Vulnerability to Exploitation through the Lens of Intersectionality: A Critical Analysis of Instruments and Approaches to Identify and Support Exploited and Trafficked Migrants Seeking Protection

This article critically analyzes, from an intersectional perspective, the instruments and approaches adopted to identify, support and protect exploited and trafficked migrants, including asylum seekers, in European countries. By building on relevant findings from the VULNER research project, and drawing on feminist and socio-legal studies highlighting the complex dimension of both exploitation and vulnerability, the article examines the ways victims’ vulnerabilities are addressed by national protection systems, the main challenges in tackling such situations, and the interconnection between asylum and anti-trafficking systems in this regard. In doing so, the paper mobilizes intersectionality from two different yet complementary angles: as a lens to recognize the interplay of multiple factors contributing to situations of vulnerability to exploitation, and as a way to shed light on the limitations of relevant instruments and approaches that focus on some specific models and understandings of victims, neglecting the systemic character of exploitation, and the situational and intersectional dimension of vulnerabilities. The article focuses on relevant legal and policy instruments and approaches in some of the European countries covered by the VULNER project, especially Italy, Belgium and Norway.