonstrate that this institution is ineffective. Additionally, future decentralisation1 reforms seek to take power away from the national government and further complicate the ministry’s coordination of policy implementation. Interagency council Another anti-​trafficking institution that was established in Ukraine through human trafficking policy development was the Interagency Coordinating Council on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings. Similar to the national coordinator, this institution and the name have changed numerous times throughout the policy development process. The first working group or council was established with the support of international organisations, NGOs, and stakeholders within the ministries in 1999 under the Commissioner for Human Rights and called the National Coordinating Council for the Prevention of Trafficking under the Commissioner for Human Rights (Karpachova, 2002). The second national programme shifted the implementation to a new agency called the Interagency Coordinating Council for the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons. It coordinated and exchanged information on human trafficking, conducted seminars in the regions on the coordination of the programme, and researched human trafficking (Comprehensive Anti-​Trafficking Programme for 2002–​ 2005, 2002). It was unclear if this council was meant to replace the National Coordinating Council established by the Commissioner in 1999. Sources have suggested that the two operated in tandem (Pyshchulina, 2006), even though they appeared to have similar aims

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and probably could have been combined to increase their cooperation and effectiveness. In December 2002, the Cabinet of Ministers decreed the establishment of the Interagency Coordinating Council for the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons. The decree outlined specific government ministries that participated in the council but the clause with civil society organisations states that they may be included (Cabinet of Ministers Resolution, 2002) not that they will be included. The decree also states that the Interagency Council will meet on an as-​ needed basis but not less than once a quarter; however, the names of members from the ministries were not announced until June 2003 and the council did not actually meet for the first time until September 2004 (UNICEF et al, 2005). According to the fourth programme, the council was renamed the Interagency Council for Family, Gender Equality, Demographic Development, Preventing Domestic Violence and Countering Trafficking in Human Beings. As stated in the policies, this council has regularly scheduled meetings but Natalka (2013) said in 2013 that there had not been a meeting since 2011; consequently, they did not meet on a regular basis. Membership on this council was also unclear and respondents could not confirm the membership of NGOs or international organisations in future meetings (Natalka, 2013). It was finally scheduled to meet in 2013 but unfortunately the revolution and events in Crimea and Donbas inhibited the implementation of this working group. This is because the Ministry of Social Policy is also the lead agency working to deal with the IDP crisis and has been overwhelmed by the registration process of at one time over 1.5 million registered IDPs in the country. In June 2015, the Ministry of Social Policy formed an interagency working group on the ‘protection of civilians during counter-​terrorist operations’ which includes government ministries, international organisations, and local NGOs (MoSP, 2015: np). The working group meets on a weekly basis during the crisis with the objective of ‘development and implementation of the plan of measures to prevent the involvement of civilians in armed conflict, particularly women and children, and the prevention of violence and trafficking’ (MoSP, 2015: np). Consequently, their attention is focused on other immediate issues of the war, such as displaced persons and domestic violence, since these have immediate effects whereas the effects of counter-​trafficking work are not likely to be seen for years, demonstrating how in conflict situations trafficking is not seen as an immediate threat. Therefore, this institution is categorised as ineffective because it does not meet or carry out its duties as prescribed in law.

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Police units Police units were also created as a result of human trafficking legislation in order to combat and investigate human trafficking crimes in Ukraine. The first criminal code additions in 1998 placed the task of prosecuting, investigating, and opening criminal proceedings on human trafficking with the Prosecutor General’s Office (UNICEF et  al, 2005). The programme in 1999 also discussed the need to develop investigatory methods as well as specialised law enforcement agencies (Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers Ukraine No. 1768, 1999). Investigations were difficult with this definition because it was necessary to demonstrate the intent of the trafficker to exploit the person (UNICEF et al, 2005). There were also no procedures published with this addition to the criminal code, so it was unclear how the crime should be investigated (Pyshchulina, 2003). This lack of clarity in the early definition also means that traffickers were often prosecuted under other provisions such as prostitution or pimping (Vijeyarasa, 2012). The criminal code additions lacked guidelines for the application of law in practice that courts rely on for interpreting the law (Pyshchulina, 2006). The Ministry of Internal Affairs created the first special anti-​trafficking unit within the police in Kyiv that focused on human trafficking crimes and prevention (Karpachova, 2002). Then a decree by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in May 2000 also designated that special units to combat trafficking should be created within the Criminal Investigation Department and regional departments (Pyshchulina, 2006). Amendments to the criminal procedure code in 2001 reassigned the investigation duties for human trafficking crimes from the prosecutors to police investigators in these special units (Pyshchulina, 2006). In 2011 the units were demoted from their own independent unit to a subdivision of the General Crimes Department and then merged with cybercrime in an administrative reform (TIP, 2013). As a result, ‘many detectives trained in specialized anti-​trafficking investigation techniques left the unit; the majority of detectives in the regions were new and had little experience with trafficking crimes, and a reduced percentage of time was spent on investigating trafficking offenses’ (TIP, 2013: 435). Additionally, the number of detectives in the ministry’s headquarters fell from 70 in 2010 to 16 in 2012, while the number in the regions was cut by 50% (TIP, 2013). Olya (2013), a civil society representative from southern Ukraine, said with reference to the police, “now there are two divisions [in the police] criminal investigation and cybercrime. The people are not always professional and do not have the full scope of knowledge on trafficking because they are always leaving or retiring

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which makes it difficult to prove and organise investigations”. In 2013, the government re-​established its anti-​trafficking law enforcement unit ‘as a separate, stand-​alone subdivision, increasing the number of officers assigned to trafficking in persons from 270 to more than 500 nationwide’ after much criticism from the US government and international organisations (TIP, 2014: 390). Thus, this institution was created by government policy, but bureaucratic reforms dissolved it and then international pressure led to the re-​establishment and expansion of the police units. Despite impediments, criminal cases were identified and investigated; police units are therefore categorised as effective. Rehabilitation centre Another institution that was created in Ukraine as a result of human trafficking policy development was the Medical Rehabilitation Centre for victims of trafficking in 2002. Although it was mentioned in policy in 1999, the creation of a rehabilitation and crisis centre for victims of trafficking took a few years to implement because international funding needed to be secured (Decree of the Cabinet of Ministers Ukraine No. 1768, 1999). As victims began returning home, there was a need for a centre where they could go to receive support and services; the rehabilitation centre was established by the IOM in Kyiv in order to meet that need. The central location in the country’s capital means that it is the first stop for victims returning home from abroad. The location in an urban area also ensures the victims’ anonymity during their rehabilitation, which may be difficult to obtain in rural areas. The centre provides free short-​term medical care and psychological assistance to victims of trafficking for up to a month. More than 2,000 of the 9,100 victims rehabilitated by the IOM have received assistance in this centre (IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2013). After victims leave short-​term assistance, 28 reintegration partners located throughout the country facilitate reintegration, providing services including medical, psychological, legal, and financial assistance, shelter, and vocational training (IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2013). The rehabilitation centre coupled with local NGOs around the country is categorised as an effective anti-​trafficking institution. Victim of trafficking status The last institution formed by the development of human trafficking laws in Ukraine was the development of the criteria for VOT status. As the story at the beginning of this chapter demonstrates, the process for obtaining the status is unclear, especially in rural areas where

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government employees do not see these types of cases and are unfamiliar with the process. A Cabinet of Ministers decree on the procedure for the declaration of the status of a victim of trafficking in human beings sought to detail the process that victims have to go through in order to obtain the status of VOT. This status entitles them to a one-​time financial benefit, outlined in the 2011 law, and rehabilitation services. In order to receive this status, the victim has to go to the structural department of the state administration and present themselves as a victim of human trafficking (Decree, 2012). The structural department was supposed to appoint a person to direct this process in every oblast of the country, but it was observed that many of the regions did not have any person assigned to this role. Then the structural department has three working days to conduct an interview with the victim and has to sign a non-​disclosure statement relating to the information they receive from the victim (Decree, 2012). Due to corruption in Ukraine, and the fact that victims must apply in the municipality where they are registered, many of the interview respondents thought that this whole process was not anonymous, and the data were not secure. Then their statement is sent to Kyiv where the Department of Gender Policy, Combating Human Trafficking, and Protection of the Rights of Deportees decides if the person is a victim or not. The status of victim is only given for two years but may be extended for no more than one year by the Ministry of Social Policy (Decree, 2012). Several respondents said that mostly foreign victims are interested in obtaining the status because it will allow them to remain legally in Ukraine. Liliya (2013), a civil society representative from southern Ukraine, said that a victim was denied the status because the person was trafficked to Russia, and since the crime occurred in another country he was not eligible to obtain the status. Lena (2013), a civil society representative in central Ukraine, stated that, “because the process is so difficult, the survivors receive no benefits, and the stigma of being labelled a victim of trafficking [her NGO] has stopped pursuing VOT status for clients unless absolutely necessary”. Several people were able to receive the status of victim. In 2012, 13 people were granted this status, in 2013 there were 41, in 2014 there were 27, and in 2015 there were 83 (IOM Mission in Ukraine, 2018). Data on the number of people denied the status of victim of trafficking were unavailable from the Ministry of Social Policy. There was one high-​profile case where a victim was denied the status and, with the help of La Strada, the victim took the ministry to court and won. According to the decree, this appeal should have taken a month to consider, but the Ministry of Social Policy failed to appear at the court hearings, so the proceedings

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took much longer (La Strada, 2013). These issues demonstrate that VOT status is a somewhat effective trafficking institution because some victims were able to receive it and there is an appeal process.

Resilient Latvian anti-​trafficking institutions The human trafficking policies have created several anti-​trafficking institutions within the Latvian government, including:  a national coordinator, anti-​trafficking working group, specialised police and prosecutor units, trafficking shelter for victims, and the certification process for human trafficking victims. National coordinator The national coordinator (NC), sometimes referred to as the national rapporteur, in Latvia was the first anti-​trafficking institution that developed from the first national programme in 2004 (Dean, 2018). The NC is the director of the Sectoral Policy Department at the Ministry of Interior (UNODC, 2010a). The NC chairs the working group, facilitating cooperation between the government and civil society, and reports to the Cabinet of Ministers on programme implementation (UNODC, 2010a). The NC devotes their time to many different issues, so trafficking and running the working group are not their only duties (UNODC, 2010a). Two staff members assist the chair on anti-​trafficking issues and implementation (GRETA, 2013). The NC also ‘represents the interests of anti-​trafficking stakeholders in the Cabinet of Ministries and in the Parliament’ and is a liaison with embassies on anti-​trafficking issues (UNODC, 2010a: 109). Finally, data collection from the ministries and NGOs is also facilitated by the NC (GRETA, 2013). This institution is categorised as effective since the work of the NC is visible and this institution does the work it is assigned to do in different policies. Anti-​trafficking working group The NC chairs the anti-​trafficking working group or national task force in Latvia. Linda Mūrniece started an informal interinstitutional working group in 2003 that held ad hoc meetings (Bite, 2012) and worked to develop programmes to combat human trafficking. At the time, the TIP report stated that the Latvian government was not doing enough to fight trafficking and that the only entities doing anything to fight human trafficking were the NGOs, according to government official Evita (2013).

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The Resource Centre for Women ‘Marta’ approached Mūrniece with an invitation to set up a working group after a meeting with US Embassy representatives where the embassy stressed the urgency of the issue, and the working group was established (Evita, 2013). Members of government ministries, municipal authorities, and NGOs were officially appointed to the group by the prime minister in 2010. This decree also identified the aim of the working group as facilitating the coordination and exchange of information on national programme implementation (Mūrniece, 2011). The number of working group members expanded from 18 to 23, with more government ministries added due to the expanding policy implementation. Chaired by the NC, the group convenes four times a year, once every quarter, but respondents said it can meet more regularly if necessary. NGOs were full members of the working group, so they could vote and provide input on decisions (GRETA, 2013). The GRETA evaluation of this group stated that the ‘National Task Force is a well-​organized system which is able to deal with any challenge involving the changes related to the development of criminal offences related to human trafficking’ (GRETA, 2013: 11). One criticism of the group was that they ‘run the risk to only represent the government’s viewpoint, thus expressing a biased opinion on the trafficking situation in Latvia’ (Bite, 2012: 170). Although the institution developed informally in 2003, it was referenced in policy documents and formalised as an institution in official government policy in 2010 (Dean, 2018). There are still issues within this institution recognised by respondents, but the group meets on a regular basis and it functions as it was intended. Therefore, it is categorised as an effective anti-​trafficking institution. Police units Police units investigated human trafficking crimes starting in 1993 with the Vice Squad in the municipality of Rīga that worked specifically with prostitution (Zarina, 2001). Budget cuts closed the unit in 1997 but it was re-​established in 2000, around the same time as the first trafficking criminal case was opened in Latvia (Zarina, 2001). The Third Unit for the Fight against Human Trafficking and Pimping within the Organized Crime Board of the Main Criminal Police was then established in 2003 (GRETA, 2013) and remains today. Latvian police attended trainings on human trafficking in Norway and Sweden, and the unit was established as a result of the training and the need for a special unit to investigate trafficking cases (TIP, 2002) showing a horizontal diffusion of ideas across countries. The unit was expanded in 2005 to cover the three biggest cities in Latvia (Zalcmane, 2008)

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and since then has grown to 19 police officers with four officers in the regional boards of the state police (UNODC, 2010a), five investigators, and other operational staff (Didzis, 2013). The unit works collaboratively in the regions of Latvia and with police units in other countries to investigate cases when Latvians are trafficked abroad, according to Didzis (2013), a national government official. Resources and victim identification are two big issues in Latvia. Recent TIP reports have criticised police investigation techniques as weak because few trafficking victims decide to assist the police in their investigations, suggesting distrust in this institution and worries about confidentiality (TIP, 2012). David (2013), an international partner, said “prosecution is the big problem in Latvia. The chain of command in the police is very unclear and they have a zero-​sum game with the resources of law enforcement. They simply don’t have the resources to have pristine investigations”. NGOs identified victims of trafficking, but the police did not identify similar cases (TIP, 2012). According to Ilze (2013), a civil society representative, this is because the police do not view women who have worked as prostitutes as victims even if they were forced: ‘We have signed all of these conventions and have all of these laws but the problem is the understanding of the issue. There is a different understanding of who the victims are because many police don’t feel a prostitute could also be a victim. We see this problem from two different angles. We see victims where the police do not see that they are victims.’ (Ilze, 2013) Despite these issues with investigation and prosecution of trafficking, the fact that Latvia has specific units devoted to this issue is important and demonstrates a level of commitment from the government on human trafficking issues. The police units are categorised as effective anti-​trafficking institutions since they do investigate trafficking crimes regardless of the issues outlined previously. Trafficking shelter for victims Regardless of the effectiveness of most anti-​trafficking institutions, Latvia has no shelter for human trafficking victims. The 2004 national programme delineated support services and a home for rehabilitation of trafficking victims, but no home was ever established. There was an anonymous flat where victims could stay established by Marta

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Centre but the funding ceased and the flat closed. The NGO with the government contract works with five regional crisis shelters (Zanda, 2013)  around Latvia to provide services (TIP, 2013), but there is no rehabilitation centre or shelter supported by the government or international funding specifically devoted to human trafficking. Victims can receive psychological, medical, and legal services from the NGO with the government contract but again there is no specified centre for receipt of these services. The government has doubled funding and expanded victims’ services over the past three years (TIP, 2013). Rehabilitation services are granted to victims for six months, but this can be extended to the end of the proceedings, if victims participated in criminal proceedings (TIP, 2013). The rehabilitation programme lasts for six months and then, if necessary, identified victims can receive another five counselling sessions (TIP, 2013). However, Zanda (2013) suggested that if victims needed more than six months, the rehabilitation could be extended. According to Līga (2013), a regional government representative, municipal social service workers also said they were willing and able to assist the victims after the conclusion of the rehabilitation programme. Although the NGO is based in Rīga, they bring victims to the capital city via safe transport or travel to the victim if they live in other regions of the country (Zanda, 2013). There is also cooperation and training with local service providers to provide continued rehabilitation services. Since this institution does not exist in Latvia, it is categorised accordingly. Victim certification process Starting in 2005, victims could receive rehabilitation services from the state budget. Consequently, the process to be recognised as a victim of trafficking and obtain services from the government-​sponsored NGO began to develop in policy. Rehabilitation services were only provided to victims who cooperated with police during the investigation process and criminal case, or with other law enforcement bodies certifying that the person was trafficked abroad. Victims who did not want to cooperate with police were not able to obtain state-​supported services; consequently, they turned to NGOs which could provide limited services. One study noted that numerous victims refused to get the certification and cooperate with police, which demonstrates the lack of trust that many victims feel towards these institutions (Bite, 2012). Nevertheless, persons that are not recognised by the commission (discussed later) as victims of human trafficking cannot receive social services supported by the state.

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The law established the main parties that facilitate and provide rehabilitation services. The Social Integration State Agency (SIVA in Latvian) decides the provision of services, enters into a contract with the provider of the services, and controls the quality of services provided. A regulation also outlines the criteria of a trafficking victim and the criteria for refusal of services including certain categories such as: migration, employment, safety, social ties, objective characteristics, and the person’s self-​appraisal (Sociālās rehabilitācijas pakalpojumus, 2006). As a result of this policy, the rehabilitation of trafficking victims was incorporated into the social services that are financed by the state, and the funding for these services was allocated from the state budget (Zalcmane, 2008). However, this also meant that victims could only go to certain state-​sponsored NGOs for assistance, as not all of them were able to get government support for rehabilitation. This changed in late 2016 when the procurement law was amended to include giving the contract to more than one NGO. In Latvia, there is a commission that recognises whether a person is a victim of human trafficking. The commission includes a social worker, a psychologist, a lawyer, a medical practitioner, an official of the state police, and any other specialists deemed necessary. The commission follows specific criteria for evaluating if a person is a victim, and people who are denied can appeal the decision through the court (Sociālās rehabilitācijas pakalpojumus, 2006). The commission sends its report to the SIVA and three days later SIVA decides on whether the person can receive services. A limitation of this procedure is that, during this three-​day waiting period, the victim has no status and cannot legally receive rehabilitation and protection services; informal services can be given in emergency cases, but this is not a standard procedure and at the discretion of the Ministry of Welfare (Bite, 2012). To avoid re-​ victimisation, this certification process can be done without the victim, and the procedures were amended to be able to certify victims who are abroad (TIP, 2013). Many respondents spoke of multiple examples of victims not wanting to obtain the certificate because of the process or the necessary criteria. Although it has developed to adapt to the changing needs of victims, some critics have claimed that the process of recognising a person as a victim of trafficking is overly complicated and discourages victims from seeking out the state-​supported rehabilitation services (AHTNET, 2007). Due to the small number of victims in Latvia these laws are infrequently used and, as a result, the practical application of the law and the skills involved in protection and assistance are absent (Bite, 2012). Still, despite these shortcomings, this institution is categorised as effective. Contrary to its Ukrainian counterpart, there

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are no criticisms of ineffectiveness within the network and there is an appeal procedure designated in policy.

