Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professors Laura Lederer and Mohamed Mattar

LL.M Course 815 (cross-listed) | 2 credit hours

Trafficking in women and children is a global human rights violation that constitutes a contemporary form of slavery. This course is designed to examine the various issues related to trafficking of women and children from an international and comparative perspective. While the course primarily focuses on commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking for the purpose of prostitution, trafficking for other slave-like practices will also be full addressed. Such topics include forced labor, the exploitation of immigrant females for domestic services, the sale of children for irregular inter-country adoption, and the sale of wives legalized by transnational marriages.

The course will study the international trafficking prohibitions of the various international conventions including the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children; the Convention of Suppression of the Trafficking in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Convention to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor; the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery; the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect to Intercountry Adoption; the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages; and the International Labor Organization Convention Concerning Abolition of Forced Labor.

This course will analyze legislative texts of the domestic trafficking laws of selected jurisdictions worldwide, whether these case laws are enacted as part of the penal code, as a special act related to protection of women and children or as an administrative regulation. Regional case studies will include discussion of the problems of trafficking in women in Greece, trafficking in women and children in the Middle East, UN peacekeeping and trafficking in Bosnia, trafficking in women from Africa to Western Europe, the transnational political criminal nexus of trafficking in women from Ukraine trafficking for the illicit adoption in Cambodia, and other cases of trafficking in persons.

The course will also analyze the U.S. statutes prohibiting trafficking in human beings, including those related to alien smuggling, the importation of an alien for immoral purposes, the establishment of commercial enterprises for the purpose of evading immigration, involuntary servitude, the transportation of a person in interstate or foreign commerce for the purpose of prostitution under the Mann Act, and the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act. The course will specifically address trafficking in persons as a foreign policy objective of the U.S. and the issue of sanctions imposed on foreign countries that do not comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.

The course will emphasize the human rights based approach to trafficking in persons and the recognition of the trafficking person as a victim of a crime. The course will also inquire into the role of government corruption in facilitating the crime of trafficking.

A United States Model Law will form the basis of discussion on drafting a comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation that covers prevention of the ac of trafficking, protection of the trafficking victim, and prosecution of the trafficker.

Students may elect to take a written examination or write a research paper in lieu of the exam.