Abstract
Sex Crimes: Transnational Problems and Global Perspectives, edited by Ackerman and Furman (2015), is intended to provide “a global and transnational lens through which to view” (p. 3) sexual violence. Emphasizing that “no social problem exists outside of the context of globalization” (p. 4), the editors structured the volume to challenge readers to move outside of our own geographic and ideological “assumptions” (p. 5). In doing so, they brought together authors who consider various debates and challenges—topical, political, intersectional, and transnational. Generally, they are successful in this goal, as each chapter takes on an important challenge or debate within the discipline, such as Ackerman and colleagues’ (Chapter 3) discussion of the role of masculinities in the treatment of sex offenders, giving some guidance to social work practitioners in the process.
I was most impressed with Part 2 of the volume, “Sex Trafficking in a Transnational World,” because of the diversity among the three chapters. From Zhou’s (Chapter 5) social constructionist critique of claims about sex trafficking, to Smith and Florentino’s (Chapter 6) discussion of international non-governmental organization (NGO) involvement in the creation of transnational understandings of trafficking and subsequent protocols to address this trafficking, and to Nguyen, Furman, and Ackerman’s (Chapter 7) impassioned call for the decriminalization of prostitution in the interest of better addressing sex trafficking, each chapter challenges the reader to go beyond official statistics, laws, and frameworks to recognize the complexity of transnational sex trafficking, its victims, and its offenders. It is in the development of this complex picture of sex trafficking where the volume fulfills its promise: There is not—and should not be—a single way to define, measure, respond to, or legislate sex trafficking, especially given its transnational nature and widespread differences in understandings.
Part 3 of the volume takes this critique and challenge a step further, particularly in Chapters 8–10 where the authors ask if sexual violence is used strategically as a military tactic (Leiby, Chapter 8), reframe conflict and postconflict sexual violence to recognize longer term community-level effects (Liebling, Chapter 9), and demonstrate the role of donor dollars in institutionalized choices about redress for victims of rape in Cambodia (Burns and Daly, Chapter 10). Burns and Daly’s chapter in particular requires the reader to recognize that justice for victims is as political as it is rare and that a “human rights” framework is not unproblematic in our efforts to address sexual violence. I was also pleased to see Chapter 13 by Freeman on “Sexual Violence By and Against Trans People,” given the invisibility of these topics in transnational analyses, but found the discussion of both trans people as survivors and as offenders disjointed, given the focus of the volume. I did, however, greatly appreciate Freeman’s detailed discussion of the role of transphobia in both trans sexual victimization and trans sexual offending, along with his call for better and more intersectional transnational data.
There are a few problems with the volume that perhaps did not fulfill the editors’ goals. First, Part 1 of the volume was not as foundational as it could be. Although each chapter had its overall strengths, collectively they did not provide an overview of the substantive area, and some chapters seemed ill-fitted to the mission. Second, some of the chapters in the volume were Western or even U.S. centric, which was somewhat disappointing. Such research would have benefited from a stronger transnational analysis. Overall, though, Sex Crimes is an interesting read, made more so by the diversity of approaches, frameworks, and analyses brought to bear on the disparate crimes covered in the volume. It is also necessarily brief, with each chapter just barely addressing its chosen concern. While as a researcher I found this brevity and the lack of a cohesive foundation or conclusion somewhat frustrating as I wanted more, the book does not intend to serve an encyclopedic function on transnational sex crimes. Instead, the editors have made the book particularly applicable to students and/or practitioners—the former by the addition of questions at the end of each chapter and the latter by an emphasis on policy and practice within each chapter. To that end, the editors have given all of us an opportunity to learn from others, just as they proposed.