Journal Article
1 February 2025
Current Issue
Volume 11, Issue 2 (2026)Read More
Featured Content
- Journal Article1 June 2022
Testimony, Violence, and Silence: An Examination of Agamben and His Critics
This paper investigates the difficulties faced by survivors of atrocities in testifying. I work on the case of female victims of domestic torture as reported by Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald. The starting point is Giorgio Agamben’s Remnants of Auschwitz with his discussion on Primo Levi’s paradox and the testis/superstes/auctor distinction. I build on his nuances while arguing that he has not looked enough into power dynamics that render one speechless. “Unspeakable violence” refers simultaneously to incapacity and not being allowed to speak. Pain renders the victim speechless; perpetrators distort language and speak over survivors. Victims are often not allowed to speak at all. The inaudible also largely determines what can be said: potential listeners’ incomprehension and disbelief can make testimony impossible. Overall, internal psychological reasons and political structural reasons hinder the testimony of atrocity. I, therefore, investigate the figure of the superstes or survivor who is in limbo between selves, languages, worlds, and time zones.
Current Articles
- Journal Article1 August 2026
Sex Buying, Sex Trafficking, and Organized Crime: Introduction to a Special Issue
- Journal Article1 August 2026
Disrupting the Demand for Commercial Sex to Combat Sex Trafficking and Destabilise Organised Crime Networks
Sex trafficking persists as a lucrative form of organised crime, sustained by ongoing demand for commercial sex. Using Rational Choice Theory, this article reframes sex buyers as active perpetrators and financial drivers of trafficking networks rather than peripheral actors. The article examines how buyers weigh risks and benefits when purchasing sex, especially in contexts with weak law enforcement. By analysing 53 active trafficking cases from 2021 and 36 prosecuted cases in South Africa (2007–2022), the research identifies clear patterns in buyer behaviour, network operations, and law‑enforcement responses. A central finding is the near-total absence of buyers in prosecutions, which reinforces their perception that low risk enables trafficking markets to thrive. The article argues that Rational Choice Theory provides a practical foundation for designing demand‑reduction strategies, including legal penalties, public exposure, and educational interventions. Positioning buyers as rational actors whose decisions can be influenced highlights the need for evidence‑based policies that target demand to disrupt trafficking economies. - Journal Article1 August 2026
Disrupting the Bonded Economy of Sex Buying, Sex Trafficking, and Organised Crime Through Policy Change
Emerging criminological research underscores how the economic drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation reinforce organised criminal markets while reproducing the structural vulnerabilities of those in prostitution. Using South Africa as a case study, this article argues that evidence-based legislative reform is necessary to confront the systemic conditions that enable exploitation. It contends that achieving substantive equality requires recognising the criminogenic role of sex‑buyer demand in sustaining trafficking pipelines and criminal profitability. The Swedish/Nordic demand‑reduction model illustrates how asymmetrical criminalisation can suppress demand, reduce reliance on trafficked persons, and diminish the financial incentives that underpin organised crime. Such an approach reorients legal accountability toward those who drive the market for sexual exploitation while concurrently disrupting the broader criminal ecosystems in which trafficking is entrenched. - Journal Article1 August 2026
The Nature of Human Trafficking Enterprises: Analysis of U.S. and International Prosecutions--and the Path Forward
The primary objective of this research is to develop a description and typology of the nature of serious cases of human trafficking and how traffickers, their victims, and consumers (the demand) overlap and interact across locations. This study examines known human trafficking enterprises for which sufficient evidence has been obtained to result in prosecution. These are also serious cases because US federal and international prosecutions result when the offenses are interstate or international in scope. Using a sample of US cases prosecuted over three calendar years (2021-2024), combined with an international sample of cases, an effort is made to develop a typology of the structure and operation of these trafficking enterprises, the nature of the trafficking and exploitation, and the source of the demand (end users). Examination of the nature of the trafficking enterprise chain is presented: recruitment sources (supply and demand), transit methods (in bringing supply and demand together), and the nature of victim exploitation at the destination. It is argued that beyond offenders and victims, two aspects of human trafficking have been undervalued. These include the need to assess risk to reduce both the pool of individuals at high risk of being trafficked and the demand pool of potential offenders and consumers who exploit these individuals for profit. - Journal Article1 August 2026
Impunity: A Case Study of Sex Trafficking in Nevada Brothel Prostitution
It is well-documented that legalization and other forms of official protection for prostitution lead to an increase in sex trafficking, including by encouraging demand for prostitution. This paper will consider the relationship between official protection, organized crime, and sex trafficking in pro-prostitution legal regimes, both historical and contemporary. Prostitution is legal in rural counties in Nevada that have fewer than 700,000 residents, if prostitution occurs within a brothel. There is significant overlap between sex trafficking and legal brothel prostitution in Nevada, as well as a nexus to corruption and organized crime, illustrating the normalization of coercion that occurs within legalized prostitution systems. The paper will set forth the legal framework for and the standard practices of the legal brothels, relying on the lived experiences of Nevada sex trafficking survivors, as well as the direct knowledge gained from service providers and other practitioners. The paper will place special focus on data uncovered through the author’s litigation against these brothels and the government entities that upheld them, particularly the brothels’ use of debt and physical restraint. Finally, the paper will analyze these practices through the lens of federal laws against organized crime, as well as federal anti-trafficking laws in the United States, which forbid any commercial sex act that is induced by force, fraud, or coercion. - Journal Article1 August 2026
