Ethical Concerns in Research on Human Trafficking

This book presents a vivid description of the solutions that researchers have discovered for ethical dilemmas that pose themselves at studying disadvantaged, vulnerable and victimized populations. Ethical codes prescribe that the student should in all circumstances avoid potential harm, that informed consent is necessary and that the limits of confidentiality should always be respected. In the practice of research among prostitutes, enslaved children, illegal immigrant workers, people who sell their organs and all the traffickers thereof, the ethical rules cannot always been followed. This book shows that there is a surprising variety of arguable possibilities. Some researchers choose to work on the basis van conscientious partiality, others negotiate the rules with their informants and still others purposely break the rules in order to disclose and damage the exploiters. Researchers may also find themselves in a vulnerable position. Their stories show how some of them have fought back against political correctness and insinuations from the 'savior industry'. This is a book that every researcher planning to do fieldwork in the difficult field of hidden, illicit and victimized people should read in advance. This study should serve a wide audience: field workers, university administrators, representatives of vulnerable groups, philosophers of ethics and most of all students.§§This is a book that every researcher planning to do fieldwork in the difficult field of hidden, illicit and victimized people should read in advance.§§Dr. Frank Bovenkerk, Professor (Emeritus), Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands§§This book allows a peek in the kitchen of empirical fieldwork, going into not only "best practices," but mistakes made, in a frank, courageous and honest way.§§Dr. Brenda C. Oude Breuil, Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands