UCLA Center for the Study of Women

In the fall of 2008, I visited Utrecht University, a research university situated in the small, albeit densely populated, country of the Netherlands. The express purpose of this trip was to engage in fieldwork activities and to collect interview data for my dissertation project entitled, “Institutionalizing Protection, Professionalizing Victim Management: Explorations of Multi-Professional Anti-Trafficking Work in the Netherlands.” The project explores Dutch state and non-governmental efforts to protect persons trafficked into the Netherlands for the purposes of forced labor. This reflection piece comes on the heels of five months of data collection activities in which I engaged in archival research and conducted 16 semistructured interviews with Dutch alien and vice police officers, police trainers and educators, social workers, care coordinators, embassy officials, and non-governmental advocates who work with persons identified as “trafficked,” most of whom are women.