Gender and Organized Crime

Beyond Victimization: Women as Agents of Human Trafficking

Serena Timmoneri

Human trafficking has been defined as the “facilitation” of movement of people with the goal of exploiting them. Human trafficking is a gendered transnational crime, as until today, most of the people being trafficked from one country of origin to one of destination, are women and girls. This article aims at challenging the current dominant approach of victim/perpetrator dichotomy using Nigerian Madams as Case Study, a unique case not just because it is about women exploited and trafficked by other women that is not a “new” phenomenon per se (just think to historic merciless Madams, from France to the United States, from the Netherlands to Thailand) but because Nigerian women succeeded in obtaining a leading role in criminal organizations involved in large-scale human trafficking and they left their male competitors behind.

After presenting the two mains contrasting positions (i.e. moral approach and sex work approach), the author will use the Nigerian case to discuss how women are active members, even leaders, of transnational criminal organizations challenging the criminological “myth” of the passivity of women in criminal organizations, and how Nigerian Madams are becoming an “entrepreneurial” model for other African women (i.e Ghanaians, Cameroonians) and young girls who deliberately choose prostitution as a way out from poverty, in some cases, aiming at finally becoming exploiters. The author will show how both in the case of exploiters and victims the main reason for joining crime is lack of access to resources, poverty and discrimination outlining areas for further research and intervention at social level.

Interrogating Institutionalised Crime Against Migrant Women’s Right to Maternal Health in South Africa

Anthonia Lola Dickson

This study examines how state - instigated crime against migrant women (asylum and refugees) in South Africa has led to xenophobic attacks and prevented them from accessing maternal health services in the country. This is in spite of the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 and the OAU Refugees Convention of 1969 which mandates access to health care services in the same proportion as the host populations. Also notable is the country's progressive Constitution which provides access to healthcare services regardless of the status or nationality of its residents. Paradoxically, the South African Immigration Act is silent on the health rights and needs of refugees and asylum seekers and this places them in a vulnerable situation as far as access to public health services is concerned. Utilising a mixed-methods approach, this study investigates how exposure to state-instigated crime affects the reproductive health, access to healthcare, and the overall well-being of women asylum seekers and refugees. In the light of the above, the study rigorously examines the following questions: What is institutionalised crime? How does exposure to institutionalised crime impact on the reproductive health of women asylum seekers and refugees in South Africa? In what ways does institutionalised crime intersect to exacerbate existing health disparities and limit access to essential health services for this group? Using the feminist intersectionality theoretical approach, what interventions can be introduced to address this unique challenge faced by women asylum seekers and refugees in South Africa? Lastly, what policies and programs can be introduced to put an end to institutionalised crime and its impact on maternal health in this context?

Drawing the line on women’s bodies: Insights on political violence, gender, and the State from Rio de Janeiro

Kristina Hinz Researcher

Experiences from several Latin American countries provide evidence that political violence and violence produced by organized crime groups is often gender-based. In this regard, the 2016 Brazilian Guidelines on Femicide recognize that violence against women can be part of a “context of organized violence, for example, that produced by gangs, illegal armed groups, and even permanent interference by the legal forces of the State”. In Rio de Janeiro, it is noteworthy that the most important political crimes in the Democratic period were committed against women: the case of councilwoman Marielle Franco, killed in 2018, is added to that of Judge Patrícia Acioli in 2012, both executed by paramilitary forces. Through in-depth media content analysis from major Brazilian newspapers, this article aims to analyze cases of political crimes against women in Rio de Janeiro, committed by militia groups. From a theoretical angle rooted in gender studies, the article will focus on the symbolic meaning of these crimes, seeking to discuss gender-based political crimes in a larger context of democracy, parallel criminal power and masculinity. In particular, the article seeks to analyze the symbolic function of political violence against women as a “message from man to man,” and also of warning from its perpetrators to society and the State, and, in particular, to people and institutions committed to fighting organized crime.