Compounds

Compounding – one of the most prominent word creation processes – involves the creation of compound words by ‘combining’ two or more free morphemes which can also be realised as independent words. The compound, however, has an independent identity as single words. The use of compounds is prolific in English and it is virtually impossible to list all of them. However, recognising that any two random words may not produce a compound word, attempts to define the rules and processes which govern the production of compounds have been made via three approaches: the syntactic approach, the semantic approach and the generative approach.
The Syntactic Approach
The syntactic approach describes compound words in terms of the grammatical categories to which their constituent words belong.
Two-word compounds can be divided into those with a noun, adjective or verb as the second word (which cannot be anything else except in as few exceptional cases as in seen in words which end with ‘up’ or ‘out’). Usually, the compound belongs to the same category as the word in the second position as can be seen in ‘darkroom’, ‘waterproof’ and ‘ballpen’. These compounds can further be divided into noun compounds (comprising two nouns, an adjective and a noun, or a verb and a noun), adjective compounds (comprising two adjectives, or a verb and an adjective) or verb compounds (comprising two verbs, or two adjectives, or a noun and a verb).
However, not all combinations of verbs, adjectives and nouns actually work as compounds, and some kinds of combinations like two nouns (as seen in school-girl) are far more productive than others such as those compounds which comprise two verbs (as seen in sleepwalk). In all these cases, the word on the right is called the ‘head’ and determines the category to which the compound itself belongs.
There are, however, also compounds which involve adverbs etc. such as ‘income’, ‘overdose’ and ‘overflow’ which do not have a head and whose grammatical category cannot be determined by the categories to which their constituent words belong. Thus, the notion of a syntactical head of a compound does not always help in the classification of compound words.
The Semantic Approach
This approach describes compounds in terms of the relationships between the meanings of the words combined. It says that the meaning of the compound is always greater than merely the sum of the meanings of its constituent words. Nonetheless, the meanings of the constituent words usually indicate the meaning of the compounds as can be seen in ‘blackboard’ and ‘girlfriend’. However, there are exceptions to this rule. For example, there is nothing in the constituents of ‘tallboy’ to indicate that it is used to store clothes it is therefore exocentric.
Further, a compound is distinguished from a phrase by semantic distinction reinforced by phonetic distinction. In a compound, the primary stress is carried by the first constituent. Thus, ‘black’ in ‘blackboard’ is stressed while precisely the opposite happens in a phrase: ‘board’ would be stressed if a board which had been painted black were to be spoken of.
The unpredictability of the additional meaning element also arises from the arbitrary nature of the relationship compounds assume between their constituent elements. The existence of exocentric compounds such as ‘tallboy’ or ‘redtape’ whose meanings have nothing to do with their constituents semantically decreases the value of this approach although the semantic approach does appear to work in the case of endocentric compounds whose meanings are dictated by those of their constituent elements.
The Generative Approach
Here, compounds are generated freely from sentential structures and are therefore self-explanatory. They do not need to be defined by dictionaries. The same rules which restrict combinations of words in sentential structures are considered to restrict them in compounds as well. The meanings of compounds are stated in terms of the semantic relations which exist between the underlying sentence relations. Thus, the ‘woman who cleans’ becomes ‘the cleaning woman’.
However, this approach fails to explain exocentric compounds such as ‘tallboy’ or ‘hotdog’ and does not explain the additional meaning in endocentric compounds. For example, it does not explain why every female friend is not a ‘girlfriend’. This approach classifies such words as non-compounds with accidental compound character.

