The Development of Anti-trafficking Institutions and Networks in Eastern Europe: A Feminist Approach?

This paper focuses on the anti-trafficking institutions that were created directly or indirectly as a result of human trafficking policy adoption in Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia. Using network analysis, I trace the establishment and development of five different anti-trafficking institutions including: national coordinators, working groups, police units, shelters for victims, and victim certification processes. I evaluate the effectiveness of these formal institutions and compare the different approaches employed across the three different case studies in order to determine how these institutions are used to guide human trafficking policy implementation. I utilize network analysis to examine implementation networks, focusing on how different actors in the human trafficking policy subsystem come together and the ties that bind them. I question whether these institutions fit into the framework of feminist institutionalism. Since Western style feminism has been rejected in many of these countries, applying the framework to anti-trafficking institutions will determine whether feminist institutionalist norms have diffused to Eastern Europe. The results suggest that the more effective the anti-trafficking institutions are in a country, the more likely the policy is to be implemented. The networks also reveal the divide between criminalization aspects of the policy and the social aspects with rehabilitation for victims.