Tracing the Development of Anti-Trafficking Institutions

Abstract

This chapter builds on policy adoption, by tracing different anti-trafficking institutions created directly or indirectly as a result of that adoption. It analyzes and compares the establishment and development of five different anti-trafficking institutions: national coordinators, working groups, police units, shelters for victims, and victim certification processes. Although many of these institutions were developed as a result of policy adoption, they are not always codified and even some that are established, fail to work effectively and are only hollow Potemkinesque institutions. The chapter demonstrates that once anti-trafficking institutions are entrenched in countries and there are mechanisms to ensure the institutions’ survival, they have the potential to not only oversee implementation but also are effective actors in the policy subsystem working to develop better and more responsive policy in the future. A competent working group composed of civil society and government officials, which meets regularly, is the most effective anti-trafficking institution a country can possess. However, police units were the only institution that was effectively implemented demonstrating the institutional emphasis on criminalization across all three cases.