Morphology: Inflectional v. Derivational

The inflectional morphology of a language is the study of the ways in which bound grammatical morphemes combine with stems to be realised as grammatical words. On the other hand, the derivational morphology of a language is the study of the ways in which bound lexical morphemes combine with stems to be realised as lexical words.
Classical grammarians of Latin and Greek generally divided grammar into accidence, word formation and syntax. They did not pay much attention to derivation because they did not really consider it to be a part of grammar.
There are three main differences between inflection and derivation. Firstly, inflection refers to the ways in which bound grammatical words combine with stems to form grammatical words as mentioned earlier while derivation ultimately leads to the formation of lexical words. Both grammatical and lexical words ultimately surface as phonological and orthological words in which bound lexical morphemes can usually be identified as having been affixed. These affixes can be divided into inflectional and derivational affixes. Those which realise bound grammatical morphemes (such as –s, –es on plural nouns, ’s on possessive nouns and –d and –ed on the past participle forms of verbs) are called inflectional affixes and have no fixed, concrete meaning of their own while those which realise bound lexical affixes (such as –ish, –al, –able and –ness) are called derivational affixes.
Inflectional affixes never change the grammatical category of the stem: they are all suffixes which form the outer layer of complex words and modify the meaning of the steam in regular ways. This is not the case with derivational affixes which may be either suffixes or prefixes (such as de–, re– and –ize). It is possible for both inflectional and derivational morphemes to occur in the same word. The latter always constitutes the outer layer as no affix can be added after the inflectional affix has been added. Thus, derivation may have an input in inflection but inflection cannot have any input in derivation. For example, in both ‘deindustrialising’ and in ‘depixelating’ the derivational affix ‘de–’ occurs along with a final ‘–ing’ inflectional affix after which no other affix can be added to either word.
Similarly, if there is both compounding and inflection in a word, the latter must follow the former.
In words in which compounding, derivation and inflection all occur, the inflection is last and compounding is first as can be seen in the words ‘kickstarted’ [(kick + start) + ed] and ‘channelhopping’ [(channel + hop) + ing].
Inflectional morphology not only describes bound grammatical morphemes but also the grammatical rules in which they occur, the paradigm they form and the various orthological and phonological forms in which they eventually surface. Derivational morphology, on the contrary, studies the categories of items with which bound lexical morphemes can be combined, the categories to which the resulting forms belong, the changes in meaning brought on by the process of derivation and the orthological and phonological shapes which bound lexical morphemes acquire.
An inflectional affix occurs solely with all the members of a given class unlike derivational affixes which may occur with the members of more than one class or with only some of the members of any particular class. Thus, there are several differences between derivational and inflectional morphology. The most striking though is that the words created through the process of inflectional morphology such as ‘talk’, ‘talks’ and ‘talked’ are not new words. They are merely grammatical forms of the same words. Derivation, however, creates new lexical words with distinct meanings such as ‘amoral’, ‘disown’ and ‘foreground’.

Words

Playing with words. Feelings. Sequences. Cold. Heat. Shorn. Warmth: glimpsed, untouched, locked. Bare. Bereft. Frigid. Untouchable in the end.

Nine High Cs

There's something about the finality of death which tends to leave me either relieved and/or immeasurably sad.
Beverly Sills died in July. And now, Luciano Pavarotti's just died of cancer. His career began long before I was born and I've listened to him my whole life. The beauty and sheer power of his voice has brought me to tears more times than I've kept count of although what I most love about him is that he singlehandedly did more than anyone else has done in recent times to make operatic arias accessible to the general public, and I can hardly believe that he'll never sing again.
Last week his voice was apparently a whisper; a comment on the BBC site says, "We are able to let go because Mr Pavarotti deserves respite from his suffering, and because we have his music to remember him by." I couldn't agree more.

Healing

One question. When something unpleasant happens, how long is an acceptable amount of time to grieve? Does such a timeframe exist at all? Or is it something you simply create for yourself because, intellectually, you see no reason why you shouldn't be able to get over whatever's bothering you and simply move on?You try to remind yourself that, as Catherine Britton put it, "Courage is reclaiming your life after a devastating event robs you of your confidence and self-esteem. It is facing tomorrow with a firm resolve to reach deep within yourself to find another strength, another talent. It is taking yourself to another level of your own existence where you are once again whole, productive, special…"The hardest thing to deal with though is that you're never entirely certain whether you have reason to complain, whether you somehow caused whatever's bothering you. You invariably somehow manage to convince yourself that it is your own fault and, once you manage to do that, it seems as though nothing you do can ameliorate your condition.You see others' concern for you but you hear nothing they say. You feel their arms around you but you find no comfort in them. Nothing exists for you but your own guilt-induced misery. And you ask yourself how long it'll take you to recover?