Breakdown of Russian anti-​trafficking institutions Since Russia only has one policy tool to combat trafficking in persons, there are few anti-​trafficking institutions in the country. In Ukraine and Latvia, national programmes and other anti-​trafficking policies called for the establishment of anti-​trafficking institutions, but this has not occurred in Russia. This section will examine the types of institutions that have developed in Russia in the absence of anti-​trafficking policy. National coordinator There is no national coordinator in Russia to direct and coordinate trafficking policy. While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs coordinates Russia’s participation in the CBSS Taskforce against Trafficking in Human Beings, beyond that there is no agency or ministry assigned to implement the human trafficking laws in Russia. Alexander, an academic in central Russia, explained the situation in Russia: ‘There is no central institution. As you know, there is no national plan of action. It’s not like there is a central ministry in charge of implementing the programme. It’s not like that; there is no system in place. There is no single agency that is central for the question of human trafficking.’ (Alexander, 2013) This quote demonstrates how the lack of leadership has led to disorientation in the policy subsystem and among the few anti-​ trafficking advocates in the bureaucracy. According to the UNODC (2010a), monitoring the implementation of the criminal code amendments is delegated to several federal-​level agencies in the executive and legislative branches of government including the Inter-​ Agency Working Group under the Committee on Legislative Issues of the State Duma, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation. When asked which ministries were tasked with human trafficking issues, there were large discrepancies among respondents but most interlocutors said the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This lack of clear leadership and policy development establishing this institution means that these ministries have no oversight on anti-​trafficking activities and do not know what

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the other ministries are doing on this issue. Consequently, there is no national coordinator in Russia. Anti-​trafficking working group Although there is no official working group tasked with coordinating human trafficking activities in Russia, there were a few different working groups that were developed in the early 2000s, as previously discussed in Chapter 2. Putin founded a working group on human trafficking legislation development, headed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in April 2002 (McCarthy, 2011: 68). An interagency working group was also established in the Duma in October 2002 to draft a law on counter-​trafficking (IOM, 2003). This group was headed by Yelena Mizulina and made up of ministry officials, international organisations, and NGOs supported by the presidential administration (McCarthy, 2011). According to McCarthy (2011: 69), these groups were merged and constituted the official Duma working group on human trafficking. After the criminal code was adopted in 2003, these working groups seemed to disperse and the lack of policy development meant that there was no established anti-​trafficking working group. There have been reports that there is an interagency working group in the Duma that develops national legislation and strategies to combat human trafficking composed of law enforcement, state agency representatives, and NGOs (UNODC, 2010a). One source said a federal interdepartmental commission was going to be established when the draft Federal Law on Combating Human Trafficking was approved (UNODC, 2010a), but this source was from 2010, and there was no indication by the respondents that this law would be adopted in the future. The IOM in Moscow has facilitated the establishment of an interdepartmental working group for the improvement of a referral mechanism model that held its first meeting in December 2013 (IOM Moscow, 2013). The TIP report said that the Ministry of Health and Social Development had also formed an interagency coordinating committee on human trafficking in December 2010, and it was the ‘first known coordinated effort to address human trafficking at the national level’ (TIP, 2011: 305). Some regions in Russia, such as Vladivostok and St. Petersburg, have also reported ad hoc regional working groups to ensure the cooperation of government and civil society organisations when working with people in crisis situations; however, these groups are informal, and according to Vera (2013), a civil society representative in eastern Russia, meetings are sporadic. The anti-​trafficking working

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group was never established formally in policy; although there have been informal manifestations of this institution, these were temporary. Consequently, this institution is categorised as ineffective since, despite numerous attempts to establish a working group, none of them have persisted or are supported in policy. Police units An Interdepartmental Working Group on Combating Violence against Women, Trafficking in Women, Prostitution and Sexual Violence was established in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in April of 2002 (IOM, 2003: 180). This group was located within the Information and Public Relations Unit of the ministry and was tasked with gathering information on crimes related to the working group for use in cooperation and information sharing (IOM, 2003). In December 2003, a Specialised Unit for Combating Human Trafficking was established to investigate trafficking offences as part of the organised crime unit (McCarthy, 2011: 144). Consequently, in every region of Russia there were several police investigators who could potentially work with trafficking cases, in addition to their other duties (McCarthy, 2011). These units worked until 2008, when administrative reforms eliminated them and the special investigators with training in trafficking cases were dispersed to the general pool of criminal police (McCarthy, 2011). Although the specialised anti-​trafficking units no longer exist, investigations of anti-​trafficking activities do persist, they are just filed under the organised crime unit. Dmytri (2013), a government official in central Russia, confirmed that there are still police investigators working on trafficking cases in some regions of Russia, despite the administrative reform. The administrative reform also changed the name of the police from Militsia to Policia, but it was a just a change in title, while some departments disappeared, Alexander said (2013). According to McCarthy, law enforcement officers were instrumental in providing bottom-​up pressure to adopt the trafficking law in 2003 because without a criminal code article on trafficking, they were unable to fit the types of crimes they were seeing to other criminal code articles (McCarthy, 2011: 53–​4). However, the police have faced criticism of their trafficking investigations as prosecutions in Russia were low compared to estimates of trafficking problem (TIP, 2013). There are also issues when working with trafficking victims during police investigations as many victims are afraid to cooperate. This is explained by Katerina, a civil society representative in central Russia:

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‘There is a distrust of police. I must say that about 50% of assisted victims of trafficking cooperate with police, but many of them just don’t want to do this because it’s a long process to open a criminal case to testify. It’s very hard and stressful, and many victims have post-​traumatic stress disorder, and they don’t trust police at all.’ (Katerina, 2013) Although anti-​trafficking police units were developed in Russia, administrative reform restructured the departments and has diminished the capacity of the investigators who remain, making investigations and working with victims increasingly difficult. There is also a lack of evolving legislation where anti-​trafficking policies are not very effective because investigations fail to hold traffickers accountable. Despite, these shortcomings and the indirect nature of this anti-​trafficking institution with no concrete policy to support its work, this institution is categorised as effective because it does work to some extent and investigates trafficking cases. Shelter Shelters for human trafficking victims have an equally patchy history in Russia. In 2003, the IOM sponsored a project with the Angel Coalition that established four shelters for trafficking victims in St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Petrozavodsk, and Kazan, and one rehabilitation centre in Moscow (IOM, 2003). These shelters provided rehabilitation services including medical, psychological, social assistance, and repatriation services to help Russian victims return from abroad. According to Katerina (2013), this project lasted until around 2009, when the government gave no indication of their desire to take over or work with these shelters, so the project ended and shelters were closed. There was also a shelter in Vladivostok that was established as part of a different IOM-​supported programme and still exists today with the support of local authorities which provide the apartment and electricity, Vera (2013) mentioned. Despite this lack of support with most shelter facilities, the Ministry of Health reported that it officially cooperated with 47 NGOs on human trafficking and has both NGO and state rehabilitation centres (UNODC, 2010a). The statistic was calculated before the NGO law went into effect so the number of existing NGOs specialising in trafficking is significantly lower. Since the IOM’s internationally sponsored shelters closed in 2009, and the NGO law limiting foreign funding to the women’s organisations forced many to close,

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the anti-​trafficking movement has taken a decidedly more Russian approach. The women’s organisations that brought the issue of trafficking to the forefront were supported by international funding, so many of them were seen as bringing Western ideals into the country. When that funding dried up, many of the organisations ceased to exist, leaving a vacuum where services for victims of trafficking once existed. Only a handful of these organisations survived, and many of them work on other issues of gender-​based violence. In their wake, several new players have emerged, such as the Russian Red Cross and the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2013, the St. Petersburg municipal government granted the Russian Red Cross an apartment space to open an eight-​bed IOM-​ supported trafficking shelter (IOM, 2013: 312) with the help of the municipal government and the Federal Migration Services (Katerina, 2013). For some time, Russian Orthodox monasteries around Russia have been housing Russian and foreign victims temporarily until government service centres or NGOs could be located to assist them. Both organisations have long histories in Russia, cooperate with local authorities, and, according to Boris (2013), an international partner, are seen as being friendlier to the regime than the foreign-​sponsored women’s organisations. Trafficking shelters have come and gone, and some municipal authorities are more open than others to supporting human trafficking work. However, by utilising organisations seen by the regime as more Russian, trafficking shelters have been re-​established to work together and cooperate with government authorities. The inconsistency of this institution over time and the lack of monetary and policy support from the government, suggests that this is an ineffective institution. Victim service provisions Russia does not have a specific law that grants victims of trafficking access to social services. Victims may also go to any of the 2,500 women’s centres around Russia to receive assistance, but these centres treat general medical issues, and social workers are not trained to identify women as trafficking victims or specialise in trafficking care Elvira (2013), a government official in central Russia, explained. Additionally, if the victim is foreign they are not entitled to any special rehabilitation services. The significant amount of bureaucracy with human trafficking and NGO-​provided assistance has been identified as a problem in Russia (Shapkina, 2010). As most of the organisations and rehabilitation centres that could provide services have closed, there

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is not much of an application process in Russia. A trafficking victim can apply for refugee status if they are from a different country, but respondents stressed that obtaining this status for a victim of trafficking to Russia was extremely difficult: ‘Yes, it’s almost impossible to get the refugee status. And then because we are talking about a crime that is often committed in one country and the victim comes from another, these things are very difficult to prove. We have a lot of people from Central Asia who come here and have no rights because their employers confiscate their passports, do not pay their wages and force them to work without signing a contract. They are absolutely powerless, and the state deports them from the country.’ (Vera, 2013) Foreign trafficking victims are not entitled to the social services that Russian citizens can receive. This reveals the migrant stereotypes that foreigners are not true victims because they made the choice to come to Russia. However, a new law, On Protection of the Rights of Victims of Crime, adopted in January 2014, could fix some of these problems. While it does not focus specifically on trafficking victims, it does work to provide victims of violence access to social services. The law is for victims of crime in general and it prescribes the basic rights for victims and types of services available to them. Galya (2013), a civil society representative from central Russia, noted that it also allows NGOs and government agencies to obtain funding from the government to work with victims of violence so there could be more support for victims of trafficking under this law in the future. Despite this new law, a process for recognising victims of trafficking was not codified into law and there were no informal processes for victims to obtain assistance from NGOs or the government.

Cross-​case comparison of anti-​trafficking institutions Since policy development in all three countries was very different, it is not surprising that the anti-​trafficking institutions that have developed in these countries are varied as well. In Latvia, the National Coordinator is the Ministry of Interior; in Ukraine, it is the Ministry of Social Policy; and in Russia there is no NC. The Russian case demonstrates that it is more effective for policy development and accountability to appoint a ministry or person in charge of the anti-​trafficking

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work. Most countries in Europe appoint the Ministry of Interior or Ministry of Justice as the national coordinator or national rapporteur for anti-​trafficking (UNODC, 2010a). In Ukraine, the placement of the national coordinator in the Ministry of Social Policy suggests that Ukraine concentrates on the rehabilitation of victims. Since Ukraine is mainly seen as a source country, the emphasis on social services and rehabilitation for the victims, instead of combating the crime, was not that unexpected. Latvia had a system of rehabilitation services already in place and consequently the emphasis in that country was more on prosecution. While it is not clear which system of national coordination is better for combating trafficking, having a point person in the government bureaucracy is a necessary element to coordinate policy effectively. The Latvian case also suggests that working groups or councils are an integral institution for policy development. A designated working group that met regularly and had transparent membership and meetings helped the country respond quickly to changing trafficking trends and worked out problems with the legislation. It also facilitated collegial relationships and cooperation among key players in the anti-​trafficking movement. Although there can still be issues with NGOs concerning government influence, working groups provide civil society with a direct line to the government. Consequently, working groups can be a very effective anti-​trafficking institution in adopting new policies, cooperating on human trafficking initiatives, and implementing trafficking policies. While all three case studies have a history of police units specifically devoted to trafficking, their degrees of effectiveness vary. Latvia established units that work with human trafficking; however, in Russia, the units disappeared after an administrative reform and in Ukraine they oscillated between the two entities throughout the study period. All three countries were criticised for the small number of trafficking cases as police sought to prosecute offenders under lower statutes and other statutes not specified for trafficking (which will be discussed further in Chapter 5). Problems with prosecution could be remedied with clearer legislation, training, and practice. Ukraine and Russia reported bureaucratic reforms that also impeded training and hindered the continuity of police officers investigating these crimes. This differed from Latvia, where police turnover did not impede the investigation of crimes. All three of the case study countries had shelters, safehouses, or rehabilitation centres at one time or another during the study period, but they all have differing approaches to operating and funding these shelters.

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Only the Latvian government pays for the rehabilitation services but has no shelter; in the other two countries rehabilitation services are supported by international donors. In Latvia, these services have been contracted out to NGOs, while in Ukraine the government will eventually take over the rehabilitation centre. The Russian government has tried to limit international funding through the Law on Foreign Agents, but there is one NGO-​operated shelter supported by international funding. There also seems to be a shift away from supporting women’s organisations that first brought the issue of trafficking to the government’s attention, revealing a gendered backlash with human trafficking policy making. This could reflect the changing nature of the crime, that it is no longer a woman-​centred crime in Eurasia. Women’s organisations were often critical of the governments, and, as such, funding was allocated to other organisations that were seen as friendlier to the government. This turn from women’s organisations also reveals the gendered division of labour in human trafficking policy making in Eurasia, as most of the rehabilitation work is done by women at NGOs. The certification process for human trafficking victims is also very different in each country. The processes and decisions have transparency issues in Ukraine and Latvia, but the appeals process is clear and has helped victims receive the status or certification even if their applications have been denied. Victims are entitled to a one-​time monetary compensation from the government, as well as rehabilitation services in Ukraine, while in Latvia they have access to rehabilitation services and support. The situation in Russia is much bleaker as many of the shelters that existed in the mid-​2000s have shut down; as a result, victims of trafficking who are Russian citizens can visit government service centres to receive support and foreigners are usually deported. Accordingly, there is no trafficking victim certification process, and victims do not have access to compensation or specialised treatment in Russia. Table  3.1 analyses the effectiveness of these institutions across the three different case studies. Based on the process tracing of the different anti-​trafficking institutions presented in the case studies, the institutional effectiveness was ranked for systematic cross-​case comparison. They were ranked on a three-​point scale: effective, if they accomplished their main function as a human trafficking institution, ineffective, if the institution exists or existed at one time but it fell short of its mandate, and none, if no anti-​trafficking institution developed and worked in the corresponding country. As Table  3.1 reveals, police units were the only effective anti-​ trafficking institution across all three countries and this effectiveness varied and depended upon a specific unit investigating these crimes.

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Tracing the development of anti-trafficking institutions Table 3.1: Effectiveness of anti-​trafficking institutions by country Ukraine

Latvia

Russia

National coordinator

Ineffective

Effective

None

Working group/​taskforce

Ineffective

Effective

Ineffective

Police units

Effective

Effective

Effective

Shelter

Effective

None

Ineffective

Victim of trafficking certification process

Effective

Effective

None

Note: this table shows the level of effectiveness (effective, ineffective, or none) the anti-​trafficking institution has on policy implementation in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia.

Law enforcement agencies are seen as effective anti-​trafficking institutions due to their output and the number of trafficking arrests because police ‘routinely overestimate the degree of sin being committed in society because they exclusively encounter violators, prompting them to continually request a greater amount of resources’ (Doan, 2014: 762). These labels can lead members of the network to overestimate their effectiveness as an anti-​trafficking institution because any number of trafficking arrests is seen as an improvement compared to the period before trafficking was criminalised. Bureaucracy and the use of alternate criminal code articles is a variable that impeded police investigations, but it is evident that the criminal justice approach to combating trafficking is prioritised in these countries. Shelters did exist at one point in all three countries, incorporating a more human rightsbased approach with international support, but today only Ukraine has a consistent shelter. Nevertheless, the Latvian government does support rehabilitation services through contracts with NGOs. This further demonstrates the emphasis on criminal justice approaches at the expense of victims’ services in all three countries. Although the working groups in Ukraine and Russia were ineffective, the Latvian case reveals the integral nature of this anti-​trafficking institution to policy implementation. It showed how the group monitored policy implementation, initiated new policy when necessary, and cooperated between ministries and NGO entities, producing incremental change discussed in the literature (Baumgartner and Jones, 2009; Tolbert et al, 2008). In the absence of a working group or taskforce a national coordinator could also facilitate implementation, but in Ukraine this ministry was very limited and did not have overarching power to influence other ministries. A designated ministry identified as the coordinator of this issue would, at minimum, provide

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some guidance on national-​level anti-​trafficking work. The victim certification processes were bureaucratic and burdensome for many victims, which could hinder them from coming forward, especially in Ukraine. This institution and the process to be recognised as a VOT should be improved and standardised so that victims are more likely to come forward. It should also take into consideration human rights, the unique needs of the victim, and not require their repeated testimony which could cause further trauma, as the story at the beginning of the chapter shows.

Conclusion Anti-​trafficking institutions are the formal and informal structures that determine the allocation of resources in public policy making. This chapter revealed that there are several anti-​trafficking institutions related to trafficking in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia but there is difficulty transplanting institutions into different cultural contexts (Roland, 2004). Although many of these institutions were created by public policies, the results suggest that more effective anti-​trafficking institutions can lead to better policy as a result of feedback loops, in accordance with the literature (Schneider et  al, 2003). Human trafficking institutions have diffused from the top down via public policies but in Ukraine the Medical Rehabilitation Centre and in Latvia the working group were formed from the bottom up. The findings demonstrate that different institutional arrangements do matter in human trafficking and institutional effectiveness can influence human trafficking policy adoption and implementation. The results further show how the creation of regulatory mechanisms such as police units and distributive policies that created victims’ services institutions can influence outputs and outcomes of implementation. Evidence was also found of gendered backlash and a gendered division of labour in human trafficking policy making in Eurasia. All five of the institutions outlined are important components in combating human trafficking, though there were examples of institutional formation and cessation. Police units were the only effective institution across all three cases but only work with the criminalisation aspect of trafficking. The results also show countries are limited in assisting victims, an important facet of an effective human rights-​based approach to combating human trafficking. However, the working group is the most integral anti-​trafficking institution because it can bring together specialists from all the other anti-​trafficking institutions to facilitate further policy adoption and implementation.

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The effectiveness of working groups demonstrates how anti-​trafficking institutions can shape policy outcomes in Eurasia and provide stability to the policy subsystem while dealing with a complex problem like human trafficking. The Latvian working group findings suggest that, once anti-​trafficking institutions are established in countries and there are mechanisms to ensure the institution’s survival, they can not only oversee effective implementation but also work to develop better and more responsive policy in the future. Aligning with the literature (Schneider et al, 2003), the working group enhanced decision making and provided a forum for deliberations and negotiations. Consequently, if these institutions are strengthened, they could influence policy development and implementation. It is still unclear whether ineffective institutions are better than having none but at least the existence of the anti-​trafficking institution can show a modicum of government commitment to implementing the policies. The findings suggest that, once anti-​trafficking institutions are established in countries and there are mechanisms to ensure the institution’s survival, they can not only oversee effective implementation but with feedback loops also work to develop better and more responsive policy in the future. The results suggest that the more effective the anti-​trafficking institutions are in a country, the more likely the policy is to be implemented. Note Decentralisation was one of the demands of the Euromaidan protesters during the revolution of dignity, seen as an important component ending the Soviet legacy of centralised authority that led to corruption and mismanagement of the national government (Partlett, 2015).

