Citizens as victims of human trafficking: Approaches to domestic trafficking in Spain, Ukraine and the United Kingdom

As of 2022, over half of all trafficking victims identified globally had been exploited in their home countries. However, state approaches to the recognition of victims of domestic trafficking via administrative procedures and in judicial proceedings have not been analysed in the literature, warranting an inquiry into the determinants of inclusion of exploitation of citizens onto national anti-trafficking agendas. This article employs legislative, case law and public policy analysis to characterise national approaches to domestic trafficking in Spain, Ukraine and the United Kingdom and identify the factors conducive to the recognition of citizens as trafficking victims. The findings show that the visibility of and policies on domestic trafficking depend on the type of exploitation prioritised, the authority providing accreditation for trafficking victims, local interpretations of the offence, the intensiveness of cooperation and the congruence of interests between domestic and international actors, as well as the impact of, and national responses to, regional integration processes and international crises. The article concludes that both inclusion and rejection of national victims articulate, in different ways, the rise in socioeconomic inequality within societies, suggesting a social rights perspective on trafficking prevention.