Jaded

Some time ago, I read an article about E Prime as a linguistic tool and loved the idea -- simply delete the words 'to be' along with all its forms from your vocabulary. Don't categorise people or experiences. Try to say, "She practises law," instead of, "She is a lawyer." (Although I don't know how to convert, 'He is on his way to the market,' into E Prime.)
I find that the older I become, the more I tend to categorise and label everything I come across. The more I refuse to accept anything on an 'as is' basis, the less able I become to feel wonder in the way that a child does. The less capable of being able to marvel at anything around me I am, the more cynical I become. And that isn't what I want to be.

Fleur De Lys

Fleurdeliser : marquer un criminel d'une fleur de lys

I'm in love with the theme of the fleur de lys. It has been used as a royal emblem since time immemorial. It has also often been used to brand those who commited crimes against the French King. Prostitutes. Thieves. Huguenots.

Toy Store

I walked into a glorified hobby store this afternoon and felt as though I'd gone back in time by about two decades. The place was full of lots of colourful toys suitable people aged five and above which I remembered playing with years ago. You know, paints, stickers, block prints, copper etchings, faux stained glass. The works. The shop itself, for some reason beyond my comprehension, was situated next to a shop selling designer sarees in a relatively posh building and naturally, the prices reflected this. It made me think of a letter a friend had sent me some time ago about possible projects which could be initiated to help children living in an area in which conflict is rife.There is no reason why origami paper and coloured pencils should be the preserve of the rich. The manufacturing cost for most of the items in the shop, for example, must have been next to nothing... latex moulds to make plaster of Paris models? The same material that one can buy OTC for close to nothing in a pharmacy suddenly costs over a hundred times more simply because it's shaped like a bus. Or a building.Toys simply shouldn't be priced so high that a child doesn't have a chance to enjoy being a child without belonging to the social elite.

Waltz

Have you ever done something with someone so special that you wouldn't want to do it with anyone else ever? That you hate the thought of doing it with anyone else so much that you'd do anything to avoid being able to do so? That you'd pretend that you didn't know how to just so that you wouldn't have a single memory in your mind associated with it except with that one person?
Close your eyes and you can still imagine him supporting you. When was the last time you trusted someone so completely? Do you think you'll ever do so again?

Domestic Violence Against Women and Children in the European Union

Violence against women is a violation of human rights. It is one of the few phenomena which cuts across every imaginable cultural, political, socio-economic, ethnic, religious and educational boundary. However, recognising that gender equity and social development are inseparable, fighting gender-based violence has become a priority for governments and international organisations all over the world even though, for much of history, many forms of violence such as domestic violence --- which this essay focuses on --- were not only ignored but also legally condoned.
The approach has changed and now, 'the human right to a private and family life is of special importance, but cannot be tolerated to condone private conduct within families in which one partner enforces dominance by violence over the other. The key human rights principle is that violence deliberately directed against any other person is never a purely private matter'. 1

1 The Legal Regime

1.1 The basis of domestic violence legislation

Violence against women is inextricably linked to issues of gender equality and gender mainstreaming. The preamble to the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women clearly locates the roots of gender-based violence in 'historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women, recognising that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men'.
In the European Union, the Commission first started work on gender mainstreaming in the early 1990s by developing a more consistent approach following the 1995 Beijing UN Women's Conference2 which recognised 'violence against women' as a critical area of concern, acknowledged that violence against girls 'begins at the earliest stages of life and continues unabated throughout their lives', and reaffirmed commitments to the equal rights and inherent human dignity of women and men enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and other international human rights instruments such as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Further, Article 2 of the EC Treaty states that the Community shall have as its task equality between men and women and Article 13 states that without prejudice to the other provisions of the (same) Treaty and within the limits of the powers conferred by it upon the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.

