Marinella Marmo

In recent trafficking cases a gap has emerged between who we expect trafficking victims to be (weak, vulnerable and innocent) and the reality of trafficking situations in which the victim is often considered 'blameworthy' due to her awareness and consent in the trafficking process. This dichotomy of ideal-blameworthy victim is underpinned by the victimological theories of the 'ideal victim' and victim blaming. It is argued that in the modern state of existential anxiety, the ideal-blameworthy victim dichotomy helps to re-establish order and structure, as well as create an understanding (albeit a somewhat simplistic one) of the threatening phenomenon of trafficking and sex work. By adopting the ideal victim construction, trafficking can be explained and normalised according to the victim's and offender's characteristics, and the trafficking victim can eventually be used as a strong prosecutorial tool. However, in cases where the victim may already operate as a sex worker in her home country, and is an active participant in, or aware of, the 'contract' in the destination country, the trafficked woman is often denied credibility as a victim or witness. Such victims do not perform a symbolic role, and do not reassure the moral community of the destination country, and consequently they are not seen as deserving victims. In this chapter we examine the practical implications of these theories for trafficked women with an empirical study of recent examples and court cases in Australia. From this study strategies to overcome the negative perceptions of trafficking victims are outlined and ways to protect the needs and rights of trafficked women are suggested.

"Race, Gender and the Body in British Immigration Control" provides the most detailed account of the virginity testing controversy in the late 1970s, and demonstrates that this abusive practice, which was endured by South Asian women for more than a decade, was part of a wider culture of mistreatment and discrimination that occurred within the immigration system authorized by the state. Using recently opened government documents, Smith and Marmo offer a unique insight into this matter and uncover the extent to which these women were scrutinized, interrogated and subject to physical examination at the border. Combining cutting-edge criminological theory and historical research, this book proposes that the contemporary British immigration control system should be viewed as an attempt to replicate colonial hierarchies upon migrants in the post-imperial era. For this reason, the abuses of human rights at the border became a secondary issue to the need of the post-imperial British nation-state to enforce strict immigration controls.

In September 2007 in Trafalgar Square, London, a trafficked woman’s ‘room’ was recreated as part of an exhibition, The Journey, organised by UN.Gift on raising public awareness of the condition of trafficked women for sexual exploitation.  A blood-stained bed moving up and down automatically, a brush and perfumes, a small  mirror with ‘help me’ written on it, and a blonde wig were all the details of that tiny unglamorous room shown to the public.
The function and scope of the exhibition was far from ‘artistic’.  The exhibition aimed to raise consciousness that human beings, mainly women, are trafficked into rich destination countries, like Britain, to be used in the sex industry as sexual objects to be consumed cheaply.  For some time, this form of transnational crime had been seen as a violation of immigration laws and a fault of countries of origin – similarly to the production and exportation of illicit drugs.  Recently, the United Nations (UN) adopted a different slogan: “Trafficking: a crime that shames us all” (UN.gift initiative).  With this change, the emphasis on responsibility is put on the demand side, the destination countries.  This exhibition had the primary aim to raise awareness and reach the British demand side, the customers and the public of the destination country of those trafficked people.  If these women are imported in Britain is because there are people willing to ‘consume’ the cheap and exotic product.  In all this, the moral community has remained largely sheltered – in their own country – by knowledge of human traffic and fate of these women.
The ‘room’ of the exhibition becomes the iconic place where the victim is held prisoner to perform sexual duties under duress.  The room therefore functions as a crime scene as well as prison: this contained physical space is the prison of an enslaved human being, repeatedly abused physically, sexually and mentally.
However, the room is not a ‘crime scene’, understood in a classical way.  It is a recreation of a ‘crime scene’ that is not considered forensically and legally a crime scene per se.  This is an imagined crime scene that operates as a ‘message board’.  The message on the mirror says: “help me”, and the receiver of the message, the viewer, is requested to internalise it and understand that a human being was kept enslaved and forced to satisfy whatever sexual request the dozens of clients had.  But, how is the reconstruction of this crime scene perceived by the public as such? The exhibit can evoke different responses. Viewers (visitors) animate the space with imagined crimes (repeated violent crimes, rapes, etc.), and can imagine as much or as little as they want / can, based on their knowledge.
This research will try to uncover the different images evoked by the viewers, using, among other more established academic sources, notes posted on www.the-journey.co.uk and Youtube.  E-viewers’ number and comments of videoclips of the ‘room’, and the celebrities’ involvement in this project to raise public profile will also inform this paper.

This chapter aims to explore the role of the criminology researcher who seeks to conduct qualitative and ethical research with refugees in crisis condition. It is argued that the researcher already promotes, albeit in an implicit manner, an ethical agenda aimed at minimising potential harm and protecting individual rights at a macro level.  In this, there is an attempt at re-shaping the narrative of deviance imposed by those in power on powerless and voiceless asylum seekers. And yet, the same researcher is in a dominant position at a micro-level, while conducting research directly with the research subject.

Trafficked women are used and consumed in different ways and by different users in Australia. They are used by the traffickers and by the consumer of the destination country. They are used as prosecutorial tools by the national criminal justice agents. They are used by the national politicians to pursue border control policy objectives and to be seen as abiding by international protocols. In all these uses, the identity of the trafficked woman is formed and shaped to fit the users’ need. However, these women’s otherness and abjection is constantly maintained and reinforced. They are used as a commodity. Meanwhile, the discussion on the demand side, and the consequent responsibility of the destination country, is virtually omitted. This paper will raise the question of how the socio-legal analysis and discourse would evolve if a literal interpretation of trafficking women as a commodity was taken into account, exploring an international trade approach. The social construction of trafficked women as a commodity has been identified and criticised by academic scholars, NGOs’ and UN’s rapporteurs. By pursuing this line of approach, the destination country is forced to take more responsibility for how the woman is demanded within its territory. As a consequence of this international trade approach, the State should deliver equality and non-discrimination. Rather than being a cynical application of a trade framework to trafficked women, this approach aims to highlight the paradox of such a situation in legal terms. It is highlighted that approaching trafficked women from this legal and jurisprudential way may offer more possibilities to expand their claims against the State. Currently, in Australia, when a trafficked woman is located by the State, she would attract limited and temporal rights, her being the ‘other’ as well as an abject entity remains, notwithstanding the fact the she was imported because there is a demand within the territory.

... Title: Common law and civil law interactions in criminal justice at judicial level in Western Europe. Authors: Marmo, Marinella. Issue Date: 2005. Citation: Marmo, M., 2005. Common law and civil law interactions in criminal justice at judicial level in Western Europe. ...

The evolving role of the judiciary as policy‐shapers and policy‐makers is becoming a topical and controversial issue in Italy as well as in other legal systems. Italian judges are experiencing a new form of responsibility, well beyond a mere interpretation and application of statutes as required by the traditional Continental civil law. They are importing and interpreting European Union provisions as well as interpreting the internal legal system through their judicial review power. This paper addresses how the wider context of the European Union and the internal judicial decodification process are pushing judges to fulfill a role as policy‐shapers and policy‐makers in a creative and innovative way. This encompasses a novel approach to the literature on both the judicialisation of policy and politics and the expansion of judicial power. The paper tackles a new and demanding role of Italian senior judges in Europeanisation and modernisation of criminal procedure.