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4

Linkages among actors in anti-​trafficking networks Miroslav, a Ukrainian national, was the ringleader of a trafficking network spanning from Ukraine to Poland, Lithuania, and finally the United Kingdom. Before his arrest he exploited over 200 Ukrainians in a forced labour network through work on farms and as builders, labourers, housekeepers, and waiters. His criminal group consisted of more than 11 people and operated for almost four years before his network of Polish and Lithuanian transporters was caught in the Šiauliai and Mazeiki regions of Lithuania. During the searches of his properties the police found eight ‘illegal immigrants’ from Ukraine who were getting ready to be taken abroad for forced labour. The criminal network used debt bondage and illegal immigration statuses to keep their victims in perpetual indebtedness (Big Mir, 2017). Although this transnational criminal network operated with impunity for years, it was finally thwarted by another type of network, a transnational anti-​trafficking network. The anti-​trafficking network which stopped the channel of trafficking in human beings included the Ukrainian Department for Combating Trafficking in Persons, National Police in Ivano-​Frankivsk, State Border Guard of Ukraine with assistance from the Border Guard of the Republic of Poland, United Kingdom Anti-​Crime Agency, State Border Guard of Lithuania, and Western Union Financial Intelligence Service (State Police, Ukraine, 2017). The investigation was initiated under Article 149 Trafficking in Human Beings of the Ukrainian Criminal Code. This story demonstrates the power of human trafficking networks to initiate and recruit victims, facilitating trafficking, while also enabling the investigation of human trafficking as a crime. Traffickers use cross-​ border networks to expedite trafficking across borders and through numerous countries, hoping to evade police. Police aim to trace these

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networks with their own contacts among police, border guards, and businesses and to hold traffickers accountable. This chapter focuses on how these anti-​trafficking networks are used in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia to combat human trafficking and implement human trafficking policy. It looks more closely at the connections among the different anti-​trafficking institutions in the human trafficking policy subsystem of each country. These institutions discussed in Chapter 3 come together to form different anti-​trafficking networks that are used to investigate crimes and assist victims. A network analysis is used to examine implementation networks, investigating how different actors in the human trafficking policy subsystem come together and the ties that bind them. The networks are mapped across the three case studies, focusing on descriptive statistics about the network, including:  the core and periphery, connections within the network, direction of the relationships, density, and the influence of the different nodes in the network. The diffusion of messages in the network, both positive and negative, are also explored. Then these results are pooled and analysed across the three case studies in order to demonstrate the different anti-​trafficking networks across Eurasia as some countries have more effective and resilient networks than others. The case study networks are displayed using NodeXL, a Fruchterman–​ Reingold force-​based layout algorithm and descriptive statistics about the network were also calculated with NodeXL (Smith et al, 2010). The networks display different nodes or vertices and edges where the nodes are different anti-​trafficking institutions as described in Chapter 3 and the edges are the types of relationships (reciprocal and non-​ reciprocal) between these nodes or vertices. A square vertex denotes a government entity in the network, a circle is a non-​governmental entity, and a diamond is an international entity in the network. The edges are differentiated by reciprocal or non-​reciprocal relationships. For example, a solid line shows a strong reciprocal relationship in the network between the two different vertexes. Then dotted lines demonstrate a one-​sided fragmented relationship from an international entity and finally dashed lines reveal a one-​sided fragmented relationship from the non-​governmental entity within the country to the destination vertex. The network lines are asymmetric with directed ties indicating the direction of the relationship from the core to the periphery. The directional connections indicate the relationship between the different nodes as sending or receiving entities within the network and how connections diffuse to other nodes. These directional connections allow for the identification of the power in the network and the asymmetrical relationships between the sending and receiving parties.

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Each network contains both positive and negative connections which can facilitate or impede the diffusion of these messages. The possibility of interactions and symmetrical ties within the networks are explored. These relationships in the network also suggest a taxonomy of types of relations as described by Borgatti and colleagues (2018). They categorise connections as continuous events where relationships between the nodes exist continuously over time or as a discrete event happening only once or for a finite period of time (Borgatti et al, 2018). Descriptive statistics about the networks are also formulated which allow for easier comparison across the case studies. The average in-​degree (number of incoming connections) and out-​degree (the number of outgoing connections) identifies the extent to which a node may be constrained by or constrain others, as actors that receive information from many sources may be prestigious and powerful (Hanneman and Riddle, 2005). Network density is a ratio that compares the number of edges in the network to the maximum number of edges the network would have if all the vertices were connected to each other (Hanneman and Riddle, 2005). It demonstrates the proportion of tie strength to all the possible ties that could be present in the network, allows for comparisons across networks, and also reveals the rate of information diffusion among the nodes (Hanneman and Riddle, 2005: np). The geodesic distance is the ‘number of relations with the shortest possible network path from one actor to another [and] demonstrates the optimal or most efficient connection between two actors’ (Hanneman and Riddle, 2005: np).

Human trafficking networks Networks are an essential tool for combating human trafficking, however most of the literature that discusses human trafficking networks has to do with the networks of traffickers utilising data from trafficking supply chains (Van Impe, 2000), organised crime networks (Turner and Kelly, 2009), or attempting to measure the extent of the problem through criminal networks (Albanese, 2007). It focuses on how traffickers utilise these networks or social media (Latonero, 2011) to facilitate human trafficking through the different stages of recruitment, transport, and destination (Albanese, 2007). This chapter, however, focuses on how anti-​trafficking networks can be used to combat human trafficking through a number of anti-​trafficking institutions and the ties that bind them. Anti-​trafficking networks are often used to coordinate a collaborative response against these criminal networks

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but the anti-​trafficking networks and the cooperation between anti-​ trafficking institutions is under-​studied. The 2010 TIP Report recognised the importance of these collaborations by adding a fourth variable for the evaluation of anti-​ trafficking efforts. This fourth variable required partnerships among the government and non-​governmental entities by ‘bringing together diverse experience, amplifying messages, and leveraging resources, thereby accomplishing more together than any one entity or sector would be able to alone’ (TIP, 2010: NP). Although this fourth variable was abandoned after a few years, this addition demonstrates the importance of collaborations and partnerships in combating human trafficking and why it is vital to study the effectiveness of these networks, how they form, and continue to operate. Cooperation between different anti-​trafficking institutions and organisations across sectors is one of the most important aspects of the anti-​trafficking movement because it brings together different stakeholders united to combat trafficking. However, these partnerships and collaborations in the anti-​trafficking field can also be problematic as power dynamics between businesses, donor foundations, NGOs, faith-​based communities, survivor-​activists, government agencies, law enforcement, and victim services providers can be rife with issues (Foot, 2016). I  examine the extent of this cooperation in the case studies, the relationships between different actors in the network, and the challenges that they face through competition for funding, territoriality, and bureaucratic impediments. Policy scholars discuss policy subsystems or networks as ‘a group of actors who share an interest in some policy area and who are linked by their direct and indirect contacts with one another’ (Mintrom and Vergari, 1998: 128). These networks facilitate policy innovations and the diffusion of policy ideas in a network. They expedite these ideas through ‘interactions among different network members [that] permit the formation and dissemination of judgments concerning the character of actors who propose innovations’ (Mintrom and Vergari, 1998: 128). New policy innovations and ideas are passed through the network and accepted, based on the personal relationships and the merit of the idea (Mintrom and Vergari, 1998). Policy entrepreneurs are also integral to the process of spreading these ideas and getting these ideas on the agendas of policy makers (Mintrom and Vergari, 1998), but some people in anti-​trafficking networks are not policy entrepreneurs and actively work against the implementation of the policy. This is yet another reason why it is important to study the whole network since some of the ties that bind institutions and members of the network are so weak that they impede successful policy implementation.

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The network governance literature also examines how the capacity of the modern state is waning and as a result NGOs have stepped in to provide vital public services (Davies et al, 2016). Consequently, the ‘government is partly replaced by processes and practices where public, semi-​public, and private resources and actors come together to pursue congruent (if not common) goals’ (Davies et al, 2016: 136). This is how formal and informal networks form to solve difficult societal problems through collaboration (Davies et al, 2016). However, these networks are facilitated by governments, so bureaucrats choose who is invited into the network, how often they collaborate, and the level of financial support, which necessitates a level of trust between members of the network and can lead to a breakdown, fracture, and closure of the network and elite capture (Davies et al, 2016). This chapter will build on these findings and discuss how many of these issues are evident across anti-​trafficking networks in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia.

Bypassing roadblocks in the Ukrainian anti-​trafficking network The Ukrainian network analysis of the anti-​trafficking institutions has 11 nodes and 17 unique edges. There are two international nodes, two non-​governmental entities, and seven governmental nodes in the network. Figure 4.1 displays the network at its core with the interagency council, but the fragmented relationships between different institutions means that the Ministry of Social Policy is the default centre, with the most reciprocal connections to other vertexes in the network. The periphery nodes are the international partner nodes, which only have one connection in the network. There are solid strong reciprocal relationships between government entities from the Cabinet of Ministers all the way to the oblast level on both the criminal and social/​rehabilitation side of the network. However, there is no coordinating body uniting both sides of the network besides the Cabinet of Ministers and the connections break down with the Interagency Council, which rarely meets and does not coordinate efforts between different agencies within the government. Alla (2012), a civil society representative from central Ukraine, stated that “we did have an Interagency Council but it turned out to be only on paper. It was recorded that the decision was made but no one knew about it. Now it is necessary to revive the council and find out the registered members of the council”. This network reveals seven solid edges, signifying a strong reciprocal relationship between the nodes and ten non-​reciprocal relationships.

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia Figure 4.1: Anti-​trafficking network in Ukraine Ministry of Social Policy Counter-trafficking NGO coalition

Regional coordinating councils Anti-trafficking units Cabinet of Ministers

Council of Europe

Ministry of Internal Affairs

Interest groups

Interagency Council

United States Department of Family, Youth and Sports

Note: The network is displayed in NodeXL using a Fruchterman–Reingold force-based layout algorithm where a square vertex denotes a government entity, a circle is a non-governmental entity, and a diamond is an international entity in the network. A solid line indicates a strong reciprocal relationship in the network, a dotted lines demonstrate a one-sided fragmented relationship from an international entity, and dashed lines reveal a one-sided fragmented relationship from the non-governmental entity within the country to the destination vertex.

There is also a significant breakdown in the network between interest groups and the national government. The relationship is weak and not reciprocal, so much so that we can see the NGOs actually start their own NGO coalition, the All-​Ukrainian Counter-​Trafficking NGO Coalition, with 75 organisations around Ukraine which work with the issue of human trafficking, Yana (2013), a civil society representative from western Ukraine, explained. The goal of the coalition is to unite NGOs across Ukraine that work on the local and regional levels to create a unified coalition with national reach and influence (USAID, 2012). Instead of operating in isolation, lobbying their local officials in seclusion, together they expanded their influence to the national level, and have nationwide support for their efforts. In doing this they circumvented the oblast-​level ministry and moved directly to lobbying on the national level, which is evidenced in Figure 4.1. They also have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Social Policy. The coalition created a more informal

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Linkages among actors in anti-trafficking networks

network not codified in policy because the network created by the government anti-​trafficking institutions was not including them and did not function effectively. This does facilitate direct contact between the government and NGOs, which was a problematic link in the network. By establishing this coalition, the NGOs have created a way to circumvent roadblocks by the government in the network. Some oblasts had good cooperation between interest groups and government representatives and some even had their own coordinating councils or working groups. This was mostly a result of the NRM, discussed in Chapter 1, an IOM-​sponsored project to unite different stakeholders and work to assist trafficking victims on the oblast level. However, interest groups have also been successful in initiating these councils by lobbying for decrees which establish coordinating councils at the oblast level. Alla told me that these oblast-​level councils are integral to getting victims the services that they need: ‘you see, in our oblast it is very bad when there is no coordination council. Our coordination council, is headed by the deputy governor and he not only heads but holds meetings where key decisions of the coordination council are made and sent all over the region. But when there is no council whose duty is it to combat trafficking in persons?’ (Alla, 2012) Other respondents, such as Yana (2013), discussed how the councils work together as necessary to solve complex problems involving victims’ assistance. Finally, there is also monetary support from some oblast-​level governments for things such as awareness campaigns, office space, or anonymous shelters. Luba (2013), a civil society representative from western Ukraine, said: “since 2008 we have paid for the regional human trafficking hotline from the regional budget. We began to cooperate with the local government and we opened this hotline which receives about 400 calls every year”. Iryna (2013), a civil society representative from central Ukraine, discussed how the local administrations often use NGOs’ activities in their reports, which makes the local governments look as though they are doing more to combat human trafficking. Figure  4.1 demonstrates how the network is still controlled and facilitated by the government. There is a formal network within the government operating around the defunct Interagency Council but it does not function effectively. There is little evidence that the network facilitates policy adoption or guides implementation. Although people do not actively work against progress in the network, bureaucracy and lack of government attention on the Interagency Council has impeded

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many of the connections. Instead the NGOs have really worked with open oblast-​level departments and then tried to influence the national level as one united entity. This approach could prove problematic once decentralisation reforms transfer VOT status procedures to the local level. The network demonstrates how top-​down pressures from the US and Council of Europe are present but bottom-​up elements with feedback loops are beginning to emerge with the NGO coalition. The largest sending node in the Ukrainian network are the interest groups sending communication to the interagency council, anti-​ trafficking units, the Department of Family Youth and Sports, regional coordinating councils, and the counter-​trafficking NGO coalition, though four out of the five of those relationships are one-​sided. This suggests that the power in the network lies with interest groups in Ukraine as they are working to get their message out and fostering asymmetrical relationships with receiving parties and other interest groups. One example of this reliance on interest groups was explained by Polina (2012), a civil society representative from eastern Ukraine, who said: “working with the IOM is a natural fit for us, from the first day we started working we cooperated with them. If not for them, then we would not exist because no one else can provide the kind of support that IOM provides”. Several government entities are tied for second most nodes, which suggests that the government does play a role in sending the information, it is just not concentrated in one node but spread out across the anti-​trafficking network. The interagency council is the largest receiving node but again four out of the five connections are one-​sided fragmented relationships to the council. The Ukrainian anti-​trafficking network shows 11 different actors in the network with a possibility of 110 different interactions and 55 possible symmetrical ties. Some of the connections in the network are reciprocated while others are not. Based on the data, it appears that most of the sending and receiving of information is done within the interest groups. Many respondents discussed how different organisations share their best practices and leaflets on anti-​trafficking with other organisations. The international organisations also contribute money to local organisations for reintegration assistance and for different legal services, which provides a strong informal link within the interest group nodes among different organisations. There was also a significant amount of information sent from the interest groups to other entities in the network. Khrystyna (2013), a civil society representative from western Ukraine, said: “In my opinion, we [NGOs] have to force the state to work.” So there is also evidence of interest groups sending information across the network to other entities with mixed results, but not a lot of information sending between different nodes

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in the government. The average in-​degree connections, the number of incoming connections and out-​degree connections, the number of outgoing connections is 1.545. Due to the lack of a cohesive working group, most of the relationships in the Ukrainian network are discrete and not continuous since there is no formal institution to preserve these relationships over time. The density of the Ukrainian network is 0.155. This means that about 15% of the network is connected to each other and 85% of the possible connections in the network are not observed. The Ukrainian network measured a maximum geodesic distance of 4, and the average geodesic distance of 1.86. The Ukrainian network had both positive and negative relationships. Klavdiya (2013), a local government official in eastern Ukraine discussed her cooperation with the police in her oblast:  “Yes, we have good cooperation and our department keeps in touch with them, […] we invite employees of operational police departments to our educational events, working groups, and round tables. We have cooperation here!” Positive aspects of relationships in the network included organisations working to establish anti-​trafficking police units in the regional police. Alla (2012) said: “The police used our help all the time, especially the anti-​trafficking department. We helped them, they helped us. We participated in many events together. Together we worked with the main goal of finding the criminals and punishing them and helping victims.” Numerous respondents discussed referrals to their organisation from the police, which were facilitated officially by MOUs and unofficially through good working relationships and trust among nodes in the network. Legislation has also established and solidified positive relationships and encouraged government entities to work within the network. Conversely, respondents also mentioned the negative relationships with other entities in the network. While the NGO network is well connected, respondents spoke about the turnover in local administration and that if they needed help they did not even have the phone numbers of government officials. According to Yana (2013), it’s a 50/​50 chance whether the state will work well or poorly with human trafficking cases; she said: “there could be a very good collaboration but we don’t have it yet”.

Efficient message sending in the Latvian anti-​trafficking network The Latvian anti-​trafficking network, displayed in Figure  4.2, is centred on the anti-​trafficking working group which coordinates most counter-​trafficking work in Latvia. The Latvian network has 11 nodes

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia Figure 4.2: Anti-​trafficking network in Latvia United States Social Services Commission Ministry of Interior

European Union

Third Unit Working group

Ministry of Welfare Cabinet of Ministers and Saeima

Municipal governments

Council of Europe

Interest groups

Note: The network is displayed in NodeXL using a Fruchterman–Reingold force-based layout algorithm where a square vertex denotes a government entity, a circle is a non-governmental entity, and a diamond is an international entity in the network. A solid line indicates a strong reciprocal relationship in the network, a dotted lines demonstrate a one-sided fragmented relationship with an international entity, and dashed lines reveal a one-sided fragmented relationship from the non-governmental entity within the country to the destination vertex.

or vertices and 16 different edges. There are three international nodes in the network, one non-​governmental entity, and seven governmental nodes, which shows that the Latvian anti-​trafficking network is clearly facilitated by the government and centred within the governmental sphere. This network reveals 13 solid edges, signifying a strong reciprocal relationship and three non-​reciprocal relationships. Most of the non-​ reciprocal relationships are from international entities but there is one non-​reciprocal relationship between the Ministry of Interior and the Social Services Commission. According to David (2013), an international partner, “there is a law enforcement person on the commission but this person doesn’t communicate and relay case information for the investigation and prosecution of cases so the information doesn’t always reach law enforcement which is why there is a gap in identification of cases”. This quote demonstrates a non-​reciprocal relationship and a breakdown in the network between different government entities.