1.2 The definition of domestic violence

Domestic violence may be perpetrated by spouses, lineal ascendants and descendants and the lateral branch of the family up to the IV degree whether they are related by blood, marriage, fosterage or adoption, or by intimate partners or legal guardians.
Within the European Union, violence within families, right from the denigration of honour, is considered to be domestic violence and is covered under the general provisions of penal codes even if it not explicitly mentioned therein. Moreover, the laws themselves have been amended and harmonised so as to remove obstacles in tackling the issue.
For example, earlier definitions of rape exclusively spoke of extra-marital rape, and marital rape did not expressly constitute an offence (although it was possible to initiate action against it under assault laws). However, the term 'extra-marital' has now simply been deleted from the definition so as to include marital rape in the definition of rape and make it an offence in itself.
The spectrum of domestic violence (which, incidentally, has a high level of recidivism) may include psychological, physical, sexual, financial and emotional abuse which may manifest itself as physical injury, the deprivation of food, money or other resources, intimidation, humiliation and degradation, and may result in anhedonia, pain, exhaustion, isolation, alienation, depression, fear, and decreased levels of self-esteem, productivity and attentiveness. The law forbids any kind of violence (including seemingly innocuous forms of abuse such as nagging which is, just like any other form of abuse, one of the grounds of divorce in the case of violence which occurs within a marriage).

1.3 The procedure to deal with domestic violence

Domestic violence proceedings can be made speedy, and various injunctions which (depending on the country) may include Non-Molestation Orders and Occupation Orders can be obtained by victims. The Power of Arrest may be attached to an injunction if it is shown that the perpetrator has used violence or has threatened to do so and may do so again.
The legal nature of a Complaint may make those who are aware of an offence liable to be sanctioned if they do not report it to the authorities. Due to this, in practice, doctors who provide medical assistance to victims of domestic violence have a legal obligation to notify not the police but the public prosecutor's office directly (except in the UK where the police undertakes the investigation). The public prosecutor then conducts a suo moto investigation into the incident(s). The British Government, for example, explicitly says, "The NHS has a particular contribution to make in domestic violence, not only because of the impact on victims' health, but also because the NHS may be the first contact point with professionals who can recognise and intervene in the situation." Domestic violence may be concealed by victims but not by the authorities. The consent of victims is no longer essential to initiate action against perpetrators, and various advertising campaigns have been conducted to make people aware that 'the police will seek out men who abuse their partners and arrest them, even if the victim refuses to make a statement or give evidence'.3 The penalties are higher if the victim has special needs such as those of being pregnant, handicapped or disabled.

1.4 Judicial reconciliation

Taking into consideration high stress-levels, judicial reconciliation has been made available to deal with domestic violence: the perpetrator receives psychological therapy at a public hospital (for as long as councillors think is necessary) and promises not to repeat his behaviour. Penal sanctions are suspended for a period that may vary between three and four years (depending on the country). The councillors report the perpetrator's progress to the judge and if it is unsatisfactory, the judicial reconciliation will end and penal sanctions will resume as they have a retrospective effect. These provisions, however, do not apply to guardians, foster parents, and minders.

2 Measures in Support of Victims

2.1 Shelters for victims

Shelters, which provide a witness status to their guests, are set up by the State as well as other NGOs such as the Church and women's rights NGOs to protect of victims of domestic violence. There is also an option to provide them with immediate interim shelter (for 48 hours) even before a medical examination by the coroner.
The first modern women's shelter (which was established in Chiswick, England in 1971 by Erin Pizzey) developed out of an 'advice centre' for women and their children. Since then, the movement for shelters has grown and in 1986, the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities recommended that one shelter should be available for every 10000 people.

2.2 Domestic violence campaigns

The Commission has been conducting programmes and funding projects to raise awareness about violence and trafficking, to prevent them and to support victims. These include Daphne (2000-2003) and Daphne II (2004-08). The financial framework for the Daphne Programme was €20 million for the first phase and €50 million for the second phase. The programmes have tried to contribute towards ensuring a high level of physical and mental protection for children, young persons and women against violence (including sexual exploitation) by preventing violence and by providing support to victims especially in order to prevent their re-exposure to violence. They have also tried to promote closer co-operation between Member States and harmonise responses to these crimes although the principle of subsidiarity requires Member States to take measures to fight violence individually.4,5

References:
1. Reproductive health and human rights: integrating medicine, ethics and law(Cook, Dickens, Fathalla, Oxford, 2003, p 390)
2. Gender mainstreaming into practice
3. Metropolitan Police Service - Domestic Violence advertising campaign
4. Gender Mainstreaming and Gender based violence and trafficking in women
5. The Daphne Programme and The Daphne Programme

This post is an extract from an essay was written for the POROS Project.

