Obstacles to the Legal Clarification of Labour Exploitation

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-152
Keyword(s):  
Labour Exploitation

scholarly journals Forced labour in supply chains: Rolling back the debate on gender, migration and sexual commerce

2021 ◽  
pp. 135050682110207
Author(s):  
Rutvica Andrijasevic
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Separate Treatment ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Sexual Commerce

This article makes a conceptual contribution to the broader literature on unfree labour by challenging the separate treatment of sexual and industrial labour exploitation both by researchers and in law and policy. This article argues that the prevailing focus of the supply chain literature on industrial labour has inadvertently posited sexual labour as the ‘other’ of industrial labour thus obfuscating how the legal blurring of boundaries between industrial and service labour is engendering new modalities of the erosion of workers’ rights that are increasingly resembling those typical of sex work. This article advances the debate on unfree labour both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, it highlights the relevance of social reproduction in understanding forms of labour unfreedom. Empirically, it demonstrates the similarities in forms of control and exploitation between sex work and industrial work by illustrating how debt and housing operate in both settings.

scholarly journals Bringing the problem home: The anti-slavery and anti-trafficking rhetoric of UK non-government organisations

Politics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 026339572096240
Author(s):  
Nick Turnbull ◽  
Rose Broad
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Policy Framing ◽  
Female Victims ◽  
Policy Problem ◽  
The Past ◽  
Problem Framing ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Modern Slavery ◽  
Problem Frame ◽  
Historical Rhetoric

Rhetoric is a way to explain policy problem framing by recognising the practical necessity to persuade audiences in contextual situations. Modern slavery and human trafficking is a complex and emotive problem, simplified through rhetorical demands to motivate an audience of supporters. This article analyses rhetoric by 212 UK anti-trafficking and anti-slavery non-government organisations (NGOs) to uncover rhetorical practices and their effects on policy framing, supplemented by archival research to compare past and present anti-slavery oratory. Our data show NGOs use rhetoric to motivate supporters and promote a humanitarian problem frame, in opposition to a state-driven security frame. Findings confirm other research in identifying an emphasis on female victims and on sexual over labour exploitation. Past and present rhetoric are equivalent in terms of liberal, Christian values (ethos) and appeals to pathos through sympathy for victims. Historical rhetoric is distinctive in arguing for the equal human status of slaves, whereas contemporary activists argue victims are denied agency. Contemporary rhetoric represses the question of migration, whereas past rhetoric is more deliberative. Rhetoric varies with the requirements of persuasion related to contextual distance, between unlike humans in the past, but in regard to geographical distance today.

Guaranteeing the Broadest Protection to Minors in the Aftermath of Disasters: Re-Framing the International Discussion in Terms of Child Abduction, Sale, and Trafficking

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Scarpa
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Disaster Relief ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Relief Work ◽  
Child Abduction ◽  
Labour Exploitation

The Article aims at demonstrating that a more effective and comprehensive protection of minors in the aftermath of disasters can be guaranteed by, first of all, re-framing the discussion of the relevant actors in this field on the various practices and processes, including sexual and labour exploitation, early and forced marriages, the involvement of children in armed conflicts, and illegal adoptions, that can be grouped under the heading of three umbrella terms, namely, the abduction, sale, and trafficking of children. These terms are, in part, already used by relevant actors in the field of disaster relief work; however, their interpretation and boundaries are not always properly clarified. Therefore, the Article discusses the definitions of these three terms and recommends that all the relevant actors follow such framework and conform to the definitions provided, so as to guarantee a greater consistency and clarity in the debate over child protection in the aftermath of disasters.

Labour Exploitation in Human Trafficking Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Weatherburn
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Trafficking In Persons ◽  
Transnational Organized Crime ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Women And Children ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Agreed Definition

The 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime provides the first internationally agreed definition of the human trafficking. However, in failings to clarify the exact scope and meaning of exploitation, it has created an ambiguity as to what constitutes exploitation of labour in criminal law. <br>The international definition's preference for an enumerative approach has been replicated in most regional and domestic legal instruments, making it difficult to draw the line between exploitation in terms of violations of labour rights and extreme forms of exploitation such as those listed in the Protocol. <br><br>This book addresses this legal gap by seeking to conceptualise labour exploitation in criminal law.

Practitioner's Insights – The Importance of Strategic Litigation to Fight Human Trafficking and (Labour) Exploitation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-120
Author(s):  
Suzanne Hoff
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Systemic Change ◽  
Legal Action ◽  
Policy Practice ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
High Level ◽  
Strategic Litigation

This article calls for an increased use of strategic litigation in the anti-trafficking field to ensure long-lasting systemic reforms. While generally, the prosecution of human trafficking or related severe forms of labour exploitation, like forced labour, is quite challenging and prosecutions and convictions lag seriously behind, it is argued that strategic litigation, meaning continuing legal action, aimed at achieving rights-related changes in law, policy, practice, and/or public awareness, can help to ensure that justice is delivered to victims, as several landmark cases also show. Efforts to counter human trafficking through strategic litigation by NGOs remain in their infancy, among others as they are resource-intensive and require access to experienced lawyers in high level courts. The author discusses some examples and dilemmas and identifies needs for NGOs to use strategic litigation more often as an effective tool to effectuate systemic change.

scholarly journals Toward a Political Economy of ‘Audience Labour’ in the Digital Era

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brice Nixon
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Cultural Consumption ◽  
Labour Process ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Productive Activities ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Human Labour ◽  
Political Economic

This article contributes to a political economic theory centred on the concept of “audience labour”. First, the previous use of the concept of audience labour is briefly traced and the process of rethinking the concept as the basis of a political economic theory is begun. Second, a theory of the audience labour process is developed, drawing on previous theories of audience activities of cultural consumption as productive activities of signification and adapting Marx’s theory of the human labour process to the audience labour process. Third, a political economy of audience labour is outlined. As a theory of the basic processes through which communicative capital can control and extract value from audience labour, it describes the exploitation of audience labour and accumulation of communicative capital through distribution relationships of rent and interest. Finally, the continuing centrality of audience labour exploitation in the digital era is discussed.

scholarly journals Human Trafficking and Heroic Consumerism

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Unintended Consequence ◽  
Political Consumerism ◽  
Awareness Campaigns ◽  
Ethical Consumerism ◽  
World Vision ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Modern Slavery

Consumers are the new activists in the fight against modern slavery, with awareness campaigns urging citizens to use their consumer power to demand an end to labour exploitation. The contribution of political, or ethical, consumerism campaigns to the trafficking narrative is examined in this article through an analysis of the characterisation of consumers and corporations in campaigns from SlaveryFootprint.org, Stop the Traffik UK, and World Vision Australia. This article argues that campaigns urging political consumerism depict consumers as the heroic rescuers of enslaved victims, and embed solutions to modern slavery within a culture of unquestioned capitalism. This approach may have the unintended consequence of sidelining victims from the trafficking story as the focus of the narrative becomes the product, rather than the victim, of labour exploitation.

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