Disrupting Transnational Human Trafficking Networks: A Practitioner's Perspective on Intelligence-Driven, Offender-Focused Strategies
This article examines human trafficking through the lens of organized crime and explores how this perspective can be applied to contemporary trafficking cases in the United States. While trafficking is often prosecuted as an isolated criminal act, many incidents are linked to larger transnational and domestic organized crime networks. The discussion highlights the activities of notorious syndicates, including international cartels, street gangs, and well-funded networks of sex buyers, demonstrating how these entities exploit vulnerable populations for profit. Reframing human trafficking as a sector within organized crime shifts investigative and prosecutorial strategies away from victim-dependent models, which often require survivors to serve as primary witnesses. This organized crime approach emphasizes targeting entire criminal enterprises through intelligence-led investigations and enterprise-based prosecutions. Such strategies not only enhance investigative efficiency but also protect victims and survivors from unnecessary legal exposure. Positioning trafficking within the broader framework of organized crime opens opportunities for legislative reform, interagency collaboration, and the disruption of complex criminal ecosystems. Ultimately, this article shows that adopting organized crime frameworks will better dismantle entrenched trafficking networks, reduce harm to survivors, and strengthen systemic prevention and enforcement efforts. - Journal Article1 August 2026
The Confluence of Conflict-Induced Vulnerability, Organized Crime, and Sex Trafficking in Receiving States: A South African Civil Society Perspective
The crime-conflict nexus has been well-documented in conflict-affected and post-conflict states. Criminal networks make use of manifold methods and strategies to exploit individual and structural vulnerabilities, particularly those affected by war, displacement, and precarious migration journeys, forming the backbone of most conflict-induced trafficking ecosystems, whether in countries of origin, transit, or receipt. This article examines the intersection of sex trafficking, diaspora communities, and organized crime within South Africa as a receiving state from a civil society perspective. It underscores the deficiencies in traditional, reductionist, enforcement-based approaches to counter-trafficking by the state, where nested subsystems, such as those produced by endemic corruption, create negative feedback loops amplifying harm. The article advocates leveraging community-based interventions which prioritize the experiential knowledge of affected populations to complement regulatory systems. - Journal Article1 August 2026
Leveraging Technology to Measure the Strength of Demand for Commercial and Trafficked Sex
The article examines Transaction Intercept (TI), an artificial‑intelligence platform designed to reduce sex trafficking by disrupting the revenue streams that draw organized crime into the market. Transaction Intercept deploys decoy online ads that appear to offer commercial sexual exploitation or prostitution. Automated "decoy" personas connect to individuals who click on these ads and engage them in text conversations. These exchanges can remain fully automated, ending with deterrence messages, or be transferred to police for potential enforcement action or to trained volunteers who attempt to discourage further attempts to buy sex. Transaction Intercept generates extensive, real‑time data on local demand for commercial sex, including the characteristics of ads that attract buyers, the number of unique individuals who respond, and behavioral patterns by sex. Transaction Intercept generates extensive, real‑time data on local demand, including the characteristics of ads that attract buyers, the number of unique individuals who respond, behavioral patterns among sex buyers, and the outcomes of each interaction. Provided at no cost to law enforcement, the system allows agencies to quickly assess the scale and traits of consumer‑level demand for sex trafficking within their jurisdiction. In its current deployment, Transaction Intercept has facilitated more than 700,000 text exchanges and identified over 25,000 sex buyers across over 75 U.S. cities. The article outlines how this technology can inform public policy, strengthen law‑enforcement practice, and be adapted for use in other national contexts. - Journal Article1 August 2026
Behind the Screen: Online Sex Buyer Networks and the Organized Criminal Promotion of Exploitation
This study investigates the extent to which online sex buyer communities in the United States function as organized criminal networks pursuant to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime’s definition of organized criminal groups. Drawing from theories of organized crime, social network analysis, and digital ecosystems, we conceptualize sex buyers not as isolated actors but as participants in coordinated, mutually reinforcing networks that share information to facilitate exploitation, mitigate risk, and sustain criminal behavior. To test this framework, we scraped over 1.2 million posts from a publicly accessible sex buyer forum, comprising 72,974 unique users and nearly 800,000 direct replies. We identified location-based subgroups and influential users within the network using community detection methods. A custom-trained large language model was then used to detect and categorize “criminal acts” and “benefits” behaviors that aid in criminal facilitation, such as law enforcement avoidance, provider vetting, and service coordination. Our findings reveal persistent network structures, role differentiation, and shared norms consistent with organized criminal enterprises. Central users act as facilitators, and discussions frequently center on risk management and the normalization of exploitative behavior. These results challenge the perception of sex buyers as lone actors and suggest a decentralized but structured criminal ecosystem. This study contributes to criminological theory and anti-trafficking policy by offering a new lens to understand and disrupt digital demand in the commercial sex trade.