‘Awkward aliens’: female migrants, exploitation and the trafficking framework

This chapter discusses the legal regimes devised by European migrant-receiving countries, in particular within the structures of the European Union (EU), to deal with migrant women who have experienced the kind of exploitation which is now commonly labelled ‘trafficking in women’. As exploitation experienced by migrant women, especially in so-called ‘commercial sex industries’, has been viewed through the prism of ‘trafficking’, the response of many destination countries in Europe has been to construct a so-called ‘trafficking framework’ - a framework aimed at stemming what is viewed as a criminal trade by targeting traffickers and others involved in ‘exploiting’ migrant women (in prostitution and elsewhere). The typical European destination country response to the exploitation of female migrants is now commonly structured around three dimensions which are seen as necessary limbs of the trafficking framework: one focuses on the prosecution of traffickers, one on the protection of victims of trafficking, and one on the prevention of trafficking.