Presidential Address, Michele Burman (2/2025)

In my last message, I wrote about the need for ongoing critical reflection to make sense of contemporary socio-political realities in Europe and their implications for crime and justice. In the scant few months since then, political divisions have deepened, with some increasingly sharp urban-rural divides that meld with growing distrust in democracy. At the same time, economic disparities are intensifying, with decreases in income impacting especially on particular groups (women, children), raising questions about the role and duty of governments to realise human rights. The pertinence and value of Criminology have arguably never been greater in this, the ESC’s 25th year.  Indeed, the forthcoming ESC 25th anniversary conference will give further opportunity to reflect more deeply on the value of Criminology across Europe to enrich scholarly understanding and inform policy and public discourses on crime and justice.

Over the past few years, we have seen a much-increased focus on victims at the ESC conferences, and victim-related topics, amongst them rape and sexual assault, domestic abuse and human trafficking. A development which Loraine Gelsthorpe and I will discuss in more detail at a 25th anniversary conference roundtable reflecting on the ways in which feminist scholarship has reshaped the contours of Criminology.  Over the years, many ESC conference papers have offered sophisticated critical feminist analyses of the blurred binary of the victim/offender division and the complex connections between victimisation and criminalisation. Nowhere is this more evident than in relation to human trafficking - an exploitative crime where victims from vulnerable groups are often coerced into criminal activities whilst simultaneously being exploited. 

Earlier this year, the European Commission published its fifth Report on Human Trafficking (2025), reporting on the most recent registered cases and progress made in combating trafficking.  In 2023, 10,793 victims of human trafficking were registered in the EU, a steady increase over previous years (although we know that the actual number of cases is likely to be higher despite increasingly sophisticated detection mechanisms). Economic hardship and conflict situations, along with wider processes of globalisation and increased mobility, are factors behind human trafficking, where those fleeing poverty, conflict or violence and seeking employment or safer living conditions are being trafficked. At the same time, traffickers are chasing relatively low-risk, high-profit cross-border trade to meet demand.  It is likely that, given current economic conditions and post-conflict migrations, trafficking will increase even more.

As in earlier Reports on Human Trafficking, sexual exploitation remains the most prevalent form of human trafficking, accounting for almost half (49%) of registered cases (although sexual exploitation remains particularly difficult to detect and it is also very likely this is a significant under-count). The vast majority of those trafficked for sexual exploitation are women and girls. Labour exploitation remains the second most prevalent form of trafficking in the EU, whose victims are predominantly men (70%). Trafficking for exploitation that is neither sexual nor forced labour is also increasing, including forced begging, forced marriages, and forced armed combat. UNODC’s Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (2024) highlights some regional differences across Europe: that cases of sexual exploitation are more prevalent in central and south-eastern Europe; whereas labour exploitation is more prevalent in western and southern Europe (although again this may be due to the difficulty of detection of sexual exploitation). Regardless of debates about prevalence, trafficking of all forms are serious transnational crime problems across Europe, and the suffering of those trafficked is undeniable.

The available data and NGO practice experience demonstrate clearly that human trafficking – particularly that for sexual exploitation - has a marked gender dimension. Women and men are not trafficked in the same way or indeed for the same purposes. The lived experiences of those subjected to trafficking are also very different. Whilst there are certainly female traffickers, the majority of individuals suspected, prosecuted and convicted of trafficking crimes across Europe are men, and these tend to be those working at the lower ends of trafficking operations.

International instruments and protocols such as the 2000 UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (also known as the Palermo Protocol), the 2011 Anti-Trafficking Directive (revised in 2024), and national conventions and legislation tend to frame human trafficking as a threat to state security and national interests warranting a tough criminal justice response. Recent years have seen a shift to more of a focus on victims' human rights and calls to States to offer satisfactory protection and services to trafficking victims. Yet, responses arguably remain focused primarily on stronger rules, tools for investigation and prosecution, and harsh criminal sanctions.