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The Cabinet of Ministers, the Saeima, and the Ministry of Interior were tied as the largest sending nodes in the Latvian network. The Cabinet of Ministers and the Saeima sent information to the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Welfare, and the municipal governments while the Ministry of Interior sent information in the network to the Third Unit, working group, and Social Services Commission, although one of those relationships was not reciprocal. These sending relationships with the cabinet of ministers, Saeima, and the Ministry of Interior signify the power in the network. The working group was the largest receiving entity in the network, receiving information from the Ministries of Welfare and Interior, the Third Unit, interest groups, and the municipal government. The average in-​degree and out-​degree connections is 1.455. These receiving relationships are facilitated through the affiliation as a member of the human trafficking working group that meets regularly and signifies a strong relationship due to their meeting frequency and email communication. Most of the relationships in Latvia are not discrete but continuous over time and persistent since there are working group meetings every quarter. Figure 4.2 demonstrates that most of the connections in the network are reciprocal and centred on the working group, the Cabinet of Ministers, and the Saeima. The network reveals that the working group has the most (five) reciprocal connections with other vertices in the network. The Cabinet of Ministers and Saeima have six edges but two of them are not reciprocal. Figure 4.2 identifies the core of the network as the Cabinet of Ministers, the Saeima, and the working group, while the periphery nodes in the network are the international partners, which only have one connection in the network. These outside pressures from the Council of Europe and the United States have non-​reciprocal relationships. Conversely the EU also has only one connection in the network but this connection is reciprocal, which means it is better connected to the network than the other international partners. Connections among government entities are strong except for the Social Service Commission. The relationship between the interest groups and the government is strong, even for the NGOs that do not have the government rehabilitation contract since all NGOs are appointed to the working group. The NGOs have stepped in to provide social rehabilitation services for victims but these are supported by the government so the government has not been replaced in the network. Many interview subjects discussed the positive relationships in the network. Several of them spoke of the excellent cooperation with

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other entities in the network. For example, Brigita (2013), a local government official, said: ‘We work well together because we all learned together. We learned a lot from ourselves as a group. Perhaps these are things are not written out in the law but purely social aspects of how to work with each other. Our working group is like a friendly core that can trust each other.’ (Brigita, 2013) There were also discussions of negative relationships within the network between NGOs that viewed the government authorities as not doing all they could to locate trafficking victims and government authorities which felt that the NGOs inflated the seriousness of the problem to obtain more grant money, previously discussed in Chapter 2. The density of the Latvian network is 0.145. This means that about 14% of the network is connected to each other and 86% of the possible connections in the network are not observed. Other descriptive information about the Latvian network includes the maximum geodesic distance of 3, and the average geodesic distance of 1.769. These short distances between actors or nodes in the network are important, especially considering the time constraints with victim certification processes. The network in Latvia facilitates policy adoption and implementation through the diffusion of information from different nodes. A  new form of trafficking was discussed in Chapter 2, where the working group found a solution and adopted policies and programmes to fill the gap. Another example of the resilience in the network is this incident described by David, an international partner: ‘Latvia is a small country and so things are really based on relationships. If you work with people enough you know them and can just call them up. This is what happened last year. The government allocated assistance for seven victims but then halfway through the year there were already seven victims identified and they needed more money so the NGOs called the Ministry of Welfare and asked for more money and it was given.’ (David, 2013) These examples demonstrate how ideas and innovations are diffused in the network, and then collaboratively solved with new policies and programmes. There is also no clear entity working against other members of the network. Instead there is direct contact with most other members of the network through the formal anti-​trafficking institution

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working group meetings. In Latvia, there are top-​down and bottom-​ up pressures for policy adoption and policy implementation. There is also an overlapping of government and NGO responsibility in the network as NGOs received a contract and monetary support from the government in order to carry out and implement policy. Latvia has a venue, the working group with which to discuss the implementation of problems, so policy feedback loops are evident. The Latvian network is cohesive and, while state capacity and support were limited at times, the network persisted because of the personal connections in the country and the stability of relationships between the nodes.

Fragmentation in the Russian anti-​trafficking network In Russia the anti-​trafficking network is disjointed because so many of the anti-​trafficking institutions failed to develop as a result of deficient policy. Consequently, many of the connections displayed in Figure 4.3 are fragmented. There is no national coordinator or rapporteur, no working group, no clear oversight on anti-​trafficking activities, and little collaboration. The Russian network has eight nodes and nine different edges, which makes it the smallest anti-​trafficking network of the case studies. Russia has two international nodes, one non-​governmental entity, and five governmental nodes in the network. This network reveals five non-​reciprocal relationships and four solid edges, signifying a strong reciprocal relationship. The Russian network displays solid lines with clear reciprocal linkages between the presidential administration and other ministries but there is no way to connect and facilitate cooperation between these nodes because most messages emanate from the presidential administration. There is also an emphasis on the policing aspects in the Russian network since they have only developed policy and institutions to police this aspect of the crime. The influence of interest groups on other network nodes is limited since many of these organisations have closed. The relationships between interest groups and the government shown as dashed lines reveal a one-​sided, not reciprocal, and highly fragmented relationship. There are no consistent relationships with network members outside of the government. The networks do not actively facilitate policy adoption. Additionally, the pressure from the US and Council of Europe, displayed as dotted lines, is not reciprocal and for the most part is rebuffed as trafficking is seen as a contentious political issue. The presidential administration is the largest sending node in the network with five different edges sending information to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, and the Ministry of Healthcare. The presidential administration also receives

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia Figure 4.3: Anti-​trafficking network in Russia Presidential administration

Council of Europe Ministry of Healthcare

Interest groups United States

Ministry of Labor and Social Protection

Ministry of Internal Affairs Organised crime unit

Note: The network is displayed in NodeXL using a Fruchterman–Reingold force-based layout algorithm where a square vertex denotes a government entity, a circle is a non-governmental entity, and a diamond is an international entity in the network. A solid line indicates a strong reciprocal relationship in the network, a dotted lines demonstrate a one-sided fragmented relationship from an international entity, and dashed lines reveal a one-sided fragmented relationship from the non-governmental entity within the country to the destination vertex.

information from two international entities, but this is not a reciprocal relationship. This again shows that the power in the Russian anti-​ trafficking network lies with the presidential administration and it is the network core. The international partners are again the periphery nodes and have only one connection in the network. Interest groups have three sending relationships but all three of these are non-​reciprocal. The largest receiving node is the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, which receives information from the presidential administration and interest groups. The average in-​degree and out-​degree connections is 1.125. These receiving relationships are hindered through non-​ reciprocal relationships:  “With Russia it is really difficult to obtain statistics and information on human trafficking crimes. It’s a complete disaster. No information whatsoever, nothing” (Zia, 2013). The anti-​ trafficking network in Russia reveals that most of the relationships are

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discrete because there is nothing in the network to facilitate continuous and persistent contact between the nodes over time. The Russian case demonstrates little support from the presidential administration on the issue of trafficking and in maintaining or forming anti-​trafficking institutions and networks that can facilitate policy implementation. The existing network administered by the government is focused heavily on the criminalisation side. The network is lacking in cohesiveness and, unlike in Ukraine, the NGOs in Russia are not there to help pick up the slack. This fragmented network is due to the politicised nature of trafficking and the lack of funding resulting from the foreign agent law mentioned in Chapter 3. In Russia, the government is seen actively working against the implementation of trafficking by not adopting human trafficking policy and bureaucratising police institutions. There is top-​down implementation from the presidential administration with no feedback loops from other entities to guide policy implementation. The density of the Russian network is 0.1607. Therefore, approximately 16% of the network is connected and 84% of the possible connections in the network are not observed. The maximum geodesic distance of the Russian network in 3, and the average geodesic distance of 1.594. Since anti-​trafficking institutions are created mainly by policy adoption and the norms and networks soon followed, it is not surprising that Russia has the weakest network. With only two criminal code additions making trafficking illegal, there are no policies guiding victim assistance or establishing a national coordinator. Although networks can form in the absence of policy, they are difficult to maintain over time without some guidance or support from the government. NGO networks could be established to rehabilitate victims of trafficking, but the foreign agent laws have closed many of the organisations that worked on this issue. Similar to Ukraine and Latvia there is cooperation among interest groups, but it is less organised and unified. Various NGO coalitions, such as the Russian Alliance against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, an informal network of organisations working with violence against women, try to promote a network of organisations and professionals trained to work with these issues. There is also collaboration with the Orthodox Church, which, as mentioned previously, has offered housing and support to victims of human trafficking. While there are shared practices for training, geography and competition for grants limits NGO cooperation in Russia. Despite high fragmentation, there is still some cooperation across the Russian network, and a level of trust at least on the local and regional government levels. Some organisations discussed cooperation with the Federal Migration Service or other local government entities, and

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discussed how the government often turned to them for expertise in training, data on trafficking trends, or assistance with the development of legal instruments mostly at the regional level. Again, there are positive and negative aspects of their relationship. One example of a negative relationship is exemplified in this quote from Olga (2013), a civil society representative in central Russia: “we have no good cooperation with the government but at least we have some kind of cooperation. They are not very open and not very respectable. They are absolutely irresponsible, frivolous, acting like teenagers”. However, Larisa (2013), another civil society representative in northern Russia, mentions an example of a good relationship: “it’s part of our strategy to work in close cooperation with government because as a non-​governmental organisation we can only support them in finding solutions to different problems but we cannot spread these solutions across Russia without governmental support”.

Comparison across anti-​trafficking networks When the anti-​trafficking networks are compared across the different cases the data show there are some formal and informal networks coming together to solve the problem of human trafficking. Top-​down and bottom-​up implementation network processes are evident. In Latvia both elements were seen, facilitated by an active inclusive working group, while in Russia only top-​down pressures were seen and the network was very fragmented. Ukraine falls in between, where top-​ down elements in the network were effective and bottom-​up elements such as the NGO coalition were circumnavigating influence from NGOs. The effective anti-​trafficking networks in Latvia did expedite ideas within the network. The resilience of the Latvian network and the ties that bound different institutions together helped it confront funding cuts, policy failure, and new forms of human trafficking. In accordance with the literature, these ideas were accepted based on the personal relationships and the merit of the idea (Mintrom and Vergari, 1998). Policy entrepreneurs were also integral to the process, as evidenced by the working group and national coordinator, who facilitated the spreading of these ideas and helped put them on the agenda of policy makers (Mintrom and Vergari, 1998). There were also certain institutions in Russia which actively worked against the network and policy implementation; where a lack of guidance from the presidential administration and no coordinator or working group produced a fragmented network. In Russia and some aspects of the Ukrainian network the ties that bound institutions and members in the network were so weak that they impeded successful policy implementation.

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Figure 4.4 displays the combined networks with a Harel–​Koren fast multi-​scale algorithm labelled to differentiate among the vertices in different clusters. The layout produces a visualisation with overlapping cluster positions which is a force-​directed algorithm that compels all of the edges in the network to be about the same length and displays the connections in the network with minimal overlap (Smith et al, 2010). Similarly named vertices such as interest groups or Ministry of Internal Affairs are differentiated by adding an RU for Russia, LV for Latvia, and UA for Ukraine. Even though the network nodes overlap, the connections are distinct except for on the international level where all three networks share connections with the US and Council of Europe. The network reveals the inter-​institutional linkages across different international boundaries in the network. It also demonstrates the strength of weak ties in the network where international approaches and ideas related to trafficking can travel through and across the network via these weak relationships. Some overlapping ideas such the NRMs from the Council of Europe or TIP reports travel across different networks through weak ties and influence trafficking policy adoption and implementation. The combined network also displays the differences in network size with nodes and vertices. The Ukrainian and Latvian networks both have 11 nodes, with the Latvian network hosting more international connections versus Ukraine’s stronger interest group presence. The Ukrainian network overall has the most connections, with 17 different edges but only seven of those are solid reciprocal relationships while the Latvian network has 13 solid edges, suggesting that is the most connected network of the case studies. The Russian network has the fewest number of nodes (eight) and edges (nine), which again makes it the smallest anti-​trafficking network of the case studies. The more reciprocal relationships and ties in the network, the easier it is for messages to diffuse in the network because cooperation and message diffusion are interrelated in these networks. There are ten non-​reciprocal or one-​way relationships in the Ukrainian network, five in the Russian network, and three in the Latvian network. These findings demonstrate that even successful networks that diffuse information successfully have kinks and non-​reciprocal relationships. Sending nodes (that is, high out-​degree) were quite varied over the different cases as interest groups in Ukraine dominated sending communication to other nodes, but four out of the five of those relationships are one-​sided. In Latvia and Russia, the governments predominantly sent information in the network with the Cabinet of Ministers, the Saeima, and the Ministry of Interior tied as the largest sending nodes in Latvia and the presidential administration as the

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Figure 4.4: Anti-​trafficking network intersections Interest groups UA

Anti-trafficking units

Russian Network

Regional coordinating councils

Interagency Council

Organised crime unit

Ministry of Internal Affairs UA

Department of Family, Youth and Sports

Counter-trafficking NGO coalition

Ministry of Labor and Social Protection United States

Cabinet of Ministers

Ministry of Social Policy Ukrainian Network

Interest groups RU

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Presidential administration

Council of Europe European Union

Ministry of Healthcare

Latvian Network

Cabinet of Ministers and Saeima

Ministry of Interior LV

Municipal governments Ministry of Welfare Third Unit

Interest groups LV

Social Services Commission

Working group

Note: The combined network is displayed in NodeXL using a Harel–Koren fast multi-scale algorithm where a square vertex denotes a government entity, a circle is a non-governmental entity, and a diamond is an international entity in the network. A solid line indicates a strong reciprocal relationship in the network, a dotted lines demonstrate a one-sided fragmented relationship from an international entity, and dashed lines reveal a one-sided fragmented relationship from the non-governmental entity within the country to the destination vertex. Similarly named vertices such as interest groups or Ministry of Internal Affairs are differentiated by adding an RU for Russia, LV for Latvia, and UA for Ukraine.

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

Ministry of Internal Affairs RU

Linkages among actors in anti-trafficking networks

largest sending node in Russia. This demonstrates the strength of the government in both networks as they signal important information to other governmental nodes, with reciprocal relationships diffusing information down the network. In Ukraine, the default centre of the network was the Ministry of Social Policy, while in Latvia the core was the working group, and in Russia it was the presidential administration. Again, this affirms the influence of the governments in anti-​trafficking networks across a variety of countries and regime types. The periphery nodes in all three networks were the international partner nodes. The largest receiving nodes in Latvia and Ukraine were the working group and interagency council respectively. In Russia the largest receiving node was the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. The network densities across the case studies were relatively similar, with the Ukrainian network at 0.155, the Latvian network 0.145, and the Russian network with 0.1607. Thus, the Russian network has the highest percentage of observed connections in the case studies and demonstrates the proportion of tie strength to all of the possible ties that could be present in the network, despite many non-​reciprocal ties. While the Russian network is the densest, it was also the smallest network, with eight different actors in the network and 28 possible symmetrical ties, which helps explains the density. The average in-​degree and out-​ degree is 1.545 in Ukraine, 1.455 in Latvia, and 1.125 in Russia, which shows that Ukraine has the highest average of incoming and outgoing connections, suggesting lots of message sending within the network. The last descriptive statistic used to compare across networks is the geodesic distance. In Ukraine, the maximum geodesic distance was 4, and the average geodesic distance was 1.86, in Latvia the maximum was 3 and the average geodesic distance was 1.769, and in Russia the maximum geodesic distance was 3 and the average was 1.59. Therefore, the most efficient connection between actors was in the Ukrainian network, which measured the highest average and maximum geodesic distance. All the case studies aligned with the literature in finding that NGOs have stepped in to provide necessary social services (Davies et  al, 2016) for rehabilitating victims. Ukraine and Russia had limited capacity for these services but in Latvia the government provided a contract to organisations that provided the services and are specialists in this kind of assistance. All of the networks are facilitated by the government but there are also NGO networks that work in tandem or sometimes circumvent the main anti-​trafficking network. The government chooses who is invited to the working groups or councils, how often they collaborate, and the level or lack of financial support in accordance with the literature (Davies et al, 2016). Consequently,

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the government is a vital component of anti-​trafficking networks as policy adoption and implementation is impossible without it. Thus, in line with the literature (Davies et  al, 2016), there is no evidence of the government being replaced but only supplanted at times with the provision of social services for victims. The lack of government support is one reason why the network in Russia is so fragmented, since the government has also actively worked to destroy the possibility of an NGO network. Finally, while financial support for the network is helpful, it is not integral to the functioning of the network; as the Latvian case demonstrates, government commitment is more important than funding, as discussed in Chapter 2. Street-​level bureaucrats and cooperation through working groups were also vital to effective networks and policy implementation. The cases demonstrated that success depends on the connections in the networks, positive relationships, and the reciprocity of their ties. The findings also suggest connections between effective institutions from Chapter 3 and a more cohesive network. Russia had the most ineffective institutions and the most fragmented network, thus there is a causal connection between a breakdown in the anti-​trafficking institutions and the network. If the institutions do not function effectively alone it is highly unlikely that they are going to work successfully with other elements in the network. Furthermore, there could be a causal chain from bad policies to ineffective or non-​existent institutions and fragmented networks. If a country has limited trafficking policies these policies are less likely to establish anti-​trafficking institutions aimed at solving the problem. Fewer anti-​trafficking institutions does not necessarily lead to a fragmented network, but often, even with minimal institutional support, the connections in the network are disjointed. In Ukraine, there were effective policies, but we start to see ineffective anti-​trafficking institutions and a breakdown in the network as a result of the defective interagency council, so encompassing policies do not always mean effective institutions and a cohesive network.

Conclusion This chapter revealed the processes involved in the anti-​trafficking network, identified the kinks in the linkages, and where the networks broke down through non-​reciprocal ties. The results suggest that the more effective the anti-​trafficking institutions are in a country, the more likely the policy is to be implemented, a topic more closely examined in Chapter  5. The networks also reveal a stark divide

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and disconnect between criminalisation aspects of the policy and the social aspects, with rehabilitation for victims. In fact, many of the connections between the social services side of the network are weak compared to the policing side across all of the case studies. I identified kinks in the linkages, positive and negative connections, and a lack of cooperation between the policing and victims’ services sides of the network, which in some countries makes capturing traffickers and finding victims difficult. It was determined that if the links between these institutions and the ties that bind them are weak, it can cause the network to break down. In examining these anti-​trafficking networks, the importance of network connections was shown and how the messages that are sent across anti-​trafficking nodes are interrelated with policy implementation effectiveness. It was determined that the Russian network is the smallest and most fragmented but also the  densest network of the three case studies. The Latvian network is the most cohesive, with the largest number of reciprocal ties facilitated by the working group. The network in Ukraine has the highest average of incoming and outgoing connections and the most efficient connections between actors in the network. There was also evidence of interest groups in Ukraine and Russia moving around impediments in the national government by creating their own networks and lobbying specific regional-​level entities that were more open to cooperation. Positive and negative connections exist in all the networks, even the most effective ones; the messages and connections are important but strong relationships can still be forged with negative messages. All the networks are centred in the governmental nodes while international organisations are on the periphery of the national networks. This chapter set the stage for possible links between these networks and effective implementation in Chapter  5. Barrett argues that the ‘structures and relationships between participating actors and agencies and the nature of interactions taking place in the process are key factors shaping the policy implementation outcomes’ (2004:  253). Implementing the policies effectively is going to be difficult without effective anti-​trafficking networks, thus the causal chain continues into Chapter 5. Consequently, the relationships and connections between participating actors, anti-​trafficking institutions, and the nature of the interactions taking place in the process will prove integral in policy implementation. This chapter demonstrated a breakdown in the causal chain between policy, institutions, and their resulting networks and revealed that an encompassing policy did not necessarily result in a cohesive network. It showed that monetary commitments are

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not always an essential component for network cohesion; instead government commitment is vital. However, there is evidence of a breakdown in the policy process from adoption to implementation due to these ineffective anti-​trafficking institutions and the networks that formed to implement human trafficking policy.

