Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T02:53:13.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Males are Undeserving; Females are Ideal Victims’: Gender Bias Hides Demand in Human-Smuggling Networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2022

Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios Open the ORCID record for Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios [Opens in a new window]
Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios*
Affiliation:
Professor of Sociology, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The objective of this paper, based on interviews with 95 human smugglers (coyotes) involved in agriculture and 51 in prostitution, is to provide a comparative analysis of the networks transporting (mostly) male migrants intending to work in US agriculture and those recruiting women/girls for the US sex industry. Networks carrying females for sex work are bigger and use more fraudulent recruitment strategies. However, migrant smuggling for agriculture is not totally different from sex trafficking; similarities between the types of networks analysed dwarf their differences. Smugglers frequently use some form of deception to convince their would-be clients/victims to undertake risky journeys. I conclude that both networks are demand-driven. Smugglers serve the interests of US agribusinesses and sex business owners rather than those of the males and females they recruit.

Spanish abstract

Spanish abstract

El objetivo de este artículo, basado en entrevistas con 95 traficantes de personas conducidas para el trabajo agrario y 51 para la prostitución, es analizar comparativamente las redes que transportan migrantes varones para trabajar en la agricultura estadounidense y las redes que reclutan mujeres/muchachas para la industria estadounidense del sexo. Las redes que transportan mujeres/muchachas para el trabajo sexual son mayores y utilizan estrategias de reclutamiento más fraudulentas. Sin embargo, el tráfico de migrantes no es totalmente diferente de la trata sexual. Las similitudes entre los tipos de redes analizadas eclipsan sus diferencias. Los traficantes con frecuencia utilizan alguna forma de engaño para convencer a sus posibles clientes/víctimas de que inicien un viaje riesgoso. Concluyo que ambos tipos de redes están impulsados por la demanda. Los traficantes sirven los intereses de los empresarios agrarios y de los propietarios de negocios sexuales de los Estados Unidos por encima de las necesidades de los varones y mujeres/muchachas que reclutan.

Portuguese abstract

Portuguese abstract

O objetivo deste artigo, baseado em entrevistas com 95 contrabandistas de pessoas envolvidos em agricultura e 51 em prostituição, é analisar comparativamente as redes de transporte de migrantes masculinos que pretendem trabalhar em fazendas dos EUA e aquelas que recrutam mulheres/crianças para a indústria do sexo norte-americana. As redes que transportam mulheres/crianças para o trabalho sexual são maiores e usam estratégias de recrutamento mais fraudulentas. No entanto, o contrabando de migrantes não é totalmente diferente do tráfico sexual. As semelhanças entre os tipos de redes analisadas ofuscam suas diferenças. Os contrabandistas costumam usar alguma forma de engano para convencer seus possíveis clientes/vítimas a se arriscarem na viagem. Concluímos que ambas as redes são orientadas pela demanda. Os contrabandistas atendem aos interesses de empresários do agronegócio e do sexo dos EUA, e não dos homens, mulheres e crianças que eles recrutam.

Keywords

agricultureprostitutionmigrant smugglingtraffickingMexicoCentral AmericaUnited Statesagriculturaprostitucióntráfico de migrantestrata de personasMéxicoCentroaméricaEstados Unidosagriculturaprostituiçãocontrabando de migrantestráficoMéxicoAmérica CentralEstados Unidos
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 509 - 536
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 United States Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report (hereafter TIP), June 2021, p. 60, ‘Global Law Enforcement Data’ table: https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-trafficking-in-persons-report/ (all TIP reports cited in this article were last accessed 7 March 2022). Hannah Hobbs Horowitz explains how the data in the TIP table relates to the number of visas granted to victims of sex trafficking: see ‘Protecting Victims of Human Trafficking: Understanding the Variation in T Visa Approvals’, Doctoral dissertation, Duke University, 2019, pp. 22, 29, 30, 35, 36 and 37. In this article I use the terms ‘females’ and ‘males’ rather than ‘women’ and ‘men’ to avoid any suggestion that all those who are smuggled are adults (adults are considered to be capable of consent; minors are not).

2 For example in Arizona State Legislature, Senate Bill 1070, ‘Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act’, 23 April 2010, hereafter ‘SB 1070’. See note 6.

