On challenges, dilemmas, and opportunities in studying trafficked children

Anthropological Quarterly, Fall, 2008 by Elzbieta M. Gozdziak

The average age of trafficked persons is reported to be 20 years old, indicating that a significant number of trafficked persons are under the age of 18 (Spangenberg 2002). However, the number of trafficked children identified to date does not bear out these estimates. Since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, through August 2006, a total of 102 children (individuals under the age of 18 years old) have been identified as victims of trafficking and "determined eligible" for services by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) responsible for their care. (1) This represents approximately 10 percent of the total number of victims, adults and minors, who have gained access to services under the TVPA provisions. Fifty-six of the 102 child victims of trafficking were unaccompanied at the time of identification and were referred to specialized foster care and unaccompanied minors programs. The remaining 46 were accompanied at the time of emancipation and received services as part of the emancipated family unit.

The small number of trafficked children identified so far could be as much a result of the clandestine nature of the phenomenon as the inadequate and misplaced strategies used to identify trafficked children, or the fact that the estimates far exceed the reality and gravity of the situation. The majority of trafficked children have been identified either through law enforcement raids of suspicious establishments or through tips from good Samaritans. Some experts suggest that the government should broaden their strategies to include an enhanced screening of children at US borders, particularly unaccompanied children. Each year, immigration officials apprehend approximately 100,000 unaccompanied children at US borders. Some return voluntarily, while some are returned because of bi-lateral agreements. Mexican children, for example, are routinely returned because of existing agreements between Mexico and the United States. Little is known about the children who return to their countries of origin. Additionally, many children remain undetected within the United States and their well-being is largely unknown. Numerous service providers suggest that these children are at risk for further victimization and re-trafficking. Approximately 8,000 children remain annually in the custody of the US Federal Government. Some 900 children are in custody at any given time (US DHHS 2006). Experts stress that there is a good possibility that both the larger population of children returned to their countries of origin as well as the smaller group of children in federal custody include many unidentified trafficked children (Bump and Duncan 2003).

While we agreed that child trafficking exists, we also understood that "disagreements over its magnitude are underpinned by different understandings of the term 'child' and 'trafficking'" and that "this is a conceptual and political problem that cannot be resolved by more data alone" (Manzo 2005: 394). It quickly became apparent that many of the children did not consider themselves trafficked victims, but thought of their experiences as migration in search of better opportunities that turned into exploitation. Many also did not think of their traffickers as perpetrators of crime and villains; after all in some instances the traffickers were parents or close relatives.