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Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies Leila Ashirova and Bakiya Kasymova from Kazakhstan were freed, along with 14 other people, after ten years of being held captive in the basement of an apartment building where they were forced to work at a supermarket in Moscow. Police received a tip that missing children were being held at the supermarket and, while the police were investigating the market, someone alerted them that people were being kept there as slaves. Activists from the Civic Assistance Committee went in to free the people with journalists as their witnesses. Leila and Bakiya’s passports and all their documentation were taken by their traffickers. They were forced to work long hours with no pay, were not allowed to leave the premises unattended, and if they refused or tried to escape they were beaten. After the women were freed from captivity, they spoke out about their plight to the media and how local police turned a blind eye to their enslavement. Their traffickers were taken in for questioning and then released. About two weeks later, all of the charges against the traffickers were dropped because the prosecutors could not find evidence that a crime had been committed (Lillis, 2012). To make matters worse, a week after the charges were dropped the women were facing deportation from Russia on immigration violations because they were illegally residing on Russian territory without proper documentation (Balmforth, 2012). This story demonstrates the effects of uneven human trafficking policy implementation in Russia. Human trafficking policies are often passed with a lot of fanfare, as a symbolic gesture that government can refer to when their human rights abuses are on display. Though many countries sign on to these international treaties, only some ratify them, and fewer implement these policies. Research has shown that countries ratify international human rights-​based treaties due to ‘these perceived or real social pressures to assimilate’ to international human rights norms

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while countries have no motivation or capacity to implement them (Avdeyeva, 2007: 877). Implementation is defined as the ‘carrying out of a basic policy decision’ (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1985: 20–​21) or ‘the process of translating policy into action’ (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1984). This chapter examines the implementation mechanisms of human trafficking policies and reveals factors that facilitate and impede policy implementation. It extends the research question of the book and asks if variations in human trafficking policy implementation are due to internal determinants or external pressure. Consequently, it will analyse if this implementation follows a pattern of diffusion similar to policy adoption and if there is a relationship between policy adoption and implementation processes. The chapter reveals the different variables that guide and impede implementation mechanisms. The results demonstrate that there is uneven policy implementation across Eurasia, as some countries are more effective at implementing policy than others.

Policy implementation: going beyond descriptive statistics Policy implementation has taken on a variety of approaches in the literature examining the intergovernmental context and the work of administrators and managers who implement the policies. Measuring the effectiveness of policy implementation is categorised into three indicators:  structures (how the work is organised), processes (the quantity/​quality of work), and outcomes, a measure that indicates that a policy intervention has occurred (Scott, 2003; Robichau and Lynn, 2009). This chapter builds on this literature, incorporating both top-​down and bottom-​up implementation processes discussed in Chapters 3 and 4 and examines how institutions and networks shape implementation. Human trafficking institutions have been created, as discussed in Chapter 3, to facilitate this implementation, so there is an active bureaucracy not a skeleton secretariat. These institutions also include stakeholders in direct negotiations through working groups and councils which can simplify the implementation process (O’Toole, 2004: 313). The implementation of policy is a complex process to measure due to the variation in trafficking policies throughout the region. Implementation dynamics differ significantly across the countries as well, since they are all trying to implement their own country-​specific policies. Implementation is problematic to measure in Eurasia, because many of these countries lack the capacity to implement policies and demands to ratify international agreements makes countries ‘vulnerable

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to social pressures of monitoring bodies, which [generate] different levels of policy compliance’ (Avdeyeva, 2007: 877). This chapter focuses on the processes of implementation in three countries in the region and the elements that have facilitated and impeded this implementation. Examining only benchmarks does not reveal the different processes involved in implementation and only provides one small part of the implementation story. Implementation is often facilitated by the political processes used to adopt the policies as stakeholders continue to negotiate their own values and interests (Barrett, 2004). While human trafficking policy adoption is linked to international commitments, outlined in the Palermo Protocol, it is still a non-​binding treaty where adoption and implementation of national laws are completely voluntary. Due to the voluntary compliance of these international agreements by national-​level officials, the political conditions inside the country could determine how countries implement and comply with these agreements (Haider-​Markel, 1998). Local political conditions include bureaucracy, interest group pressure, state commitment, state capacity, and corruption related to programme implementation. The implementation of the human trafficking policies is based on national and local officials’ willingness to comply with the policies, which can be predicted by the same aspects that influence policy adoption (Haider-​Markel, 1998; Tatalovich and Daynes, 1988). Resources are recognised in the literature as an important facet of policy implementation as they can make or break policy success. The UN identified that sufficient resources are one of the greatest challenges in the implementation of anti-​human trafficking activities (UNODC, 2012). Government capacity is also a large problem in Eurasia because countries adopt policies that they do not have the ability to implement. Instead they use examples of good policy passed by AICs and assume that they will work in their country. In fact, many of the countries in Eurasia lack the institutional capacity to effectively implement any laws, let alone trafficking laws that can be very expensive and cumbersome when including assistance to victims and policing efforts. Regulatory policies such as criminalisation statutes were identified as the most popular form of international treaty compliance regarding human trafficking because they are the cheapest (Cho and Vadlamannati, 2011), which is why some countries have not adopted any additional policies. As a result, these anti-​trafficking laws are not implemented or are poorly implemented because they do not fit the government structures and/​or exceed the capacity of the governments of Eurasia. The implementation of human trafficking policy is also largely dependent on the types of policies that each individual country possesses on human trafficking.

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The literature posits if ‘comprehensive legislation serve[s]‌as a signal to policy implementers (e.g. bureaucrats, task forces, police officers, prosecutors, etc.) that this is an issue to be taken seriously, or is there no significant relationship between a comprehensive law and legislative effectiveness?’ (Bouche and Wittmer, 2009: 28). This question is of particular importance in Eurasia, where countries adopt encompassing human rights-​based policies with no intention of implementing them (Avdeyeva, 2007). The implementation literature distinguishes between studies that utilise outcomes of policy making (to measure policy effectiveness) or outputs which consist of the processes (service delivery) (Robichau and Lynn, 2009). Focusing on only the outputs of human trafficking policy can be problematic because it is a clandestine crime that happens under the surface. The higher the prevalence of human trafficking incidences, the more strictly anti-​trafficking policy is enforced, and so if a country has more victims, the literature argues that the policy is more likely to be implemented (Cho, 2013). The number of opened trafficking investigations and the number of victims rehabilitated in every country per year are displayed in Table 5.1. Examining the statistics more closely, it appears that Ukraine has the most effective implementation of its human trafficking policies. However, it is contended that examining only these outputs does not tell us the entire policy implementation story as it overlooks nuances to the processes of implementation and focuses only on empirical outputs. Implementation studies should examine the service delivery point and explore what is happening from the bottom-​up because only ‘comparing outcomes against original policy objectives assumes a priori a causal link between policy and observed outcomes’ (Barrett, 2004: 254). This chapter goes beyond examining only policy outputs and moves toward policy outcomes to measure policy effectiveness. A more in-​depth case study analysis is necessary to go beyond the outputs and examine what produces them and makes some countries better at implementing trafficking policy than others.

Uneven implementation in Ukraine Although Ukraine has one of the most encompassing policies in the region, the data revealed that anti-​trafficking laws were implemented or partially implemented due to impediments. This was mostly due to the lack of clarity with policy implementation, contradictory aspects with other laws, and that processes were still being worked out years after

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newgenrtpdf

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Total

 Victims

626

828

720

1121

820

773

1085

825

945

929

903

9575

 Cases

269

78

101

82

80

80

145

197

162

130

109

1433

5

0

23

27

28

34

14

33

25

22

27

238

30

23

22

26

17

34

38

34

37

18

10

289

0

4

0

226

117

143

8

0

0

19

170

687

26

80

125

139

111

102

118

48

87

66

5

907

Ukraine

Latvia

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 Victims  Cases Russia  Victims  Cases

Sources: Trafficking in Persons Reports 2005–​2015 and IOM Statistics 2015.

Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

Table 5.1: Number of initiated criminal case and rehabilitated victims 2005–​15 by country

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

the policy was adopted. Follow-​up interviews in 2015 revealed more fragmentation and less government attention on the issue of trafficking due to the war. The Ukrainian government has done several things to facilitate and hinder effective policy implementation. As stated in Chapter 3, the Ministry of Social Policy is the national coordinator for human trafficking policy in Ukraine and in this role it is supposed to guide implementation of Ukraine’s anti-​trafficking laws. However, due to the limited capacity of the government, implementation has been problematic and there is little cooperation between anti-​trafficking institutions in the network, as demonstrated in Chapter  4. Even reporting mechanisms encompassed in anti-​trafficking laws have not been fulfilled years after the law was adopted. Consequently, there was political will to adopt legislation in Ukraine but less political will to implement these laws. Top-​down implementation can be seen through government actions directing policy implementation, including monitoring units that are underperforming. According to Viktoriya (2013), a civil society representative from central Ukraine, the central authorities in Kyiv are responsible for approving the official VOT statuses but there are kinks in the implementation network connections as the government has refused applications due to incorrectly filed documents, or because the government officials did not fully understand the process for filing applications. Currently, local NGOs and the IOM are the main providers of rehabilitation services to victims of trafficking. In the future, the NRM envisions that the government social service centres will take over the rehabilitation of victims. Many NGO respondents, who have the most to lose if this happens, said that these social service facilities are not good and treat all sorts of people with drug and alcohol problems, so there are no specific counsellors devoted to working with trafficking victims. The government shelters also only help people aged 18–​35. Thus, if a victim falls above or below this age group, they cannot be treated in the government rehabilitation centres. Bureaucratic elements caused closures of key anti-​trafficking ministries and meant that the Interagency Coordinating Council on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings has changed names and the lead agency four times (discussed in Chapter 3). This council also did not function or meet regularly. Not only is there less government attention focused on trafficking, but the economic crisis and war have affected monetary support for trafficking activities and fewer victims have received assistance. Since the war, there have also been changes within the bureaucracy as supporters of the new regime were appointed to positions and anyone associated with the previous regime was

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replaced. Yulia (2013), an international partner from central Ukraine, said that the new governmental representatives were more open to working with NGOs than the previous regime but that there was minimal new policy adoption and less efficiency. The capacity of the Ukrainian government to implement many of the measures outlined in their policy was one of the largest impediments to policy implementation identified by almost every respondent. The government adopted legislation but then did not think about how to adequately fund the laws: ‘We have problems sending the paperwork to Kyiv because the civil servants sit there drinking tea as if there is no work to be done. They do not want to work, nobody wants to work. And then non-​governmental organisations call and demand something and naturally the government does not want to do anything.’ (Viktoriya, 2013) There are also issues with state capacity at the oblast level because some oblasts, such as Kharkiv, allocate more money to fighting trafficking compared to other oblasts such as Zhytomyr. Consequently, there is uneven implementation of the law throughout Ukraine, as the wealthier oblasts devote more money to prevention and education campaigns than others with fewer resources. Another issue with government capacity was the limited number of people in the Department of Gender Policy, Combating Human Trafficking, and Protection of the Rights of Deportees at the Ministry of Social Policy. According to Galina (2013), a civil society representative from western Ukraine, there are only four people in this department and human trafficking is only one of the many issues that they work with along with domestic violence, gender equality, and the needs of large families. On the oblast level, in the Department of Family, Youth, and Sports of the Regional Administration, there are even fewer people devoted to this issue and usually they handle similar topics as the national department. According to Hanna (2014), a civil society representative from eastern Ukraine, this department was also reorganised in July 2013 under the Social Defence of the Population Department which leads to further bureaucratic impediments. This concept of political will or government commitment also underlines an important facet to policy implementation, street-​level bureaucrats who work to facilitate policy implementation. Similar to policy entrepreneurs working to adopt human trafficking policy, these street-​level bureaucrats take it upon themselves to guide policy implementation. Despite incongruent implementation seen on the

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oblast level in Ukraine there are street-​level bureaucrats in different regions, but these advocates are few and far between. Most of the evidence divulges that these bureaucrats do not go out of their way to implement human trafficking policy. In fact, Viktoriya (2013) commented that some government bureaucrats had negative attitudes towards trafficking victims and did not acknowledge that trafficking victims were worthy of assistance. Problems with incorrect filing, incomplete paperwork, or sloppy paperwork on the oblast and national levels were discussed by several respondents. Lack of professionalism and qualifications was also something that respondents discussed with respect to government bureaucrats. Sophia (2013), a government official in southern Ukraine, said “the work of our staff is based solely on the principle of voluntary service. That is if a person knows and wants help then he can come to us. But we do not seek out these people and force them to take our assistance, that is not our task”. VOT statuses were awarded to 12 people in 2012, 41 in 2013, 27 in 2014, and 12 in 2015. If we compare these figures to those in Table 5.1, there is a significant discrepancy between those awarded the status, opened criminal cases, and those given rehabilitation services from NGOs. This shows the uneven implementation of human trafficking policy in Ukraine. In this situation, some of these frontline implementers have developed procedures to deal with implementing the VOT status while others do nothing. There is also an absence of staff at the oblast level trained to facilitate policy implementation. This reveals that street-​level bureaucrats negatively influenced policy implementation in Ukraine. Implementation concerning anti-​trafficking law enforcement units encompasses the investigation and prosecution of crimes constituting human trafficking. Criminal justice approaches to human trafficking focus on the prosecution of traffickers, which are often viewed as inadequate. Investigators within the anti-​trafficking unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are the main entities that carry out both identification and investigative activities. As stated in Chapter 3, this unit was disbanded in 2011 and then re-​established in 2013 with new detectives. The restructuring of these units and a new criminal procedure code impeded implementation of the criminal code because police were less effective with investigations. This was due to the absence of institutional knowledge from removing the old police and installing new officers. Additionally, the war has caused a lot of bureaucratic turnover of detectives from the previous regime, which has influenced and hindered policy implementation in Ukraine. Police were also reluctant to investigate human trafficking crimes under the human trafficking articles, because earlier policies failed to recognise

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trafficking within Ukraine and instead police utilised related criminal articles (Pyshchulina, 2003). Thus, cases were prosecuted under other criminal code articles due to the lack of precedents available and the deficiency of experience among the police and judiciary working with these crimes (IOM, 2003). Work with law enforcement varied across the regions:  some mentioned good cooperation and investigations (Kharkiv and Donetsk) while other regions with fewer investigations spoke of fractured communication between NGOs and police (Poltava). Despite these impediments to implementation and lack of effectiveness, investigations were still opened, which demonstrates that the police are positively influencing policy implementation. Interest groups in several regions helped facilitate policy implementation and held the government accountable when this implementation fell short (Dean, 2016). Some NGOs with significant capacity, such as La Strada International, conduct implementation monitoring, analyses of legislation, and offer recommendations for improvement (La Strada, 2013). These evaluations facilitate feedback loops and help guide implementation by providing network leaders and policy makers with information about implementation barriers and successes (Pierson, 2000). Another way that NGOs in this region have worked to build and shape human trafficking implementation is through centres that work to rehabilitate victims. Most rehabilitation centres and specialists trained to work with human trafficking victims are from NGOs, which means that they are the rehabilitation experts. Since there was so much confusion with the government-​sponsored working group, the All-​U krainian Counter-​Trafficking NGO Coalition was established to lobby the government. The emergence of this coalition, and the perceived influence it will wield, further demonstrate the positive influence of these interest groups in the implementation of policies. Corruption was discussed by several respondents as a significant impediment to policy implementation but much of the information obtained from interviews about corruption was vague and generalised. Ambiguous wording in Ukrainian laws provided no clarification on basic definitions of labour and sexual exploitation, which allowed for many interpretations and left the article open for abuse and corruption (Pyshchulina, 2006). Specific examples of corruption include police officers who were fired for corruption and bribery mentioned by Olena (2012), an international partner. There were investigations of officers and government officials engaged in human trafficking, including the commander of the Kyiv City police counter-​trafficking unit, as well as a teacher in a state-​run orphanage (TIP, 2017). A few respondents

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discussed the significant impact of corruption on human trafficking. There were possible corruption links to the VOT status procedures and some government officials worried about people who were not really victims scamming the system to obtain the benefits. Olya, a civil society representative in southern Ukraine, told me it was odd that people would be able to obtain the status of victims, yet the police were not able to find enough evidence to open a criminal investigation against the alleged trafficker. She commented, “this means that certain government officials see human trafficking but the police do not” (Olya, 2013). Corruption was also referenced in the judicial system by Polina (2012), a civil society representative in eastern Ukraine who said judges reclassified offences to other less serious crimes and accepted payments, even though no investigations were found in the media. All of these instances, and the significant perception of corruption surrounding the issue of trafficking, negatively impact policy implementation in Ukraine. The case of Ukraine demonstrates that there are also top-​down pressures on policy implementation from the National Coordinator and State Police but that these pressures have been ineffective. The Council of Europe influenced implementation with GRETA reports which outlined methods for improved implementation. According to Alla (2015), the Ukrainian government did have the money to make the payments for the VOT status but GRETA monitors came to Ukraine and only then did the Ministry of Social Policy start approving the status again. In addition to the influence of the Council of Europe, many of the anti-​trafficking projects implemented by the local NGOs are paid for with money from European countries. For example, the NRM was paid for by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Although this type of influence is less overt than the requirements set forth by the Council of Europe convention, European donors can place stipulations on their grants and dictate the policy adoption and implementation processes through monetary influence. Bottom-​up elements are beginning to emerge from NGOs and local government administration as the decentralisation reforms, which will give more power to the regional administrations, are finalised. This will influence trafficking because this means that, according to Alla (2015), the VOT status will be decided and paid for at the local level instead of the national level, and the local level will need to fund the monetary payment. This could be problematic for the poorer regions and produce inequality across the country, as some regions will be able to afford to award the status while others will not. It is also challenging because implementation and training are based on the current structure

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of the government but with the forthcoming decentralisation this structure could change.

Personal factors in Latvia In Latvia implementation was guided by the National Coordinator in the Ministry of Interior and the working group. Although Latvia has fewer laws than Ukraine, most respondents and data revealed effective human trafficking policy implementation. The effective implementation was mostly due to the working group chaired by the National Coordinator, which facilitates cooperation between the government and civil society and reports to the Cabinet of Ministers on programme implementation. The main goal of this group is to guide policy implementation. NGOs can vote and provide input on decisions, which demonstrates cooperation between the government and interest groups in Latvia. Additionally, Latvia is a small country where people know each other, and this makes the working group more effective since the response is quicker and people know how to work together to solve problems that arise. There is also an effective identification and referral mechanism for victims with police, embassies/​consulates, border guards, and social workers. Identification of victims is difficult, but consistent and effective training with these entities can increase the likelihood of recognising victims. Consequently, there is significant commitment from the state and anti-​trafficking institutions whose main task is policy implementation. This working group has also spurred street-​level bureaucrats in its membership who facilitate policy implementation. Again, the personal or human factor in Latvia was integral to implementation, with established relationships in the working group and little turnover of stakeholders and bureaucrats. The working group identified issues with policy implementation and systematically worked to solve them. This indicates that to be able to facilitate effective policy implementation, there need to be street-​level bureaucrats within the country willing to take initiative and recognise problematic implementation processes. The story in Chapter 2 demonstrated the resiliency of the working group and the Latvian anti-​trafficking network when responding to changing human trafficking dynamics. The group provides positive and negative feedback loops for new policy or procedures when it is necessary and the cooperation among an established group of anti-​ trafficking advocates means that most of the members have a stake in policy implementation.