3 Hughes, Donna M., ‘The “Natasha” Trade: The Transnational Shadow Market of Trafficking in Women’, Journal of International Affairs, 53: 2 (2000), p. 643Google Scholar; Sheila Jeffreys, The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2009), p. 191; Janice G. Raymond, Donna M. Hughes and Carol J. Gomez, ‘Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States’, in Leonard Territo and George Kirkham (eds.), International Sex Trafficking of Women and Children: Understanding the Global Epidemic (New York: Looseleaf Law Publications, 2010), p. 6; Shamere McKenzie, ‘Two Questions, the Same Answer: The Role of Demand in Prostitution and Sex Trafficking‘, Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence, 2: 3 (2017), https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=dignity (last accessed 8 Feb. 2022).

4 Jason de León, ‘The Efficacy and Impact of the Alien Transfer Exit Programme: Migrant Perspectives from Nogales, Sonora, Mexico’, International Migration, 51: 2 (2013), p. 12.

5 United States, Congress, Public Law 106-386, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, 28 Oct. 2000, Sec. 103 (9).

6 SB 1070. See Bravo, Karen E., ‘On Making Persons: Legal Construction of Personhood and their Nexus with Human Trafficking’, Northern Illinois University Law Review, 31 (2010), p. 495Google Scholar. In this paper the terms ‘(human) smuggler’ and ‘coyote’ are used interchangeably.

7 Corinne Schwarz et al., ‘Human Trafficking Identification and Service Provision in the Medical and Social Service Sectors’, Health and Human Rights, 18: 1 (2016), p. 188; Jones, Samuel V., ‘The Invisible Man: The Conscious Neglect of Men and Boys in the War on Human Trafficking’, Utah Law Review, 1143: 4 (2010), p. 1181Google Scholar; Nicole Littenberg and Susie Baldwin, ‘The Ignored Exploitation: Labor Trafficking in the United States’, in Makini Chisolm-Straker and Hanni Stoklosa (eds,), Human Trafficking is a Public Health Issue: A Paradigm Expansion in the United States (Cham: Springer, 2017), pp. 67–92; Wolken, Cynthia L., ‘Feminist Legal Theory and Human Trafficking in the United States: Towards a New Framework’, University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class, 6: 2 (2006), p. 411Google Scholar; Erin O'Brien, Challenging the Human Trafficking Narrative: Victims, Villains, and Heroes (London: Routledge, 2018).

8 International Labor Organization and Walk Free Foundation, Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage (Geneva: ILO Publications, 2017), p. 30, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_575479.pdf, last accessed 4 March 2020; Jones, ‘The Invisible Man’, p. 1148.

9 Walk Free Foundation, ‘The Global Slavery Index, 2016’, p. 127, https://downloads.globalslaveryindex.org/ephemeral/GSI-2016-Full-Report-1644319166.pdf, last accessed 8 Feb. 2022; Jones, ‘The Invisible Man’, p. 1156; Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios and Yasutaka Yamamoto, ‘Trafficking in US Agriculture’, Antipode, 49: 5 (2017), pp. 1306–28.

10 TIP, June 2016, https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2016/index.htm, p. 392; TIP, June 2017, https://www.state.gov/reports/2017-trafficking-in-persons-report/, p. 419; TIP, June 2019, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019-TIP-Report-Narratives-T-ZSpecial-Case.pdf, p. 489.

11 TIP, June 2020, https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-TIP-Report-Complete-062420-FINAL.pdf, p. 516; TIP 2019, p. 489; TIP, June 2018, https://www.state.gov/reports/2018-trafficking-in-persons-report/, pp. 442–3; TIP 2017, p. 415; TIP 2016, pp. 388 and 389.

12 Jennifer Chappell Deckert, Sherry Warren and Hannah Britton, ‘Midwestern Service Provider Narratives of Migrant Experiences: Legibility, Vulnerability, and Exploitation in Human Trafficking’, Advances in Social Work, 18: 3 (2018), p. 890; Jones, ‘The Invisible Man’, p. 1146; Chapkis, Wendy, ‘Trafficking, Migration, and the Law: Protecting Innocents, Punishing Immigrants’, Gender and Society, 17: 6 (2003), p. 929CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolken, ‘Feminist Legal Theory’, p. 414.

13 Musto, Jennifer Lynne, ‘What's in a Name?: Conflations and Contradictions in Contemporary U.S. Discourses of Human Trafficking’, Women's Studies International Forum, 32: 4 (2009), p. 283CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Rachealle Sanford, Daniel E. Martínez and Ronald Weitzer, ‘Framing Human Trafficking: A Context Analysis of Recent U.S. Newspaper Articles’, Journal of Human Trafficking, 2: 2 (2016), p. 153.

