Sociologie Românească (Romanian Sociology), XI new series no. 2/2000, pp. 57-81.
Trafic de femei - o perspectivă sociologică
Trafficking in Women. A Sociological Perspective
Sebastian Lăzăroiu
Abstract (Rezumat în limba engleză): It is often a common view that trafficking in women is a phenomenon that law enforcement should deal with. The perception of the deviant nature of this phenomenon cannot ignore the need of a scientific, general approach from a sociological and economical perspective. Our study is based on few assumptions: First it should be noted that victims of traffic are usually social innovators, who try to find solutions to an unstable, critical environment. Second, trafficking in women is part of a broader phenomenon of circulatory migration (which we called failed circulatory migration). As individuals are facing challenges from an unstable environment innovative strategies will not be always successful. It depends on some social circumstances, but mostly on some individual characteristics as gender and human capital, which are shaped by institutions and cultural practices. Taking risk, though incorporated in young spirits, might generate failure when people lack abilities to manage new social situations or they are constrained by a gender discriminative setting. The study aims at evidencing some relations between vulnerability to trafficking in women and individual/environment characteristics.