Image

Yesterday, I went to a bookshop and read a book called ‘How Fat Do I Look?’ and it made me feel uncomfortable. Not because I have anything against fat people or because I don’t get what the author was trying to say but quite simply because in the rush to make fat people feel ok about their being fat, most authors and various other assorted do-gooders seem to have quite simply forgotten that the need to conform to societal expectations is not limited to fat women. And the women who aren’t fat don’t get half as much attention, or support, for that matter.
Honestly, when was the last time you saw a book entitled ‘It’s OK to be XS and not use make-up?’Or have a body worth showing off and not actually show it off?Or be sensible and not grow your nails so long that you can’t make a fist with your hand?Or wear what you’re comfortable wearing instead of wearing what you look most sexy in?Or that it’s ok to be thin without having a well-toned body?...
Personally, I’m not convinced that there is any such thing as the perfect figure – there are times when I’ve gone into shops with a 22-inch waist and still not been able to find a pair of trousers I can actually pull up over my hips. (And no, I do not have a humungous butt or thunder thighs.) And even assuming that you do happen to have what fashion mags and designers, who presumably get their measurements using mannequins made of match-sticks, consider is an acceptable figure, there’s always something else that you don’t have, be it the right shoes, hair, make-up, nails, skin, eye-lashes... and guess what, that you never will have.
No matter what it is that you do have, it turns out that it’s never enough. It isn’t about being fat and therefore not feeling good enough to exist. It’s about not looking good enough in any number of ways and consequently not feeling good enough to exist, and, even worse, being told that you aren’t.
We spend a mint trying to look like re-incarnations of Venus: apart from continually being told that – thin or fat – we should look a particular way, the yardstick used to define the ideal itself keeps changing – the most obvious way in which this happens is through fashions which never remain the same for more than a season, so to be able to look fashionable – and by extension, acceptable – throughout the year, the average fashion-conscious woman’s expenditure on clothes, shoes and handbags literally rivals the annual budget of a small country. I’m sure it helps the economy but that isn’t the goal, is it?
And then of course, there’s makeup. Take something as supposedly simple as lipstick, for example. It’s not one swipe by a long shot. Lipstick with a cold cream core to keep lips moisturised. Split down the middle: metallic on one side and matte on the other. Gloss, if required. Powder over it. And don’t ever forget that you apparently simply cannot get good looking lips with just one colour. Fancy brush to blend the two colours (if not more). And if that isn’t enough, don’t forget that you apparently need lip-liner too. Otherwise, it’d smudge and seep over the lip-line and look absolutely ghastly (not that it doesn’t sometimes look ghastly anyway – a green core with black glitter?)
It’s not just the fashion industry and the media which promote the image though. Or get sucked into believing in the image, depending on how you see it.
Speaking for myself, I’m petite – read ‘slightly underweight’ – have pimple scars, a plain haircut and little enthusiasm to doll up. I don’t easily get clothes my size – they’re either too small or much too large – have got more advice from well-intentioned friends about what I should wear than I’ve ever wanted, have one who actually takes me shopping for face creams, and have come across more not-so-nice people than I’ve been able to keep count of who’ve made comments about my lack of fashion-sense that I wouldn’t venture to repeat.
And I’m not entirely sure why that’s the case. I’m not saying that I want to make a special effort to look dowdy – all I’m saying is that I don’t want to have to spend a large fraction of my time trying not to look dowdy. And I certainly don’t want to spend a large fraction of my time being told that I do look just that way for the sole reason that I’m not up on all the latest fashions or because I haven’t got a facial done for over a year (make that three, actually)…
Frankly, does it really matter if my skirts are an inch below knee level instead of above it? Or if my sleeves have a bit of a puff on them? Or if the heels of my shoes are shaped just a little differently? Or if my kurtas aren’t tight enough to cause respiratory depression?
I’d like to think that it doesn’t matter. I’m told that it does. Never mind that most of the women I know who do get it right look like they spend so much of their time in getting it right that they have little time for anything else (except, possibly, studying for exams) and the result is that they are so much more style than substance that irrespective of what they wear, they wind up looking like dolled-up scarecrows.
Not that there is anything wrong with looking like a dolled-up scarecrow, I suppose. It just isn’t what I want for myself. And I don’t want to be continually told that not wanting that for myself makes me inadequate in some way, that it makes me a source of continual embarrassment to myself and everyone around me, that I have an obligation to duck and run for cover every single time there’s a camera in the vicinity, that not being dressed up means that I have nothing at all to offer anyone, that looking different involves desexualising myself – although I’ve found that that isn’t always a bad thing.
After all, not being viewed as a sex object makes it easier to hold your own and to avoid being hit on. It’s another matter that I don’t really understand why being treated as an individual is usually closely associated with being non-sexual… are you treated as a person (particularly by men) when you look so awful that they simply can't stand the thought of treating you like a woman, and, as a result, have no choice but to treat you as a non-sexual individual simply by default?
I sometimes wonder if I spend a lot of my time looking like anything but the stereotypical wannabe fashionista simply because, at some level, I want to. Because I don’t particularly enjoy being hit on. Because I enjoy not being treated like a dumb babe. Because I don’t enjoy the competitions which women tend to get into while hunting for a man in which their most potent weapons are stilettos, foundation and concealer. Or perhaps it’s because I’m afraid of just that. Because I don’t know myself well enough to know what I would do or what I’m capable of doing. And because I’d rather not find out.
Either way, one of the very few things which I do know for certain is that I’d like to be able to make my own rules. I don’t want to have anyone tell me what constitutes an acceptable image. How thin or how fat I should be. What I should wear. And how much make-up I should have on.
I’d like to feel comfortable in my own skin. I’d like to be allowed the opportunity to feel comfortable in my own skin.