15 Jerome A. Lewis, James C. Hamilton and J. Dean Elmore, ‘Describing the Ideal Victim: A Linguistic Analysis of Victim Descriptions’, Current Psychology, 40 (2021), pp. 4324–32.

16 Chapkis, ‘Trafficking, Migration, and the Law’, p. 924.

17 Rosas, Gilberto, ‘Necro-subjection: On Borders, Asylum, and Making Dead to Let Live’, Theory and Event, 22: 2 (2019), p. 318Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 306, 304.

19 Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos, Los cautiverios de las mujeres. Madresposas, monjas, putas, presas y locas (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2011).

20 Felicia Pratto and Angela Walker, ‘The Bases of Gendered Power’, in Alice H. Eagly, Anne E. Beall and Robert J. Sternberg (eds.), The Psychology of Gender (New York: The Guilford Press, 2004), pp. 242–68.

21 Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016 [1969]), p. 88.

22 Ulla Wikander, De criada a empleada. Poder, sexo y división del trabajo (1789–1950) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2016), p. 80. Wikander's book was originally published in German in 1998.

23 Dennis, Jeffery P., ‘Women Are Victims, Men Make Choices: The Invisibility of Men and Boys in the Global Sex Trade’, Gender Issues, 25 (2008), p. 19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Hebert, Laura A., ‘Always Victimizers, Never Victims: Engaging Men and Boys in Human Trafficking Scholarship’, Journal of Human Trafficking, 2: 4 (2016), p. 283CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Jones, ‘The Invisible Man’, p. 1184.

26 Karla Lorena Andrade Rubio, ‘La demanda de migrantes indocumentadas en la industria del sexo de Nevada’, Ciencia, Técnica y Mainstreaming Social, 5 (2021), pp. 74–84.

27 Massey, Douglas S., ‘A Missing Element in Migration Theories’, Migration Letters, 12: 3 (2015), pp. 279–99CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

28 Alejandro Portes and József Böröcz, ‘Contemporary Immigration: Theoretical Perspectives on its Determinants and Modes of Incorporation’, International Migration Review, 23: 3 (1989), p. 612.

29 Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand and Nolan J. Malone, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003), p. 20.

30 Fred Krissman, ‘Sin Coyote ni Patrón: Why the “Migrant Network” Fails to Explain International Migration’, International Migration Review, 39: 1 (2005), p. 34.

31 Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios, ‘Corruption at the Border: Intersections between US Labour Demands, Border Control, and Human Smuggling Economies’, Antipode, 51: 4 (2019), pp. 1210–30.

32 Although I concentrate on the ‘males smuggled for agriculture and females trafficked for sex work’ model, I have come across cases of females smuggled for agriculture. None of the interviewees, except for Zeferino, trafficked boys for prostitution.

33 Karla Lorena Andrade Rubio, ‘Protocolo del Comité de ética de la investigación del CAC UAT-CA-73’, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, 2009, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316554261_Protocolo_del_Comite_de_etica_de_la_investigacion_del_CAC_UAT-CA-73 (last accessed 8 Feb. 2022).

34 Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios, ‘La precarización extrema en el mercado de trabajo agrario en Estados Unidos’, Colombia Internacional, 89 (2017), p. 123.

35 Palacios, Simón Pedro Izcara, ‘Migración irregular y aislamiento social. Los jornaleros tamaulipecos indocumentados en los Estados Unidos’, Revista Internacional de Sociología, 68: 2 (2010), pp. 473–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 David Spener, Clandestine Crossings: Migrants and Coyotes on the Texas–Mexico Border (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), pp. 118–19.

37 Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 252.

38 Izcara, ‘Corruption at the Border’, p. 1220.

39 ‘Decreto por el que se crea la Coordinación para la Atención Integral de la Migración en la Frontera Sur’, Diario Oficial de la Federación, 8 July 2014, http://www.dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5351463&fecha=08/07/2014 (last accessed 21 Feb. 2022).

40 Pombo, María Dolores París, ‘Trayectos peligrosos: Inseguridad y movilidad humana en México’, Papeles de Población, 22: 90 (2016), p. 166Google Scholar.

41 Palacios, Simón Pedro Izcara, ‘Las caravanas de migrantes y las economías de tráfico humano y el trabajo excedente’, Andamios, 18: 45 (2021), p. 34Google Scholar.

42 Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios, ‘Los transmigrantes centroamericanos en México’, Latin American Research Review, 50: 4 (2015), p. 54.

43 Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios, ‘Contrabando de migrantes y demanda laboral’, Andamios, 14: 35 (2017), pp. 359–78.

