Spot the Victim: A Wicked Challenge—Fresh Perspectives on the Rise of Human Trafficking for Criminalization, the Limits of the National Referral Mechanism, and the Rise of the Expert Witness

This chapter explores the leverage and insights that the wicked “ten principles of uncertainty” bring to the defendant-victim matrix in human trafficking. It provides a perspective on criminal recruitment, deployment, and exploitation. The author highlights the need for increased contribution from Expert Witnesses, particularly their ethnographic and social anthropological insights. The chapter also considers social justice and exclusions, upgrading the mechanisms and processes by which societies protect the innocent and bring to justice the hierarchies of crime. Justice systems internationally face ongoing challenges linked to perpetrator/defendant/potential victim identities. The Palermo Protocol required signatory States to incorporate protection alongside prevention and prosecution as a three-pronged justice system assault on organized crime. In the United Kingdom, there is a rapidly changing situation vis-a-vis the authority of the National Referral Mechanism in identifying potential victims of trafficking. Although the Single Competent Authority regulates the provision of support services in Reasonable and Conclusive Grounds decisions, this does not meet the requirements of the Criminal Courts for conclusive identification. In this protean world of human trafficking, the Expert Witness is more than ever a critical instrument in the clarification of victim identification. This chapter provides some fresh perspectives on victimology, protection, and just prosecution in human trafficking for criminal exploitation. It also provides insights from the ten principles of wicked problems, the rise of the Expert Witness, and the deployment of design theory for lifting strategic impact.