Despite some tense conceptual and definitional differences, feminist researchers and activists have worked to raise social and political awareness of, and inform discourses about trafficking, and document its effects emphasising the importance of an analysis which takes into account gender, race and class for understanding its drivers and consequences.  At the same time, feminist frameworks of analysis and advocacy have strongly critiqued the over-reliance on criminal justice objectives and immigration control mechanisms, not only on the basis that they risk reproducing existing power structures within (and between) countries, but for their adverse effects in the context of economic hardship, strict and discriminatory border controls, diminished migration assistance and a lack of meaningful victim support. These contributions have highlighted the importance of addressing crime problems in all their social complexity, and not solely through the lens of criminal justice. As part of a political commitment to social change and equality, this work advocates looking beyond the boundaries of criminal justice mechanisms to seek more transformative approaches that avoid the ‘collateral damage’ (Global Alliance against Trafficking in Women, 2007) that anti-trafficking measures often produce.

Over the past few years, we have also seen a welcome marked expansion of the scope of European criminological research through the initiatives of several transnational and comparative projects which map the connectedness of crime problems and significantly enhance our understanding of oppressive social structures and policies in the contexts of inequality and exclusion in which they play out.  These are hugely valuable to criminological knowledge.  However, relatively few transnational or comparative projects incorporate gendered or intersectional analyses of their subject matter. This might be considered an omission.  As a feminist criminologist, I would make a call for increased engagement in the gendered dimensions of criminological research, and specifically the ways that gender intersects with multiple axes of social (dis)advantages such as race, class and age. The inclusion of such analyses could potentially bring a better understanding of the factors which create conditions for particular forms of crime and victimisation, the role of larger structural processes in creating these conditions, and how particular crime control responses can (sometimes inadvertently) perpetuate inequalities.  A word on the pressures of publishing ….

Most of us – as academic criminologists who work in universities – are expected to publish our work. Indeed, many of us are under considerable pressure to do so.  For some, it may be a contractual stipulation.  There are both individual and organisational factors at play here. Building a trajectory of publications is considered necessary for obtaining a job, imperative for promotion and crucial for the building of a career and – of course – for the gaining of an academic reputation. Universities increasingly use publications in top-tier journals (and their citations) as a means of showcasing the quality and significance of their research, to attract students and staff, and enhance their international rankings. This imperative from above often translates into considerable pressure placed on those of us on the ground. And not just to push out papers for the sake of it, but ensuring that work is published in high-quality, high-impact journals.

A strong publication record can lead to invitations to give plenary papers and join research consortia. It can also considerably increase the chances of success in obtaining prestigious research grants. As a reviewer for several funding bodies, I am increasingly struck by the weight given to publications as a means of assessing the capabilities and promise of the prospective PI. Publishing our research in good peer-reviewed journals and through reputable University publishers can enable research to reach wide, international audiences and enhance our reputations - sometimes with the advancement of knowledge as an overlooked by-product. Publications clearly represent academic capital – to be used for both normative and instrumental gains.  Yet at what cost?  

I had the pleasure of attending the 2nd ESC Summer School held in Lausanne in June this year; I spoke to the students (mostly PhD candidates with some post-docs) in a session about preparing for publication. For this group, poised on the hopeful brink of their academic careers, concern about publishing was palpable. I get the same sense of pressure from my own PhD students about the need to publish to improve their chances of securing a job, and from younger colleagues anxious to migrate from fixed-term to tenured posts. The pressure to publish, especially on those at the beginning of their careers, can take a terrible toll. That this is a recognised demand of the role of an academic criminologist makes it difficult to resolve.

I would say to younger colleagues, though, that there are some ways to mitigate this pressure – or at least make it more manageable. Most important is to try to prioritise the production of a small number of higher quality outputs, rather than producing a raft of outputs of more dubious quality. Pre-submission procedures can vastly assist article quality. In the Working Group on Gender, Crime and Justice, we have run online writing retreats, designed as opportunities for members to carve out dedicated writing time and receive feedback on their ideas.  Other Working Groups might consider something similar as a way of building capacity and providing support. For younger colleagues in particular, it is often helpful to seek the advice of a ‘critical friend’ - a supervisor, a mentor, or a more established colleague - to constructively review your paper before its submission. So – if you are an established author – please do consider reaching out to advise and support your younger colleagues who may be struggling under the pressures to publish.