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The data revealed that Latvia has the capacity to effectively implement the policies. Respondents said that implementation was possible with the help of NGOs, consular assistance, and cooperation amongst the ministries. If the government wanted to implement the policies, then they were capable of it, which demonstrates political will, but financial support for anti-​trafficking programmes was an issue. Financing from the Latvian government is varied, and two programmes on human trafficking had implementation problems due to lack of financial resources and commitment from the government. The monetary allocation for the second national programme was repealed when the Cabinet of Ministers adopted an addendum that eliminated the tasks requiring additional funding due to the financial crisis in 2008 (Par Programmu cilvēku tirdzniecības novēršanai, 2009). This lack of monetary commitment to both programmes on human trafficking demonstrated that any human trafficking policies that cost money were ignored. Funding from the state and international donors was limited, which, coupled with the economic crisis that hit Latvia particularly hard in 2008, meant that the funding of these programmes was always in flux. One report identified financing as the biggest impediment to implementation of the programme because more monetary support is needed for the continuation and implementation of the remaining tasks (Mūrniece, 2011). Consequently, state capacity positively and negatively influenced policy implementation in Latvia as monetary impediments from the government were the most pressing issue in anti-​trafficking policy implementation. As national government official Didzis (2013) stated in Chapter 3, the Third Unit for the Fight against Human Trafficking and Pimping within the Organized Crime Board of the Main Criminal Police works on investigations together with police in all Latvian regions. Resources and victim identification are two big problems with the police in Latvia, as they do not have enough resources to adequately conduct investigations. Similar to the Ukrainian case, police in Latvia also rely on the lower statute Article 165.1 Sending a Person for Sexual Exploitation instead of the human trafficking statute which is more difficult to prove. Maksims (2013), a government official, said: ‘When judging a case, police take into account whether there has actually been compulsion, deceit, or threats. They examine if it is clear from the file that this happened. It could be instead that one person made an open offer and the other person agreed to it. Then there is no victim, no real damage to the state.’ (Maksims, 2013)

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Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

Some of the aversion to Article 154.1 is because in many cases it is difficult to prove coercion and threats, which is required by that article of the criminal code. However, as the preceding quote demonstrates, police might not be investigating incidents with comprehensive knowledge of trafficking as a crime, where victims do not always readily identify the coercion that forced them into servitude. Maksims (2013) said police also perform undercover sting operations with undercover police as decoys, which is why they argue their investigation numbers differ from the number of victims rehabilitated. Table 5.1 shows that NGOs identified more victims of trafficking but the police did not identify a similar number of cases (TIP, 2012: 217), so there is a discrepancy in the number of rehabilitated victims versus opened criminal investigations. As these findings demonstrate, the capacity of the state impedes implementation of human trafficking policies not only at the government level with financing but also with the police. Although Latvia does not have a significant number of opened criminal cases and problems with resources, their influence on the implementation of the criminalisation side is categorised as positive because cases are opened which suggests that the law is being implemented to some degree. As stated in Chapter  2, Latvia has two NGOs that work on the issue of human trafficking. One of these NGOs began providing rehabilitation services in the early 2000s, when the government started supporting rehabilitation and then in 2007 the other NGO won the contract and both organisations continued to provide rehabilitation services to victims despite the government only funding services at one organisation. Thus, NGOs acquired responsibility for providing rehabilitation services in Latvia (BISS, 2005:  37). While the rehabilitation services are concentrated in Rīga for anonymity purposes, a few respondents called for more government-​supported services in the regions. Also, government official Daina (2013) stated, for various serious trafficking cases that require more concentrated professional intervention, some respondents called for extending the rehabilitation programme to longer than six months. The NGOs are also members of the anti-​trafficking working group, so they have a seat at the table with policy makers and the ability to influence and change policy (Dean, 2016). Despite this access, there are still feelings of mistrust between the government and NGOs that criticise them. The influence of NGOs on policy making in Latvia is lessened with the animosity on both sides (Dean, 2016). There is also antagonism between the two NGOs in Latvia because the government’s law on social services only allowed one organisation to obtain the contract to

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rehabilitate victims, creating competition for this contract. Additional implementation problems occurred when the government issued the call for proposals for the contract, as NGOs could not provide social services and certify victims while the government was deliberating. Though the law was amended in 2016 to allow numerous NGOs to provide services, these deliberations caused an implementation breakdown when government-​sponsored rehabilitation services were put on hold for several months. Notably, the NGOs stepped in to provide services during this deliberation period. Even though NGOs still struggle to make themselves heard and have an influence, they do positively influence policy implementation by working with victims to achieve the VOT certification, advocating for victims to be awarded the certification, and providing rehabilitation services. Corruption was an impediment to policy implementation in Latvia. There were two Rīga police representatives charged with facilitating pimping (TIP, 2015). This case resulted in the resignation and forced retirement of the head of the Third Unit for the Fight against Human Trafficking and Pimping. There were other cases against a former anti-​ trafficking police officer for extortion (TIP, 2015) and an attorney was prosecuted for withholding evidence in a trafficking-​related prosecution (TIP, 2015). These examples of corruption, supported by data from respondents, demonstrate that corruption is also present in Latvia, though to a lesser extent than in Ukraine, and impedes effective policy implementation. External pressures also helped put pressure on the government to implement their policies. The influence of the US on policy implementation in Latvia can be seen in the TIP report and Latvia’s ranking, which many in the country felt was too low. Zanda (2013), a civil society representative, said that the TIP report does not seem to identify how the situation in Latvia has changed for the better; instead, it seems to rely on out-​of-​date and anecdotal information. Conversely, David, an international partner, said the following: ‘The [Latvian] government officials really want Tier 1 status but the budget realities of this country mean that they do not have enough resources to devote to anti-​trafficking efforts. It is astounding that they have devoted all the resources they have to human trafficking, but really the government does not have the capacity yet to reach Tier 1. Plus, if you look at all the countries on Tier 2, Latvia is right where it is supposed to be. It’s all about government capacity.’ (David, 2013)

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Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

These quotes demonstrate the influence of the US on policy implementation and that Latvia’s impetus to implement legislation was in order to obtain a better ranking in the TIP report. Latvia’s implementation was also guided by membership in the EU, which mandated its compliance with human trafficking agreements adopted by that organisation. The Latvian government utilised European Commission recommendations concerning victim identification, assistance, rights, and combating trafficking in human beings when formulating and implementing legislation (National Programme for the Elimination of Trafficking in Human Beings in Latvia, 2009). The Council of Europe and CBSS also guided implementation of GRETA reports and policy evaluations, but to a lesser extent than other external variables. In Latvia, top-​down and bottom-​up implementation processes were evident in policy implementation. We also see a merging of government and NGO needs and the evolution of a venue in which to discuss implementation problems. There is diffusion to the municipal level as a recent CBSS project aims to strengthen the capacity and role of municipalities assisting and identifying victims of human trafficking. As a result, positive and negative feedback loops from the working group and national coordinator shape policy implementation. Although Latvia has fewer laws than Ukraine, most respondents and data revealed effective implementation of human trafficking policy. Clear policies outlined implementation parameters and duties for ministries and government bureaucrats. Discussions and cooperation in the working group demonstrated a back and forth between government and NGO entities during policy implementation.

Implementation collapse in Russia Since Russia only has two amendments to the criminal code making trafficking illegal, policy implementation there takes on a decidedly criminal justice approach. Contrary to the other cases, there is no national coordinator in Russia to direct and coordinate the implementation of trafficking policy. This lack of leadership means that there is no pressure on other government agencies and no street-​ level bureaucrats within the government to implement trafficking policies. This opaque situation in Russia is what happens without a lead agency coordinating implementation. There is also no working group in Russia to coordinate cooperation or direct policy implementation in the absence of a national coordinator. Although there were a few different working groups that were developed in the early 2000s to

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

work with the issue of human trafficking, as discussed in Chapter 3, these groups have dissolved. This absence of a national coordinator and working group to coordinate policy implementation reveals the lack of commitment from the Russian government on the issue of human trafficking. Consequently, there is no designated central authority or working group informally or formally written into policy, so entities have no guidance or coordination assistance, demonstrating ad hoc policy implementation. All but one interview respondent said that they believed Russia had the capacity to effectively implement anti-​trafficking policy. Respondents also discussed confidence in the capacity of the police to investigate the crime and the ability of social workers to work with victims. The financial situation of the government was not discussed by respondents as an impediment to policy implementation compared to Ukraine and Latvia, where this was a significant issue. Although respondents believed that the government had the capacity to adopt and implement trafficking laws effectively, they said that there is a lack of political will to put them into action. Irina (2013), a civil society representative in northern Russia, noted: ‘Of course the government has money to adopt and implement laws, both financially and legislatively everything is in place. But there is no interest in this problem (of human trafficking), there is no political will, and the public organisations that could do something to solve the problem are completely destroyed now financially as a result of the Law on Foreign Agents.’ (Irina, 2013) This shows that the capacity of the state did not impede implementation; it had no bearing on policy implementation and the lack of political will or government commitment to this issue won out. As discussed in Chapter 3, the Specialised Unit on Combating Human Trafficking was established in 2003 to investigate trafficking offences as part of the organised crime unit but disbanded with administrative reforms by 2008 (McCarthy, 2011: 145). According to Katerina (2013), a civil society representative in central Russia, there was widespread criticism of the low number of trafficking cases investigated by the police relative to the Russian population. In sex trafficking cases, the police often employ Article 241 Organization of Prostitution because that crime is easier to prove and many labour trafficking cases were not opened despite a few high-​profile cases reported in the media (TIP, 2013: 311). This absence of investigations is most often attributed to

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Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

corrupt police officers who are paid to look the other way as organised crime entities traffic people with impunity (McCarthy, 2010). However, McCarthy suggests that it is more likely a result of the fragmented institutional structure of Russian law enforcement which does not allow officers to see a case through to its conclusion and officers’ fear of missing a promotion for not closing cases when dealing with new unfamiliar trafficking laws (McCarthy, 2010). Vera (2013), a civil society representative in eastern Russia, said that the article for human trafficking was also difficult to utilise in practical applications due to lack of evidence, unwillingness of victims to cooperate, and the length of the investigation and trial. Similar to Ukraine and Latvia, Yelena (2013), a civil society representative in central Russia, discussed the difficulty of proving human trafficking because it involves tracing the trafficking network, which can exist in other countries, complicating the investigation. There have also been reports of police charging trafficking victims with prostitution offences instead of identifying them as victims (TIP, 2017). Due to the limited legislation in Russia focusing only on criminalisation statutes, the attention there is mostly focused on investigating and stopping the crime of human trafficking, not the rehabilitation or rights of victims. The capacity, effectiveness, and investigation techniques of law enforcement agencies were seen as increasing since the criminal code articles were added in 2003. Regional variations were also evident in the data: Dmytri (2013), a government official in central Russia, viewed the police in his region as diligently working on anti-​trafficking investigations while others did not. Evidence also suggested that police focused mostly on sex trafficking investigations rather than forced labour. Also, according to Mikhail (2013), an academic in central Russia, the police have a hard time differentiating between prostitution and sex trafficking, as well as migrants and illegal immigrants, as some victims are deported before they can testify. Despite all of these issues with police, it can be argued that law enforcement positively influenced trafficking implementation because there are investigations. Even though there are significant flaws with the police, as the story at the beginning of the chapter suggests, the fact that some cases are investigated demonstrates that the criminal codes are working to some extent. Rehabilitation shelters were supported by international funding and run by interest groups but when the government made no indication of a desire to take over or work with these shelters, they were closed. The Law on Foreign Agents has forced many NGOs working on anti-​trafficking initiatives to close and the anti-​trafficking movement has since then focused on the Russian Red Cross and

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

Orthodox Church. However, by 2015 even most of these shelters in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Vladivostok had closed due to lack of funding or had ceased operations (TIP, 2016). The IOM Moscow and St. Petersburg Red Cross run a trafficking hotline and information centres focused on legal consultations on labour trafficking and other forms of trafficking found in Russia (IOM Mission in Russia, 2019). Since Russia lacks any type of policy on victim rehabilitation, NGOs use their limited capacity to assist victims. There were also reports of Russian government’s threats to impose foreign agent status on NGOs providing protective services for trafficking victims, and at least two locally registered NGOs working on trafficking issues were designated as foreign agents (TIP, 2017). “Victims of trafficking need shelter, social protection, document assistance, healthcare, etc. This is not included in the criminal code article! No one does anything about this. There is no political will to assist victims, no one hears us!” (Yelena, 2013). As a result, much of the regional influence seen in policy adoption has dissipated over time due to funding issues and there are concerted efforts from the government to limit the ability of these organisations to provide rehabilitation services. Interest group strength is categorised as positively influencing policy implementation in Russia because even though there are considerable impediments many have attempted to navigate the roadblocks and assist victims in any way they can. Corruption is a prevalent theme in the literature on human trafficking, especially when it comes to Russia (Hughes, 2000; Stoecker, 2000; Stoecker and Shelley, 2005; Tyuryukanova, 2006; Shelley, 2002). The data revealed elements of corruption within the police and trafficking investigations, as traffickers are able to get criminal cases closed if the police or prosecutors can be bribed. Yuri, an academic who researches trafficking, said the following: ‘In Russia, there is too much corruption, especially in the field of labour migration. Many problems with human trafficking could be quickly solved, but we have created a system where it is very beneficial to employers and even some officials where migrants are without documents and without rights. Then they can be manipulated and abused, which is why corruption is also a very important issue. If the state decides systematically that migration should be legal, then the problem of trafficking is partially solved.’ (Yuri, 2013)

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Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

Most of the references to corruption concerned policy implementation and the investigation of trafficking crimes. There is a significant lack of transparency in reporting investigations and convictions, so corruption in Russia is more difficult to pinpoint than in the other two cases. Thus, corruption as a topic mentioned by respondents and often cited in the literature had a negative influence on policy implementation in Russia because it impeded police investigations. Influence from the US on human trafficking policy development has hindered the government from implementing human trafficking policies. Russia’s downgrade to Tier 3 in the TIP report had a direct influence on the Russian government’s refusal to cooperate with reporting mechanisms. In addition to frank discussions about TIP report rankings influencing political will, respondents also discussed the monetary support of anti-​trafficking programmes until the USAID office in Russia was closed in September 2012, after Russian authorities asked it to cease operations in the country. Thus, while the US seeks to influence and shame Russia into better policy implementation, it has only resulted in a backlash and politicisation of human trafficking where advocates are afraid to work with this issue because of the surrounding controversy. Other external influences, such as the Council of Europe and EU, were inconsequential to Russia’s policy implementation. In Russia, top-​d own implementation from the presidential administration is evident and with no working group or national coordinator, there are no positive or negative policy feedback loops guiding implementation. Most respondents in Russia felt that the law was implemented to a certain extent but more legislation was necessary. Anti-​trafficking stakeholders desired rehabilitation or social services for victims outlined in a national action plan which would define a national coordinator and provide some sort of oversight for anti-​trafficking activities within the country. They also wanted government support for these services, as the Law on Foreign Agents made it impossible to receive foreign funding for projects.

Cross-​case comparison The results compared across the three cases, displayed in Table 5.2, assess the impact of the different diffusion variables with variations of policy implementation. The data were tabulated and ranked by the impact of each variable on policy implementation in that country on a three-​point scale (positive, adding to the policy implementation

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

process; neutral, no influence on the process; or negative influence, impeding policy implementation). These results across the cases follow the internal determinants model, where internal factors such as law enforcement measures to combat trafficking and interest group strength were, over time, more important and consistent determinants of human trafficking policy implementation than external pressures. While external pressures were found in the individual cases, they were not as influential with policy implementation across the case studies. The results demonstrate the influence of top-​down and bottom-​up processes discussed in the literature (O’Toole, 2004: 319). It shows that the implementation of international agreements in national-​level legislation can also include top-​down processes as policies diffuse and countries adapt them to their national policy-​making environment. State capacity, state commitment, bureaucracy, and corruption were the biggest impediments to successful policy implementation across the cases.

Table 5.2: Variable influence on policy implementation by country Ukraine

Latvia

Russia

State commitment

Negative

Positive

Negative

State capacity

Negative

Negative/​positive

Neutral

Interest group strength

Positive

Positive

Positive

Street-​level bureaucrats

Negative

Positive

Neutral

Law enforcement

Positive

Positive

Positive

Bureaucratic influence

Negative

Neutral

Negative

Corruption

Negative

Negative

Negative

Positive (US) Positive (Council of Europe) Neutral (EU)

Positive (US) Neutral (Council of Europe) Positive (EU)

Negative (US) Neutral (Council of Europe) Neutral (EU)

Internal determinants

External pressure International influence

Note: This table shows the level of influence the variable has on policy implementation in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia. This table is modelled after Weiner and Koontz (2010) and adapted to fit the comparative international and human trafficking policy contexts. It shows the level of influence (positive, neutral, or negative) that the variable has on policy implementation in that country.

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Internal determinants The results compared across the cases confirm different approaches by the governments with respect to human trafficking policy. The emphasis on policing and prosecution in all three countries demonstrates the criminal justice approach to human trafficking where states focus on prosecution methods because it is simpler to legislate (with minimal criminal code additions) and implement since policing mechanisms already exist in the bureaucracy and funding is not immediately necessary. These laws also give the appearance of favouring progressive human rights while some governments actually use ‘the laws to strengthen borders, fortify law enforcement, suppress migration … criminalize prostitution’ and focus on national security elements over human rights approaches (Britton and Dean, 2014: 307). Thus, this aspect of implementation is in line with the literature that posits state-​centred approaches to human trafficking (Danailova-​Trainor and Laczko, 2010), focusing on trafficking as a crime against the state and not individuals (Goodey, 2008). Things are slowly shifting toward a victim-​centred approach, as exemplified in Ukraine and Latvia, where the governments have expanded to focus on the rehabilitation and assistance of victims (Goodey, 2008). All three countries struggled with investigations, getting victims to testify, and charging traffickers with lower statutes in order to obtain a conviction. Ukraine and Russia had bureaucratic impediments, with turnover and administrative reforms that pushed trained trafficking officers into other departments. Police in all three countries utilised lower criminal statutes to charge traffickers for lesser crimes, which aligns with previous literature (McCarthy, 2010). Although there were different reasons for this in each country, such as the lack of precedents available and experience among the police working with these crimes, the difficulty of proving coercion and threats required by the trafficking article, and the fragmented institutional structure of law enforcement (McCarthy, 2015). Despite these issues with investigations, police persevered, investigating trafficking cases in all three countries. Many respondents thought the police could do a better a job in numerous aspects of their work, but there is still a difference from before and after the criminal code articles were adopted. Since there are investigations in all three countries, this shows that the criminal code violations have been partially implemented even though there are still issues to resolve regarding identifying traffickers and holding them accountable. Interest group strength was the other significant influence on policy implementation in Eurasia as they provided feedback loops, policy

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evaluations, and guided implementation when the government fell short. However, their main goal in all three countries was to provide rehabilitation services and work to implement aspects of victims’ services policy. In Latvia rehabilitation programmes were paid for by the government but implemented by NGOs. These NGOs were full members of the working group and provided feedback on policy procedures and problems through informal networks and established connections. The strength of interest groups in Ukraine was evidenced by the fact that they monitored and published reports on policy implementation. NGOs provided most of the rehabilitation services for victims with international funding and helped guide the complicated government processes to obtain VOT status. They also circumvented the government, when the government council was ineffective, and NGOs created their own coalition. Conversely, the Russian foreign agents law forced the closure of many anti-​trafficking NGOs. Some organisations have reinvented themselves to pursue assistance in other women’s issues while other Russian-​centred organisations have facilitated rehabilitation. They also began lobbying oblast-​and regional-​level administrations when their appeals on the national level were left unanswered, suggesting the innovative approaches interest groups in Russia have used to influence implementation. They worked around the government-​imposed constraints and found creative ways to continue their work. Mistrust between the government and NGOs was found in all three cases, as well as competition for resources among NGOs. Government obstruction and funding issues were also significant impediments to interest group effectiveness, but all of their actions demonstrate the overall effectiveness of interest group strength on policy implementation. Street-​level bureaucrats that use their discretionary power to facilitate policy implementation were identified in different regions around Ukraine. However, most of the evidence (problems with incorrect or incomplete paperwork, lack of professionalism, negative attitudes towards trafficking victims, and an absence of staff at the oblast level trained to facilitate policy implementation) demonstrates that these bureaucrats do not take on human trafficking policy implementation willingly. On the other hand, the working group in Latvia spurred street-​level bureaucrats in its membership who worked to facilitate policy implementation. The human factor and continuity of people in the anti-​trafficking movement, where they all have established relationships with each other, helped bureaucrats have a stake in policy implementation and work to implement policy effectively by providing positive and negative feedback loops. The Latvian and

