Re-Imagining the Offender: Exploring the Victim-Offender Overlap in the Context of Women Perpetrators of Sex Trafficking

Abstract

This article examines the involvement of female perpetrators in sex trafficking networks. Field studies, testimonies, and court cases from around the world are analyzed to demonstrate that most female perpetrators were once victims of sex trafficking; and that they turn to the "offender" side of trafficking because of coercion, manipulation, and psychological and socioeconomic vulnerabilities. In this regard, victimization and perpetration are inextricably linked, a fact that is captured by the victim-offender overlap framework. This framework has not yet been incorporated into international legal norms, which causes the past or current victimization experienced by female perpetrators to be dismissed in courts and used for harsher punishments. This article calls for international law to make increasing efforts to acknowledge the circumstances of female perpetrators' offenses and to broaden the scope of the non-punishment principle to break the cycle of violence.