Children and Domestic Violence

1 Children who witness domestic violence
The effects of domestic violence are not confined to its victims. Apart from the fact that children may try to intervene to protect adult victims (thus putting themselves in danger), children who witness domestic violence are more likely than others to develop psychological and social problems including stress-related disorders such as PTSD. They may be fearful and angry, and exhibit (both as children and as adults) internalized and externalized behavioral problems including withdrawal, hostility and substance dependency. Their relationships may also reflect violence learned or seen at home.
2 Violence against children
The reported instances of violence against children in the form of acts and omissions which endanger their physical or emotional health, well-being and development have increased over the last few decades. The primary forms of violence and abuse against children are neglect, exploitation and physical, sexual or emotional abuse, and they can have devastating consequences for victims both immediately and in the long-term.
Violence against children is completely illegal and schools, doctors and social workers have a duty to report suspicions of child abuse to the relevant legal authorities.
There appears to be no single, definitive cause of abusive behaviour against children. At one end of the scale, the number of officially recorded child murders has steadily risen over the years and 60% of those charged with these murders are the parents of the murdered children. According to John Keane, in many of these cases, it is clear that both the victims and the perpetrators are trapped in high tension zones 'where the conflict-ridden logics of the household (intimacy, sexual desire, identity formation, personal habits, marriage, money, housework and childcare) interact with, reinforce and often contradict virtually the same list of conflict-ridden logics of the labour market (with its additional special stresses and strains of employment, unemployment and underemployment) and its neighbouring criss-crossing social relations with the wider civil society'.
3 What Europeans think of domestic violence
The Teen Abuse Survey of Great Britain 2005 conducted by the NSPCC revealed that a third of teenage girls experienced or witnessed domestic violence at home but more than half of them did not consider this --- hitting, screaming and shouting --- to be domestic violence. 43% of teenagers thought that it was acceptable for a boyfriend to become aggressive and over 40% of all girls said that they would consider giving a boy a second chance if he hit them.
The general awareness about domestic violence in Europe appears to be high though; only 4% of Europeans said that they had never heard of domestic violence against women in the 1999 Eurobarometer Survey conducted by the Commission. The survey also divulged that 62% of Europeans considered domestic violence against women to be 'unacceptable in all circumstances and always punishable by law', 32% considered it 'unacceptable in all circumstances but not always punishable by law', 2% said that it was 'acceptable in certain circumstances' and, thankfully, only 0.7% believed that it was 'acceptable in all circumstances'.
This post is an extract from an essay was written for the POROS Project.