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Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

Ukrainian cases reveal that direct negotiations through these working groups and councils simplified the implementation process, aligning with the literature (O’Toole, 2004: 313). In Russia, a lack of leadership meant that there are few street-​level bureaucrats working to implement trafficking policies because of the lack of policy and politicisation of the issue. Street-​level bureaucrats were varied in their influence over the three different cases, but they make a significant difference in Latvia, the country with the most effective policy implementation. They also proved effective in several regions of Ukraine where they facilitated VOT status applications, which suggests that street-​level bureaucrats are integral to the policy implementation process when it comes to human trafficking. State capacity and commitment were some of the largest impediments to successful policy implementation across the three cases. The commitment of the state was questioned in the Ukrainian and Russian cases as neither government prioritised human trafficking policy implementation. This impeded implementation because even though there was a national coordinator in Ukraine, there was no council that could cooperate and work out problematic items with input from different stakeholders. Cooperation is fragmented and reporting mechanisms inserted into policies were not realised. This, combined with policy monitoring units that are underperforming, showed a lack of government commitment to policy implementation. The lack of responsibility from the Russian government stems from the politicisation of human trafficking and the connections to the US. Many respondents discussed how problematic the issue of human trafficking had become in that country, so much so that even well-​meaning bureaucrats would not advocate for the issue due to the negative repercussions. Russia also lacked many of the anti-​trafficking institutions discussed in Chapter 3 compared to the other cases, which further demonstrates the lack of government commitment. State capacity was also something that impeded policy implementation in Ukraine as the government struggled to provide VOT assistance payments during the war and economic downturn. The war in Ukraine forced government attention to IDPs, who were also assisted in the Ministry of Social Policy. As a result, state capacity to effectively implement policy was a significant impediment because adequate funding mechanisms were not realised. This absence of capacity and monetary commitment is in line with the literature, which argues that resource allocation for specific implementation tasks is necessary for effective implementation, especially in developing countries (O’Toole, 2004:  313). Even in Latvia when economic recession hit, the funding for anti-​trafficking

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programmes was cut days after it was appropriated. This demonstrates the importance of government capacity for implementation, because anti-​trafficking policies are expensive and can exceed the capacity of the governments that adopted the policies in the first place. Russia has the capacity to fund these programmes, but lacks the commitment to adequately fund them. Therefore, state capacity and commitment are intimately linked variables since both are necessary for adequate policy implementation. The other two variables that were significant impediments to policy implementation were bureaucracy and corruption. Bureaucracy impeded implementation in Ukraine and Russia due to the reorganisation of key anti-​trafficking ministries such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Social Policy. Changes in the government of Ukraine led to implementation impediments as people with institutional knowledge associated with the old regime were replaced with new bureaucrats. There was also a changeover in the police apparatus which impeded policy implementation. Latvia’s working group and consistent membership taken from the bureaucracy facilitated implementation in that country and demonstrates the effectiveness of anti-​trafficking networks and institutions. Corruption was a prevalent theme as a hindrance to effective policy making in all three countries. Elements of corruption impeding policy implementation were found in the police, government bureaucrats, judiciary, attorneys, and teachers in orphanages. Most of the references to corruption concerned policy implementation and the investigation of trafficking crimes. Corruption was discussed by several respondents as a significant impediment to policy implementation but much of the information obtained from interviews about corruption was vague and generalised. Organised crime is normally linked to corruption (Stoecker, 2000; Shelley, 2002; Stoecker and Shelley, 2005), but the research did not identify significant organised crime syndicates impeding implementation through intimidation tactics and threats. Though there are cases, this connection has dissipated in recent years as authorities have cracked down on these links (in Ukraine and Latvia) or ignored corruption and organised crime ties (Russia). These examples of corruption demonstrate that it impedes effective policy implementation in Latvia to a lesser extent than in Ukraine and Russia. External pressures External pressures again varied depending on the country. Naming and shaming by external entities in GRETA reports and the US TIP report

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Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

were only effective in Ukraine and Latvia since the governments are responsive to this pressure and care about their international reputation. In Russia, there was a backlash to the shaming of the TIP report and a refusal to cooperate with reporting mechanisms, leading to a politicisation of the issue. On the other hand, GRETA reports were not completed in Russia since they are not a signatory to the Council of Europe treaty. However, these reports do not focus specifically on policy implementation and are not comparative but evaluate countries on their own specific criteria. Implementation in Latvia was guided by the EU, but this pressure is muted compared to policy adoption since there are no consistent uniform monitoring mechanisms on the EU level for human trafficking policy implementation over the entire time period of this study. Overall, external pressures seem less prevalent in policy implementation compared to adoption as implementation is an inherently nation-​specific task. While shaming through policy evaluation reports is prevalent, many evaluations do not focus on specific elements of national policy. As a result, countries are torn between trying to adhere to different reports with different evaluation mechanisms or their national policy. Despite trying to adhere to these international guidelines some of the criteria and evaluation methods are so vague that they are ultimately set up to fail, even if the government is committed to improving the situation. All these reasons contribute to the variation and influence of external pressures on policy implementation. Overall, Russia has the most impediments to policy implementation, with four negative variables, four neutral variables, and two variables positively influencing policy implementation. Ukraine had five negative variables, one neutral variable, and four positive variables. Latvia had the most positive variables with seven, two negative variables and two neutral variables. This demonstrates that Russia and Ukraine had more negative impediments to policy implementation than Latvia. As a result, there is uneven implementation across the region, with different variables impeding and facilitating policy implementation in every country. There are also subtle links found between policy comprehensiveness and effective implementation, as discussed by Bouche and Wittmer (2015). In Ukraine, the extensiveness of the legislation has signalled to some street-​level bureaucrats that human trafficking should be taken seriously. In Latvia, which has a less comprehensive policy than Ukraine, the importance of trafficking legislation is evident to street-​ level bureaucrats who are members of the working group. There the commitment of the government, more than the comprehensiveness of the policy, has signalled that the issue should be taken seriously.

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However, in Russia the lack of policy comprehensiveness together with the absence of government commitment and pressure signals to bureaucrats that the issue should not be taken seriously. Although there are differences in policy comprehensiveness, the data presented reveals that there is a link between comprehensiveness and implementation, but government commitment is the determining factor. The two countries with more encompassing policy had better implementation than the country with only one type of policy but what differentiates Latvia and Ukraine is the overall commitment of the government to human trafficking policy.

Conclusion This chapter examined two different approaches to analysing policy implementation, one focusing on outcomes that show policy intervention has occurred and another looking at the processes through impediments and facilitators of implementation. This chapter showed that the multiplicity of actors and lack of a commitment from street-​ level bureaucrats can impede policy implementation, which aligns with the literature (Barrett, 2004). Coordination and weak links in the chain identified in Chapter 4 also mimics other studies but this did not lead to policy failure, only implementation impediments. Accountability was also an issue when no one in the government was held responsible for the implementation of the policies, which reveals the differences between actors, limits of administrative control, and intergovernmental values and interests (Barrett, 2004). These case studies show uneven policy implementation across Eurasia as some countries (Latvia) are more effective at implementing policy than others (Ukraine and Russia). This incongruent implementation led to a variety of conclusions, such as that the influence of internal factors including law enforcement measures to combat trafficking and interest group strength were the most significant facilitators of policy implementation, while state capacity and commitment, bureaucracy, and corruption were the biggest impediments to successful policy implementation. The data also show the muted influence of external factors with policy implementation. A more nuanced approach was taken to examine the effectiveness of policy implementation and it was demonstrated that effective policy implementation goes beyond descriptive statistics. I posited that instead we need to examine the processes and variables that guide policy implementation in order to determine if implementation is effective.

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Uneven implementation of human trafficking policies

The data determined that top-​down and bottom-​up implementation processes are evident across the three cases with different variations of policy implementation. Top-​down implementation was apparent in all three countries, but only Latvia was able to balance this top-​ down approach with a grassroots bottom-​up implementation process thanks to its working group and the strength of the interest groups in the country. The findings revealed what happens when policies are not implemented or there are significant impediments to that implementation. This is when we see stories like Leila Ashirova’s and Bakiya Kasymova’s. The lack of implementation in Russia by the police and prosecutors meant NGOs had to step in to free the victims. They also provided social services and assistance because as foreigners the victims were not eligible for medical services at any state facility. Despite the lack of policy implementation on crimes of trafficking, the police effectively implemented migration policy by deporting these individuals, which further demonstrates the absence of commitment to human rights and trafficking from the Russian government. This story shows the real-​life implications of shortcomings in human trafficking policy implementation. These are real people and their lives are forever changed by their governments’ inability to implement effective victimcentred human trafficking policy.

147

6

Empirical comparisons of human trafficking policy across Eurasia After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the borders opened, the process of integrating the Russian Federation into the ‘rest of the world’ began, and a flood of human trafficking poured into the country. The phenomenon identified as the plague of the twenty-​first century overwhelmed Russia. The US State Department has published a list of 19 countries where the fight against human trafficking is bad and Russia was among them. Our country [Russia] is not alone in this trouble. According to the TIP Report, the number of victims of the slave trade ranges from 700,000 to 4 million people annually. Perhaps, it is enough to introduce changes and additions to the current legislation in order to strengthen the sanctions for committing such crimes. Now the flow of crimes against minors has sharply increased as they are viewed as free labour and forced into prostitution and drug trafficking. It should be noted that the bureaucracy dealing with the problems of minors is very corrupt, including the guardianship and social services. Therefore, it is very important to solve the problem of trafficking in children and fight against this corruption (Mironov and Dolinsky, 2003). This newspaper article from Trud (Labour) in central Russia reflects the fundamental issues exemplified in human trafficking data: the US TIP Report rankings, estimates of the number of human trafficking cases, bureaucratic impediments, and corruption. This story discusses how the collective consciousness about trafficking was linked to expanding Western culture and how trafficking dynamics have shifted from female sex trafficking to male and female labour trafficking. The article also demonstrates how difficult it is to obtain estimates of this crime. It further shows the trafficking flows to and from Russia in the early 2000s, how these flows are framed in the media, and how the government struggled to respond to the influx of people. This chapter seeks to operationalise many of these ideas from this news story and

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

broaden the analysis back to all 15 Eurasian countries by transforming variables from the case study chapters into quantitative measures tested across the region. Case studies of all 15 countries would be costly and time-​consuming but taking the variables from the qualitative case studies and transforming them into quantitative data allows for a comparison of policy adoption and implementation dynamics across the entire region of Eurasia. The case study results based on fieldwork demonstrated that public policies can diffuse and spread to other countries around the world for a variety of reasons including elements inside the country and external influences originating from outside the country (Berry and Berry, 2007). These types of factors influencing policy adoption and implementation are noteworthy regarding human trafficking, which sees flows of people from, through, and to other countries. Therefore, it is especially important to examine different aspects influencing countries to adopt and implement more encompassing policies. This chapter compares how human trafficking policies have diffused across Eurasia, utilising a quantitative approach. The diffusion models were adapted to the international sphere and the prevalence of outside influences in policy making found in the human trafficking policy subsystems. The chapter speaks to the wider question of the book as a whole by examining quantitatively whether variations in Eurasia, with regard to human trafficking policy adoption and implementation, are due to internal determinants such as the type of political system, level of democracy, bureaucracy, economic factors, and/​or external pressure from the US and the international community (Berry and Berry, 2007). It continues the discussion from previous chapters, synthesising key lessons from Latvia, Ukraine, and Russia in order to cross-​nationally compare two explanatory models of trafficking policy adoption and implementation. It transforms the qualitative variables into quantitative measures such as economic, social, and political characteristics that facilitate or impede policy adoption and implementation. In keeping with the purpose of the book, the quantitative method allows us to further evaluate whether adoption and implementation are due to internal determinants or external pressures. The chapter also offers a new and innovative way to measure the scope of human trafficking policy. A Human Trafficking Policy Index was developed to measure the scope and variation of different types of policy related to human trafficking on the international level and is the dependent variable for policy adoption. The analysis also reveals policy adoption and implementation dynamics, informed by case study comparisons in the whole region of Eurasia and tests if the case study results are similar

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Empirical comparisons of human trafficking policy across Eurasia

across the entire region. Therefore, similar models will be utilised to examine policy adoption and implementation. The variables for this chapter in Eurasia are modelled after variables and measurement techniques from the existing literature and previous research. The coding scheme is presented in Appendix 6.

Operationalising and measuring diffusion across 15 countries The key issues driving whether human trafficking policies were adopted and implemented are internal drivers and external pressures. To capture this, two models are proposed to predict whether policies were adopted and implemented. The models include time series data from 2003 to 2015 and from all 15 countries of Eurasia. The Human Trafficking Policy Index (HTPI) measures the scope of human trafficking laws in each country, as the dependent variable for policy adoption. The dependent variable for policy implementation was constructed by adding the number of trafficking investigations opened in each country to the number of trafficking victims rehabilitated in each country and standardised by population. Then, models for policy adoption and implementation were estimated based on measures from the literature. Dependent variable: policy adoption The dependent variable for the policy adoption model is the scope of the trafficking laws in each country measured by the Human Trafficking Policy Index. Instead of a dichotomous variable that is used in most public policy studies to predict policy adoption focusing on one policy type (Kelley and Simmons, 2015), the HTPI combines scope and variation of different types of policy related to human trafficking signifying whether the policy component is adopted in a country by year. A  content analysis of the human trafficking policies in all 15 countries of Eurasia was conducted and an index was constructed to measure the scope of human trafficking laws in the international context from zero to 15. The HTPI was adapted from rankings and report cards used to measure the effectiveness of human trafficking policy and rank human trafficking policy in the US. The HTPI more effectively captures the relevant aspects of human trafficking policy than existing measures and it is easily adapted to examine these policies in a global context. Measures from a number of rankings were used but were modified to fit the international environment and policy making in different types of political systems.

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

Existing rankings on human trafficking are mostly geared toward state-​level policies in the United States (Polaris Project, 2011; Shared Hope International, 2013; Renewal Forum, 2007) or are based on rankings from the Trafficking in Persons report (Cho et al, 2014; Van Dijk and Van Mierlo, 2013), which focuses only on government efforts to combat trafficking and does not examine the scope of trafficking policies. The 3P Anti-​Trafficking Policy Index (Cho et al, 2014) uses a textual analysis of TIP reports and UNODC reports for the years 2000–​09 but these reports are limited. There is also no distinction between criminalisation, policy adoption, and enforcement, so they do not measure the scope of actual policy or when the policy was adopted. Instead of utilising these secondary sources which rank other countries based on data and unclear methodology, I argue that the policy documents and their content should be examined to determine the scope of trafficking policies. Council of Europe GRETA reports have also been used to develop trafficking policy indexes (Van Dijk and Van Mierlo, 2013) but these are limited to Council of Europe countries. These reports also do not show policy changes over time since they are not produced annually and only provide data for the year that the GRETA team evaluated the country. The GRETA index, however, shows the importance of in-​depth measures to examine human trafficking policy. My index builds on these previous indices and scores the human trafficking policy year by year, which reveals the development of trafficking policy over time. These policy tools and indexes for measuring human trafficking policy ‘are crucial not only to evidence-​based policy making but also to policy-​relevant research on the topic’ (Cho, 2015: 656). The scoring for the Human Trafficking Policy Index is outlined in Table 6.1. Countries were given one point for each component on the index they possessed and scored for each year the country had that specific policy element prescribed in law from 2003 to 2015. The first measure on the index evaluates each country’s definition of human trafficking. Building on the Polaris Project (2011) ranking that assigned points for sex trafficking and labour trafficking, the index was expanded to include provisions for sex trafficking, labour trafficking, organ trafficking, and special provisions for child trafficking in order to adapt it to the international sphere. This expansion is important because these are the four main types of human trafficking in the international sphere recognised in the Palermo Protocol. Distinguishing all four of these elements was integral to having an encompassing definition of human trafficking and in order to receive full points all of these elements of human trafficking had to be recognised as

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Empirical comparisons of human trafficking policy across Eurasia Table 6.1: Human Trafficking Policy Index variables Variable

Coding

1

Definition •  Sex trafficking (0.25) •  Labour trafficking (0.25) •  Organ trafficking (0.25) •  Child trafficking (0.25)

2

Hotline (1)

3

Trafficking shelter (1)

4

Working group/​task force/​interagency commissions (1) The group must include more than one agency and in order to obtain full points must include non-​governmental organisations

5

Victim Assistance •  Legal (0.25) •  Medical (0.25) •  Job training (0.25) • Monetary compensation available for the victim and establishment of a victim’s assistance fund (0.25)

6

Safe return (1)

7

Temporary residence permit (1)

8

Vacate convictions for victims (1)

9

Witness protection (1)

10

Training •  Law enforcement (0.25) •  Social workers (0.25) •  Judges (0.25) •  At-​risk groups (0.25)

11

Research (1)

12

Awareness campaigns (1)

13

Cooperation •  International (0.25) •  Regional (0.25) •  National (0.25) •  Local/rayon/​territorial level (0.25)

14

Implementation (1) To earn full points the country must include monetary weight

15

Referral mechanism The presence of a protocol or procedures to identify, locate, and/​or refer victims for assistance

Note: One point is given for each variable. Categories with bullet points are broken down into 0.25 per bullet point.

