Factors Contributing to Human Trafficking, Contexts of Vulnerability and Patterns of Victimization: The case of stranded victims in Metema, Ethiopia

Abstract

Human trafficking has recently emerged as an exceedingly intricate international crime. Sub-Saharan Africa is the most vulnerable region from which a substantial amount of victims has been recruited for both continental and intercontinental transaction. This also holds true for Ethiopian men, women and children who have been immensely draining out via various channels within assorted trafficking networks. This study assesses factors contributing to human trafficking and victimization and the contexts of vulnerability with reference to stranded victims in Metema, Ethiopia. Employing a cross-sectional qualitative research, primary data were gathered from various groups of purposely selected subjects: stranded victims, traffickers, law enforcing agents and social service providers. In-depth interviews, key-informant interviews, focus group discussions and non-participant observation were used as methods of acquiring information which was, finally, analyzed thematically to provide a qualitative account on the problem under study. The study found that victims highly pressured by various social structural factors (for instance, poverty, excessive social stress on economic success, the submission of non-economic institutions to the drives of economic calculations, the targets’ bounded economic rationality, the expansion of migration/employment agencies and the effect of migration networks) towards migration which ultimately made them motivated targets of trafficking. Once recruited, they are subjected to abusive and exploitative relationship with the traffickers which exposed them to various difficult situations.

Key Words: Human trafficking, migration, victimization, vulnerability, poverty