44 Hughes, ‘The “Natasha” Trade’; Jeffreys, The Industrial Vagina; Raymond, Hughes and Gomez, ‘Sex Trafficking’. Neo-abolitionists regard human trafficking as the forcing of ‘women and girls … into “sexual slavery” by social deviants’; their campaigns have led to ‘criminal justice responses that target prostitution and leave unquestioned the exploitative labor practices and migrant abuse that characterize the majority of trafficking cases’: Janie A. Chuang, ‘Rescuing Trafficking from Ideological Capture: Prostitution Reform and Anti-Trafficking Law and Policy’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 158: 6 (2010), pp. 1658–9.

45 Gabriella E. Sanchez, Human Smuggling and Border Crossings (New York: Routledge, 2015), p. 4.

46 Spener, Clandestine Crossings, p. 204.

47 David Spener, ‘Global Apartheid, Coyotaje and the Discourse of Clandestine Migration: Distinctions between Personal, Structural, and Cultural Violence’, Migración y Desarrollo, 10 (2008), pp. 115–40, here p. 118.

48 Rosalba Jasso Vargas, ‘Espacios de estancia prolongada para la población migrante centroamericana en tránsito por México’, Frontera Norte, 33 (2021), p. 12.

49 Ibid., p. 4.

50 Gustavo López Castro, ‘Coyotes and Alien Smuggling’, in Mexico–United States Binational Migration Study, The Binational Study on Migration between Mexico and the United States, vol. 3: Research Reports and Background Materials (Mexico City: Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Washington, DC: US Commission on Immigration Reform, 1998), p. 968, https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/64167/U.S.%20Commission%20on%20Immigration%20Reform.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y (last accessed 8 Feb. 2022).

51 Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios, ‘Coyotaje y grupos delictivos en Tamaulipas’, Latin American Research Review, 47: 3 (2012), p. 47; ‘Contrabandistas de migrantes a pequeña escala de Tamaulipas, México’, Perfiles Latinoamericanos, 21: 42 (2013), p. 115.

52 A ‘package ’ is a group of migrants (principally girls) recruited in Central America transported swiftly to the United States by a line composed of several cells. The word derives from the lexicon of drug-smuggling.

53 Lynn Stephen, ‘Violencia transfronteriza de género y mujeres indígenas refugiadas de Guatemala’, Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals, 117 (2017), pp. 29–50; Karla Lorena Andrade Rubio, ‘Víctimas de trata: Mujeres migrantes, trabajo agrario y acoso sexual en Tamaulipas’, CienciaUAT, 11: 1 (2016), pp. 22–36.

54 The age at which a person may legally consent to engage in sexual activity in the United States is between 16 and 18. In the principal destinations of females transported by the human smugglers whom I interviewed (Texas, Florida and California) the age of consent is 18. Under the TVPA (see note 5) ‘the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person’ who has not attained 18 years of age for labour or for the purpose of a commercial sex act is considered a severe form of sex trafficking. Consequently, my definition of a minor is a person who has not attained 18 years of age.

55 Greg Schell, ‘Farmworker Exceptionalism under the Law: How the Legal System Contributes to Farmworker Poverty and Powerlessness’, in Charles D. Thompson Jr and Melinda F. Wiggins (eds.), The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers’ Lives, Labor, and Advocacy (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002), p. 151.

56 Ibid., p. 148; Walk Free Foundation, ‘The Global Slavery Index, 2016’, p. 127.

57 Methods used by smugglers to recruit workers include frequenting known places where migrants can make contact with them; seeking females in nightspots; and paying recruiters.

58 Simón Pedro Izcara Palacios, ‘Recruitment Strategies Used by Mexican Sex Traffickers’, Migration Letters, 17: 5 (2020), p. 677.

59 Palacios, Simón Pedro Izcara, ‘Abusos y condiciones de servidumbre relacionados con la implementación de los programas de trabajadores huéspedes (el caso tamaulipeco)’, Frontera Norte, 22: 44 (2010), p. 250Google Scholar; ‘Migración y trata en América del Norte’, Revista de Estudios Sociales, 67 (2019), p. 93.

60 Teresa Elizabeth Cueva-Luna and Teresa Terrón-Caro, ‘Vulnerabilidad de las mujeres migrantes en el cruce clandestino por Tamaulipas–Texas’, Papeles de Población, 20: 79 (2014), p. 237.

61 Vogt, Wendy A., ‘Crossing Mexico: Structural Violence and the Commodification of Undocumented Central American Migrants’, American Ethnologist, 40: 4 (2013), p. 774CrossRefGoogle Scholar.