Women as Victims and Survivors in the Context of Transnational Crime (original) (raw)
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Vulnerability is gendered. That is, women are more vulnerable to all kinds of violence and tragedies around the world than are men. This phenomenon is primarily a result of the patriarchal systems of social organization that empower men and make women subject to direct, cultural, and structural violence. This chapter focuses on the causes and consequences of that gendering process. As Mary Crawford argues, "gender" is a social construct, that is, "a system of meaning that organizes interaction and governs access to power and resources." Consequently, "gender is not attribute of individuals but a way of making sense of transaction. Gender exists not in person but in transaction; it is conceptualized as a verb not a noun" (Crawford, 1995, p. 12). To "gender" something is a complex social process, and to understand violence against women, it is helpful to explore how vulnerability to violence becomes gendered and institutionalized.
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Nowadays the interplay between gender-based violence (GBV) perpetrated by men against women, women’s vulnerability and women’s exploitation has been largely demonstrated both by scholars (Degani and Della Rocca, 2014) and by field practitioners such as International Organisations and NGOs (ICMPD, 2015; Healy, 2013; U.N. General Assembly, 2018). Indeed, the power dynamic observed in the behaviour of both perpetrators of violence against women and exploiters to dominate their victims are largely equivalent. Furthermore, there have been studies regarding the role of the family in the decision to leave, also linked to some form of gender-based violence experienced in the country of origin, for example among Nigerian young girls (BeFree and Act!onaid, 2019; Women’s Link Worldwide, 2011; EASO, 2015). However, the majority of the literature fails to cover the responses through which protection mechanisms deal with these intersected vulnerabilities to address the personal needs of the women and to empower each survivor. Moreover, professionals and operators in the field of human trafficking and international protection often do not recognize the severity of GBV in favouring exploitation, thus reproducing dynamics and forms of subjugation, in which the distance between public and private spheres of violence disappear. The paper analyses the mechanisms that are put in place when working with women victims of GBV, exploring possible explanations of why the systems of protection of women’s human rights have failed to work together so far and why there is a need for a strong collaboration—in terms of referral mechanisms—to benefit the victims and improve the systems themselves.
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The paper will discuss the connection between poverty and victimization of women. Instead of the usual focus on interpersonal violence, this text offers a different view of victimization. Namely, we have dealt with systemic violence which is, by definition, incorporated in social structures and which mostly passes undetected, despite leaving visible consequences. Our primary goal was to point to some of the illustrative examples of women victimization through structural violence and, besides the descriptive analysis, our intention was also to provide the reader with the explanatory analysis which led to two assumptions. The first one refers to etiology, while the second refers to systemic violence in the contemporary social context.