Anti-Trafficking Professionals and Institutionalized Violence in Spain: An Exploratory Study

Mara Clemente (), Alba Sierra-Rodríguez and David Cairns
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Mara Clemente: Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte), ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal
Alba Sierra-Rodríguez: Departamento de Ciencias de la Educación, UNEX-Universidad de Extremadura, Av. de la Universidad s/n, 10071 Cáceres, Spain
David Cairns: Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte), ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: In recent decades, an anti-trafficking legislative and policy framework has been developed in Spain, coupled with the funding of initiatives related to the protection of trafficked persons, especially women, largely carried out by faith-based and secular organizations. Using 25 interviews conducted with people employed in programmes targeting trafficked women in the Autonomous Community of Madrid, this article provides deeper exploration of this under-studied subject with a view to gaining a better understanding of the work experiences of professionals involved in these initiatives, with special attention paid to the challenges they face in enacting anti-trafficking activities while avoiding producing violence on assisted persons. The experiences of these professionals highlight that the neoliberal outsourcing of services to non-governmental organizations nevertheless contributes towards making anti-trafficking an apparatus in which violence materializes and reproduces. Significantly, this violence involves not only the people who are being assisted as trafficking victims but also some anti-trafficking professionals.

Keywords: human trafficking; neoliberalism; violence; Spain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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