Trafficking and Prostitution

This post focusses on the EU.

1 Direct trafficking

The expansion of the European Union and the opportunity to make money due to an ostensibly insatiable demand are factors which have contributed to up to 120000 women and children being annually trafficked into Western European countries from Central and Eastern European countries.
Most women victims are aged between 18 and 25, and have been abducted or deceived (by being promised ‘normal’ jobs) in Western Europe. They are usually sexually exploited and suffer from severe physical and psychological trauma which may continue long after the exploitation itself has ended. The European Union has been more active in developing penal legislation, law enforcement and judicial co-operation than in the preventing trafficking and protecting victims although it has supported NGOs and health and social services to assist victims to recover and resume a normal life. [1]

2 Indirect trafficking

In 2003, immigration contributed to more than 80% of the total population growth in the EU-15. The effective integration of immigrants, many of whom are financially dependant and therefore particularly vulnerable to abuse, in both the labour market and society has become a channel to reach the Lisbon targets. However, ‘the gender perspective is to a large extent lacking in integration policies, which hampers the possibilities to fully utilise the potential of immigrant women in the labour market’.[2]

3 The links between trafficking and domestic violence

Women who have entered a society alien to them are especially vulnerable to being subjected to exploitation and violence since they often do not know their rights and even if they do, they may not know how to protect themselves.
Mass migrations due to poverty, pauperisation and prejudice ensure that rootlessness, ethnic tensions and violent lawlessness are a feature of nearly every city of the developed democratic world, [3] and one of the manifestations of this phenomenon is that those who are violent at home now have access to a market of both women who are illegally trafficked and women who migrate to Western European countries in search of a husband.
Moreover, women who migrate to marry ‘threaten’ the local women, particularly those who are already married, because their husbands may divorce them in favour of (younger) migrants thus depriving them of their pensions and leaving them in poverty after decades of marriage.
Recommendations have been made to protect local women in such situations by increasing stamp duty to make divorce proceedings prohibitively expensive, ensuring that matrimonial property is divided equally between the husband and his first wife, considering housework as labour in the case of housewives and making provisions to entitle housewives to a salary and pension from the state for their work in the home.

4 Efforts to beat trafficking

In line with the principle of subsidiarity and as signatories of the Beijing Platform for Action, it is Member States’ responsibility to take measures to fight trafficking although the European Commission has undertaken initiatives to help them fulfil their obligations. The Commission was, for example, responsible for implementing STOP (1996-2000) and STOP II (2001-2002) which were conducted to exchange information, and to reinforce networks and practical co-operation between Member States in order to encourage and facilitate action to prevent and combat trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children (including child pornography). STOP had a budget of €6.5 million and co-financed 85 projects in its five-year implementation period and STOP II, which was initiated to ensure continued support to the programme, had funds €4 million at its disposal for its two-year implementation period.[4]
Furthermore, both human rights law and (the the majority position in) refugee law now acknowledge state responsibility for human rights violations such as family violence which has become one of the most visible (and prolific) emerging bodies of refugee case law.[5]

References:
[1] Trafficking in Women; The misery behind the fantasy: from poverty to sex slavery
[2] Framework Strategy on Gender Equality 2001-2005
(The European Commission)
[3] Reflections on Violence
(John Keane, Oxford, 1996)
[4] STOP
[5] Refugee Law, Gender, and the Human Rights Paradigm
(Deborah E. Anker, Harvard Human Rights Journal, Volume 15 Spring 2002)

This post is an extract from an essay was written for the POROS Project.