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illegal in the country. If a country was missing one of these key parts of the definition, they were scored 0.25 lower for that year. Next, countries were given one point for prescribing a human trafficking working group or task force into law. In order to receive full points, the working group had to include more than one entity (some groups only included one ministry such as the Ministry of Interior) and civil society organisations. If NGOs were not included, they were assigned 0.75 for the working group component of the index. If they had a working group but it only included one ministry they were given 0.25 points for that year. As Chapter 3 demonstrates, anti-​trafficking working groups are integral institutions for policy formulation and implementation. Therefore, if this institution is established in law and has an encompassing membership of numerous government ministries and NGOs then it is more likely to endure and influence policy adoption and implementation. The next point builds on the Renewal Forum ratings (2007) and breaks down assistance to victims and into legal, medical, shelter, and monetary support for the victims prescribed in law or policy. Many countries merely stated that rehabilitation services were to be provided; therefore, in order to receive full points for rehabilitation, all of these different services had to be prescribed into law. If the country did not have all four services 0.25 was taken away for every service not established in law. These four provisions were the most important elements of victim rehabilitation and in order for a country to have a human rights-​based approach and an encompassing policy it had to provide all four of these elements in its policy. The Polaris Project includes training for police in its ranking and this was expanded for the international sphere, making it more encompassing by adding training for social workers, judges, and at-​r isk groups. Thus, in order to get one full point for training, the country had to include legal mandates for training or education programmes for all four groups. For training or education programmes with one group, the country received 0.25 points, for two groups it received 0.50, for three it received 0.75, and for four groups it received one full point. These components make up the point for training; they are subsets and not a whole point because individually their relative importance in the index is not as substantial as something like witness protection, but together all of the training types are equivalent. Outlining research and data collection techniques on human trafficking were also important components of policy and were awarded one point in the index. The final three points on the Human Trafficking Policy Index were for cooperation, implementation, and referral mechanisms, vital

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Empirical comparisons of human trafficking policy across Eurasia

components for encompassing human rights-​based trafficking policy. The point for cooperation included partnerships, bilateral agreements, or any talk of collaboration with police, social workers, or governments on the international, regional, national, and local or rayon levels. In order to receive the full point, a country included cooperation on all of these levels of governance in its policy. Cooperation is an important component of policy because, as Chapter 4 reveals, it can facilitate connections across the human trafficking network. The next point in the index concerned implementation provisions in trafficking policy. Implementation includes not only laying out ways to implement all of these provisions but assigning someone or a specific agency to implement the policy. Countries also need to lay out a way to finance these activities and for this reason 0.25 of the points for implementation were attached to monetary weight, whether the country has a plan for funding the activities prescribed in law. Consequently, a referral mechanism is the final point on the index. A referral mechanism is a protocol or procedure to identify, locate, and/​or refer victims for assistance set forth in policy. This protocol facilitates cooperation and efficiency within the trafficking network and among different entities in the anti-​trafficking network and is an important component in an encompassing human rights-​based human trafficking policy in international policy making. The Human Trafficking Policy Index scored all 15 countries in Eurasia based on these criteria and awarded them a score from zero to 15. The rubric for the Human Trafficking Policy Index is outlined in Table 6.1 and the scores for every year from 2003 to 2015 are listed numerically by country are given in Appendix 7. Figures 6.1 and 6.2 chart the development of human trafficking policy, demonstrating differences in Eurasia over time. The region was divided into Eastern Europe in Figure 6.1 and the Caucasus and Central Asia in Figure 6.2. These figures reveal the significant variation of human trafficking policy in Eurasia among the 15 different countries. They demonstrate how some countries such as Moldova and Georgia are human trafficking policy leaders in the region with the scope of human trafficking policy while others like Russia are lagging behind. Significant jumps for many countries such as Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan are evident in 2004 and 2007. Declines in 2010 and 2013 in some countries such as Estonia and Lithuania are also evident as policies lapsed and human trafficking was no longer a government priority. This could also be due to lessening impact of the Palermo Protocol after 2000, which only required minimal policy adoption. These findings are contrary to previous research that suggests democratic countries are more likely to implement prevention

155

Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia Figure 6.1: Human Trafficking Policy Index in Eastern Europe 14

Scope of trafficking policy

12 10

Estonia Belarus

8

Latvia Lithuania

6

Moldova Russia

4

Ukraine

2 0

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Year Note: Figure shows the scope of human trafficking policy with scores on the Human Trafficking Policy Index by country from 2003 to 2015.

Figure 6.2: Human Trafficking Policy Index in the Caucasus and Central Asia

Scope of trafficking policy

14 12

Armenia

10

Azerbaijan 8

Georgia Kazakhstan

6

Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan

4

Turkmenistan

2

Uzbekistan

0 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Year Note: Figure shows the scope of human trafficking policy with scores on the Human Trafficking Policy Index by country from 2003 to 2015.

and victim protection approaches than less democratic countries (Yoo and Boyle, 2015), as many non-​democratic countries in the region (Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Armenia) are near the top of the rankings on the index. Examining different points across the Human Trafficking Policy Index reveals that most countries had encompassing definitions, working groups, assistance for victims, safe return, awareness campaigns, and

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Empirical comparisons of human trafficking policy across Eurasia Table 6.2: Compliance with Human Trafficking Policy Index HTPI

Complete compliance

Partial compliance

100%

100%

Hotline

60%

67%

Trafficking shelter

47%

87%

Working group

53%

80%

Victim assistance

47%

93%

Safe return

73%

93%

Residence permit

27%

80%

Vacate convictions

47%

60%

Witness protection

47%

87%

Training

33%

93%

Research

60%

87%

Awareness campaigns

87%

93%

Cooperation

60%

93%

Implementation

20%

93%

Referral mechanism

47%

60%

Definition

Note: Statistic calculated based on the percentage every country complied completely (earning the whole point) or partially (earning part of the point) with the corresponding Human Trafficking Policy Index variable.

research within existing legislation. However, the points on the index that many struggled with were lack of implementation mechanisms, training for judges, vacating convictions for victims, residence permits, referral mechanisms, and witness protection. Table 6.2 analyses per cent compliance with each of the 15 points on the Human Trafficking Policy Index. The percentages of Eurasian countries with complete compliance of the index and those with partial compliance were measured to demonstrate the breadth of the index in assessing the scope of human trafficking policy. It reveals how complete compliance with the index was only achieved with definitions for human trafficking, the first point on the index. While 87% of countries complied completely with the awareness campaigns point on the index, very few countries complied with implementation and residence permits. Partial compliance is when a country was scored partial points for a variable on the index. All the points on the index had at least 60% partial compliance, which shows that many countries partly complied with all of the points on the index. This reveals that most countries partially attempted to adopt the different variables

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Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia

on the index. The Human Trafficking Policy Index expanded upon previous measures and constitutes a valid and consistent measure over time across the cases for the scope of human trafficking policy in Eurasia and around the world. The results also demonstrate the importance of looking beyond just criminalisation statutes in human trafficking policy research and including other types of trafficking policies. It reveals that trafficking policies have continued to improve over the 13  years across much of the region, countering previous research which focused only on criminalisation and argued that trafficking policy development stalled after 2003 (Cho et al, 2011). The Human Trafficking Policy Index provides an innovative way to measure the variation in policy development across the region and allows for a standardised measure of this disparity across different regimes and policy subsystems. The adaptation of international policy-​making components means that it can also be applied outside of the region to measure the scope of trafficking policy around the world. Dependent variable: policy implementation Policy implementation is a complex process to measure due to the variation in trafficking policies throughout the region. Implementation mechanisms differ significantly across the countries as well, since they are all trying to implement their own country-​specific policy and some policies are more encompassing than others. Implementation is also problematic to measure in Eurasia, as Avdeyeva argues, because many do not have the capacity to implement these policies; the pressure to ratify international agreements makes countries ‘vulnerable to social pressures of monitoring bodies, which [generate] different levels of policy compliance’ (2007: 877). In the policy literature, local political conditions determine implementation efforts; these efforts are contingent on the voluntary compliance of government officials under the same influences affecting policy adoption (Tatalovich and Daynes, 1988; Haider-​Markel, 1998). Voluntary compliance with human trafficking policy can be viewed as the number of trafficking cases or prosecutions of this crime. However, McCarthy argues that only looking at the number of convictions does not tell us the whole story, as the ‘basic structure of law enforcement [in the region] creates a series of barriers that deters prosecution’ (2010: 6). The effectiveness of criminal justice regulatory policy implementation is measured in the number of people convicted of a crime. However, trafficking prosecutions are rare and employing a human rights-​based approach means that the dependent variable should

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move beyond convictions. For this reason, the dependent variable for policy implementation is the number of opened trafficking investigations added to the number of victims rehabilitated in every country per year standardised by population. Although this is the most accurate measure for voluntary compliance of trafficking policy across 15 countries over 13 years, a few caveats must be considered when using these policy implementation measures. First, depending on what the country constitutes as trafficking and the expansive definitions of trafficking in the region as outlined in Chapter 1, the number of investigations could include prosecutions on human trafficking and other aspects of trafficking such as child adoption or surrogacy. These differing definitions of trafficking means it is hard to standardise this measure over 15 different countries and the numbers could be inflated as some countries recognise elements like adoption as possible trafficking and other do not. Second, these numbers are self-​reported by the countries to the US Department of State; governments could over-​or under-​report in order to try and receive a better ranking in the report. Third, implementation is measured by the number of opened trafficking investigations instead of the number of trafficking convictions. This is because trafficking convictions are difficult to obtain and sentencing data are unreliable in Eurasia and every other region of the world including the US (DeStefano, 2007: 49). Other studies have used European Statistics (EuroStat) on Trafficking in Human Beings to rank policy effectiveness with the number of convictions and number of identified victims, but these data are not available every year and are limited to EU member states (Cho, 2013). Instead I combine these statistics as a more encompassing view of policy implementation, focusing on the different variables that influence successful implementation. Thus, the number of opened trafficking investigations is a more accurate way to measure compliance with this legislation because investigating a crime demonstrates that the policy is being implemented and assisting a victim shows there are effective policy elements with victims’ services networks. This figure, coupled with the number of opened trafficking investigations, indicates the level of compliance by local officials with this legislation and is the best way to measure implementation quantitatively across countries. Independent variables: internal determinants The factors that influence policy adoption largely mirror those that influence policy implementation. For this reason, similar models are used for both. A  diffusion of innovation framework is applied to

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countries outside of the US by altering appropriate measures according to the context. Measures of interest group and law enforcement influence are omitted due to data limitations for the 15 countries across 13 years. In the model for policy adoption nine independent variables are used, four focused on internal dynamics and four for outside pressures. State commitment was seen as one of the biggest influences on policy adoption and the lack of commitment was found in policy implementation in Chapters 2 and 5. State commitment to human trafficking was measured quantitatively with the amount of money the government spends on human trafficking initiatives by year. This monetary amount demonstrates how committed the governments in Eurasia are to the adoption and implementation of trafficking policies. Policy entrepreneurs and interest group strength are also variables that influence policy adoption and successful implementation in the case studies however, both of these concepts are difficult to quantify. The literature on human trafficking policy includes a measure for the percentage of women in state legislature (Bouche and Wittmer, 2009), which serves as a proxy variable for policy entrepreneurs. In order to operationalise this variable, percentages were taken from the Inter-​ Parliamentary Union (IPU) website, an organisation that monitors women’s representation in parliaments around the world (IPU, 2018). Issue salience is also included because policy can be a response to how big a problem is perceived to be in the media (Tatalovich and Daynes, 1984; Meier, 1992; Haider-​Markel and O’Brien, 1997: 553). Policies are adopted when the salience of the issue is significantly high ‘due to the severity of the problem and should serve to activate attentive publics’ (Meier, 1994; Haider-​Markel, 1998: 74). In order to measure issue salience of human trafficking in policy adoption, the number of opened trafficking cases was used as a proxy measure for issue salience. There is no accurate and consistent way to track trafficking cases in the media across 15 countries in Eurasia across 13 years, so these cases are the best measurement since they are likely be reported in the media. There is a strong relationship between state capacity and effective policy adoption and implementation in the US-​based public policy literature (Berry and Berry, 1990; Shipan and Volden, 2012). Countries with more capacity and resources are more accepting of expensive policy approaches associated with costly social programmes to solve complex problems than those with less money. The case studies in Chapters  2 and 5 demonstrated that state capacity impeded policy adoption and implementation but that the capacity of the state could be circumvented with international or regional funding. Human trafficking policies can be expensive, involving police investigations,

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lengthy criminal prosecutions, and rehabilitation services for victims. As a result, poorer countries could have problems generating the funds to adopt and implement these policies effectively. There is evidence of international entities in Ukraine or the EU in the case of Latvia stepping in to fill this void and sponsoring some programmes so the relationship between state capacity and more effective policy adoption and implementation could be muddied due to this influence. Data were utilised from the World Bank on gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in US dollars for the measure of state capacity. Bureaucracy also impeded policy adoption and implementation in the case studies. Here, a measure was used for the institutional strength and quality of the bureaucracy from Political Risk Services in order to determine how bureaucracy influences the policy process. Independent variables: external pressures External pressures such as the US government and Palermo Protocol have also been identified in the human trafficking literature as the major impetus for policy adoption (Shelley, 2005; Buckley, 2009b). The diffusion literature in the US hypothesises that federal intervention influences whether a state adopts a policy (Karch, 2006). This variable is converted to the international sphere and it is argued that this influence is illustrated in whether a country has ratified the Palermo Protocols. Although these international laws are non-​binding there would be pressure from the international sphere to adopt this protocol which then requires countries to adopt their own policies. The next variable demonstrates the influence of the US government encapsulated within the TIP Report rankings. Countries that have made what the US deems to be insufficient efforts to combat trafficking (set forth in the TIP Report) and failed to comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons receive a worse score in the report. The TIP report is how the US exerts its international influence on trafficking programmes by naming and shaming countries that do not comply with US standards (Gallagher, 2011; Kelley and Simmons, 2015). Therefore, based on these rankings, there could be significant external pressure from the US government to adopt and implement policies. One of the themes uncovered in the qualitative portions of the study was the influence of Europe in Eurasia, specifically GRETA, which monitors the implementation of the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings through site visits and in-​depth progress reports. Council of Europe influence was operationalised with

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a dichotomous variable for country’s ratification of the convention. This variable demonstrates the best measure available to operationalise Council of Europe influence in the region. Council of Europe convention membership is open to any country, even non-​members; for example, Belarus acceded to the convention in 2013 but is not a Council of Europe member. As a result, any country in the region that is influenced by Europe would accede to this convention. There is also a variable for the influence of the EU ranking of countries categorised as member states, candidate countries, visa liberalisation countries, visa agreement countries, and no relationship, because this influence was seen in the Ukrainian and Latvian case studies. This adequately measures the influence that the EU has on policy adoption and implementation in the region as membership and candidate countries have stricter requirements for human trafficking policy than visa liberalisation countries and countries with no relationship. Independent variables: differences in policy implementation model This chapter tests models for policy implementation based on similar independent variables to the policy adoption models in order to assess if the same elements that determine policy adoption can be applied to policy implementation. The implementation of the human trafficking policies is based on national and local officials’ willingness to comply with the policies which can be predicted by the same aspects that influence policy adoption (Tatalovich and Danes, 1988; Haider-​Markel, 1998). The model for policy implementation has measures for state commitment, state capacity, bureaucracy, policy entrepreneurs, the US, Council of Europe, and EU. The scope of trafficking policy epitomised by the Human Trafficking Policy Index is also utilised as an independent variable for policy implementation, and its operationalisation was mentioned previously. An encompassing policy is likely to increase implementation because countries with better laws are more likely to have higher levels of implementation (Haider-​ Markel, 1998: 82–​3). Therefore, the scope of trafficking policy can influence policy implementation because, it can be assumed, the more encompassing policy a country has, the more likely it is to investigate trafficking and rehabilitate victims. Corruption is a prevalent theme not only in the human trafficking literature but also in the content of the policies as one of the main push and pull factors for human trafficking in Eurasia (Hughes, 2000; Stoecker, 2000; Shelley, 2002; Stoecker and Shelley, 2005; Tyuryukanova, 2006). Corruption at all

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levels of society from law enforcement officers and criminal justice authorities to the private sector and businesses such as travel agencies, model agencies, hotels, and construction companies contribute to and facilitate human trafficking in this region (UNODC, 2011). For this reason, a measure from Transparency International for the perception of corruption is included which ranks countries on a scale from most corrupt to clean because concrete measures of corruption are difficult to obtain. The case studies revealed the muted influence of the Palermo Protocol over time and the absence of it with respect to policy implementation, which is why it was removed from the quantitative model. The issue salience measure or number of cases was also removed from policy implementation since they are linked to the dependent variable in that model. The final difference between the two models for policy adoption and implementation was the vital role of policing in implementing human trafficking policy, whereas police lobbying for policy adoption was not detected in the data. For this reason, a measure for police effectiveness, embodied in a measure for the rule of law, which captures the quality of the police and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence, was included in the model for policy implementation.

Internal determinants and external pressures on policy adoption The data were compiled from 2003 to 2015 and to demonstrate the influence of these variables over time models were estimated for policy adoption and policy implementation. For a complete list of the variables and operationalisation see the Methodological appendix, and the data sources are available in Appendix 6. The results of the Poisson regression are displayed in Table 6.3. For the policy adoption model, standardised estimates revealed that policy entrepreneurs, state commitment, bureaucratic influence, state capacity, international intervention, and influence from the US and Europe were the most important elements influencing the scope of trafficking laws in Eurasia. The results demonstrate that internal determinants influence policy adoption and the scope of human trafficking laws in this region more than external pressures. State commitment, policy entrepreneurs, and bureaucracy all had a positive relationship with the scope of human trafficking policy while state capacity had a negative relationship. External pressure from the international community, the US, and the Council of Europe also were positive influences on policy adoption. The results reveal the integral role that internal elements play in adoption across the region.

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Internal determinants State commitment positively influenced policy adoption, which reveals that as governments spend more money on human trafficking initiatives the scope of trafficking policies increase. This relationship shows that human trafficking is not symbolic and governments that have more encompassing trafficking policies also devote more monetary weight. It demonstrates that governments do not adopt these policies just to appease international pressure but then never support them with a monetary commitment. This connection between more money spent on anti-​trafficking programmes and an increase in the HTPI reveals that countries which spend more money have more encompassing human trafficking policies. Although the causal connection is unclear, governments most likely spend more money on trafficking policies after their policies are adopted and not before. Policy entrepreneurs positively influenced the scope of human trafficking policy, which aligns with the literature (Bartilow, 2008; Bouche and Wittmer, 2009; Cho et  al, 2011) and demonstrates that having more women in politics creates a greater opportunity for policy entrepreneurs to prompt more encompassing human trafficking policy adoption. A one unit increase in the number of women in parliament is expected to increase the HTPI by a factor of 1.01 when holding all of the other variables in the model constant.1 In short, as female representation in parliament increases the scope of human trafficking policy is likely to increase. The case studies suggested that policy entrepreneurs within the bureaucracy advocated for this issue in the legislative and executive branches. Half of the policy responses from Chapter 1 (national action plans and decrees) were not adopted in the legislature, so the influence of policy entrepreneurs across different government institutions is prevalent. This finding aligned with previous research that suggests ‘women’s advocacy has had a critical impact on the international anti-​ trafficking regime and that this impact operates apart from rather than as a reinforcement of formal legal provisions’ (Yoo and Boyle, 2015: 651). Thus, the influence of policy entrepreneurs is evidenced in the quantitative model, through feminist advocacy coalitions and the presence of NGOs in anti-​trafficking working groups, as shown in the case studies. The case studies of Ukraine and Russia in Chapter  2 also show how bureaucracy has impeded policy adoption, and the quantitative results over time across the entire region are similar. Bureaucracy had a positive relationship with the scope of human trafficking policy in the quantitative models, which shows that higher levels of bureaucratic efficiency account for more encompassing human trafficking policy.

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A one unit increase in bureaucratic efficiency is expected to increase the HTPI by a factor of 2.13 when holding all of the other variables in the model constant. Therefore, both findings reveal that bureaucratic efficiency is an important facet to policy adoption, as a more efficient bureaucracy facilitates policy adoption and does not impede it. Surprisingly, state capacity had a negative effect on the scope of human trafficking policy. The results suggests that the higher the capacity of the state, or the country’s GDP per capita, the less likely Table 6.3: Determinants of human trafficking policy adoption Independent variables

Model

Internal determinants   State commitment

4.32* (1.90)

  State capacity

–​0.00006* (0.00001)

  Policy entrepreneurs

0.013* (0.004)

  Bureaucratic influence

0.756* (0.346)

  Issue salience

0.00018 (0.00012)

External pressure   Palermo Protocol

0.71* (0.173)

  United States

0.248* (0.045)

   Council of Europe

0.317* (0.07)

  European Union

–​0.044 (0.035)

Constant

0.355

Standard error

(0.242)

Number of cases

195

Note: Random effects Poisson regression where significance level is *