Challenges to Preliminary Identification of Romani 'Victims of Trafficking': The Serbian Case

Fourteen years after the Serbian government ratified the Palermo Protocol, the efficacy of its anti-trafficking policy mechanism should be assessed. This paper examines one area of anti-trafficking efforts – identification. It focuses on preliminary identification (detection and reporting) of Romani ‘victims of trafficking’. It focuses specifically on the challenges to identification connected with ‘forced marriage’ and ‘forced begging’ for two reasons: firstly, these are the forms of trafficking (as defined by anti-trafficking policy) which have been the most clearly ethnicized by anti-trafficking policy discourse in general. Trafficking for petty crimes is also a form associated with Roma, but Serbian anti-trafficking policy actors rarely have a say on this issue. The general anti-trafficking policy discourse also associates trafficking for sexual exploitation with Roma, but not exclusively, and almost only when prompted. In this case, “Roma are among the victims too”. Secondly, my interviews with local anti-trafficking policy actors on forced marriage and forced begging demonstrated clearly the persistent complexity of these discourses. My main finding is that the ways the specific policy debates are framed have serious negative impacts on combatting early, arranged, and forced marriage and begging and forced begging. In addition, structural problems cause institutions to strengthen and produce more negative effecters, resulting even in policing Romani children who are at the same time, by the same policy actors which police them, considered ‘victims’. The main aim of this paper is to address some of the outstanding issues pertinent to raising the awareness of anti-trafficking policy actors regarding problems related to victim identification.