The Conceptualisation of Labour Exploitation in Human Trafficking Law: a Proposal

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-260
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Labour Exploitation

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.

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 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.

Time to Get Serious about Combating Forced Labour and Human Trafficking in Fisheries

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Vasco Becker-Weinberg
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Law Of The Sea ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Fishing Vessel ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
The World ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Working And Living Conditions

Abstract The connection between forced labour and human trafficking and fisheries, particularly illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, is vile and highly profitable, and may be found in most parts of the world. A fishing vessel can be a place of abuse more extreme than any other onshore. At sea, it is out of sight for long periods of time, with little or no opportunity for fishers to escape. The working and living conditions on board are often simply described as inhumane. Combating labour exploitation in fisheries raises many complex multijurisdictional challenges, most of which, if not all, could be circumvented if States were serious about addressing this phenomenon. This article examines these challenges and the relevant international legal framework, particularly the 2007 Work in Fishing Convention and the 2014 Protocol to the Forced Labour Convention, against the background of the law of the sea and international human rights law.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Scott
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Sufficient Condition ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Neoliberal Capitalism ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Workplace Abuse ◽  
Forced Labour

This chapter argues that to study problems at work in a progressive and critical manner one needs to be attentive to language and terminology. In other words, one needs to think carefully about how a problem is socially constructed, and in some cases constricted. In particular, studies of workplace abuse have tended to focus on extreme manifestations of the phenomenon (i.e. slavery, forced labour, human trafficking). This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for protecting workers. To widen the debate, the chapter (and book) employs the language of ‘control’, ‘exploitation’ and ‘harm’ as representing the problem to be investigated. This language is inspired by insights from the ‘social harm’ literature. This literature, most notably, identifies underlying structures (especially those associated with neoliberal capitalism) as worthy of critique. Thus, the problem of labour exploitation is not only larger than many would have us believe, it also has causes that are beyond the scope of the conventional criminal justice approach. The chapter concludes by outlining the data sources used throughout, and by mapping out the book’s eight remaining chapters.

scholarly journals Improving Prosecutions of Human Trafficking for Labour Exploitation: Lessons Learned from Two European Jurisdictions (England and Wales and Belgium)

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64
Author(s):  
Amy Weatherburn
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Judicial Process ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Effective Implementation ◽  
Labour Exploitation

The increasing number of identified victims of human trafficking for labour exploitation and the low number of associated prosecutions calls into question the effective implementation of anti-trafficking measures in European countries.<br/> This paper will focus on two European jurisdictions (England and Wales and Belgium) and consider the low prosecution rates for human trafficking for labour exploitation. In brief, the number of referrals of potential victims of human trafficking for labour exploitation to the National Referral Mechanism has, in England and Wales, increased exponentially from 393 to 2,840 between 2012 and 2017, whereas in Belgium it has remained stable. Overall, prosecutions remain low, as the complexity of the human trafficking phenomenon creates challenges for the investigatory and judicial process, namely, the operationalisation of the principle of irrelevance of consent, where the victim demonstrates apparent consent to exploitative working conditions, the participation of victims in criminal proceedings, and the complexity of the factual circumstances.<br/> In addition to relevant literature, this paper will draw on the findings of a comparative analysis of criminal cases from 2010 to 2017 in the two domestic jurisdictions. This paper will identify the main obstacles for the identification, investigation and prosecution of these cases, and provide some insight into what is needed to secure more effective access to justice for victims of human trafficking.

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