Reconceptualizing Female Trafficking: The Inhuman Trade in Women

The author looks at current international approaches to female trafficking and posits its reconceptualization as a crime against humanity. She begins by providing an overview of the debate underlying the definition of trafficking women and discusses the nature of female trafficking. After an examination of current international law against female trafficking, she posits that individual state strategies remain uncoordinated and ineffective due to the broad discretion given to states under international law to implement domestic policy on prostitution and immigration. She argues that reconceptualizing female trafficking as a crime against humanity, as the International Criminal Court statute provides, creates a uniform basis from which female trafficking can be more effectively combated. [Descriptors: Migration - Trafficking, International]