My Name is Not Natasha: How Albanian Women in France Use Trafficking to Overcome Social Exclusion (1998-2001)(IMISCOE Dissertations)

This book challenges every common presumption that exists about the trafficking of women for the sex trade. It is a detailed account of an entire population of trafficked Albanian women whose varied experiences, including selling sex on the streets of France, clearly demonstrate how much the present discourse about trafficked women is misplaced and inadequate. The heterogeneity of the women involved and their relationships with various men is clearly presented as is the way women actively created a panoptical surveillance of themselves as a means of self-policing. There is no artificial divide between women who were deceived and abused and those who "choose" sex work; in fact the book clearly shows how peripheral involvement in sex work was to the real agenda of the women involved. Most of the women described in this book were not making economic decisions to escape desperate poverty nor were they the uneducated naive entrapped into sexual slavery. The women's success in transiting trafficking to achieve their own goals without the assistance of any outside agency is a testimony to their resilience and resolve. This title is available in the OAPEN Library - http://www.oapen.org.

Table of Contents:
Table of contents - 8 Acknowledgements - 12 Summary - 14 Tables and figures - 16 Acronyms and abbreviations - 18 1. What is trafficking? - 20 2. Research design and methods - 60 3. Understanding trafficking - 96 4. Leaving Albania - 116 5. Arriving in France - 152 6. Living and working in Lyon - 184 7. Overcoming or accommodating trafficking - 214 8. Conclusions: explaining trafficking - 244 Notes - 272 Appendix A Questionnaire and guidelines - 278 Appendix B Cost of sex acts in Lyon - 288 Appendix C The lamp-post sticker used by the campaign - 289 Appendix D Advertisements for off-street sex workers - 290 Appendix E Number of transsexual and female prostitutes in Lyon - 291 Appendix F Ethical statement - 292 Appendix G The researcher's map of Lyon - 293 Appendix H Social matrix of the trafficking order in Lyon - 294 References - 299

About the Author :
John Davies is a Research Fellow at the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, at the University of Sussex.

Review :
For years, the human trafficking sector has been plagued with inconsistencies and lack of conceptual clarity. This book offers a fresh perspective to help us seriously rethink previous assumptions and expand our true understanding of the problem." Matthew S. Friedman, Regional Project Manager, UN Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region - This work represents an exciting addition to our knowledge and understanding of gender, while adding important new elements to theories about -- and the motivations for -- migration. A fascinating study." Jane Verbitsky, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences, AUT University, Auckland - "Davies transcends the standard debates of agency vs. victimhood in exploring how Albanian sex workers regard themselves and the consumers of their sex work, how they realise culturally gendered strategies of social control and dependency and how both local and geopolitical factors restrict their choices. This unique study should become essential reading for those involved in gender and migration research." Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, School of Slavonic and East European Studies University College London