ON THE IDEA OF LABOR, LABOR LAW, AND FORCED LABOR SELECTED REMARKS IN THE SOVIET UNION (1917-1945)

In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, work was compulsory according to the 1918 labor code. This stemmed from the ideas of Marx. This position was also held by Lenin, Trotsky and others. The Communist Party could assign anyone any work. Evading work was a counter-revolutionary crime. Likewise, it was a crime to arbitrarily change one’s place of work. The compulsion to work required the use of terror. Terror was an everyday phenomenon in the USSR. Low labor productivity was a constant affliction. Prison labor was used en masse from the beginning. The GULAG system (forced labor camps) expanded. Prison labor was becoming less and less productive. In 1956, the GULAG camps were renamed “penal colonies,” which still exist in Russia today.

Forced Labor Exploitation: Illegal Trading in Protected Goods in the Southern African Countries

Human exploitation refers to the curtailment of fundamental human rights. The crime plays out notwithstanding the laws that criminalizes human abuses. This study explored the policing of human trafficking and forced labor in the Southern African countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and assesses the capabilities and abilities of law enforcement agencies in the region to curb the scourge. In this study a qualitative perspective was adopted with use of literature study and interviews. The prevalence of organized criminal groupings exacerbates the problem of human trafficking and forced labor in the region. Law enforcement corruption is rife as the police are often accused of acts of receiving bribes. There are capacity constraints in the policing agencies across the region which impacts negatively on proactive enforcement of protected goods. The study reveals that respective law enforcement agencies work in seclusion and do not systematize their databases to share information with other agencies owing to a prevailing cynicism amongst countries. It is proposed that there should be harmonization of law enforcement agencies’ databases to share information for intelligence purposes and to develop defensive and responsive response mechanisms to thwart the crime.

The Demographic Effects of Colonialism: Forced Labor and Mortality in Java, 1834–1879

We investigate the demographic effects of forced labor under an extractive colonial regime: the Cultivation System in nineteenth-century Java. Our panel analyses show that labor demands are strongly positively associated with mortality rates, likely resulting from malnourishment and unhygienic conditions on plantations and the spread of infectious diseases. An instrumental variable approach, using international market prices for coffee and sugar for predicting labor demands, addresses potential endogeneity concerns. Our estimates suggest that without the abolition of the Cultivation System average overall mortality in Java would have been between 10 and 30 percent higher by the late 1870s.

Intersections between Human Trafficking and Education: Toward New Research Agendas

Human trafficking is a social issue that has gained attention in the media and in scholarship. A growing number of anti-trafficking organizations and actors have begun to use education to diverse ends. Although not often associated with human trafficking, education is a common tool used by anti-trafficking organizations, whether as a prevention tool to reduce the vulnerability of people at-risk of trafficking, or as a service to trafficking survivors to improve their lives. Lack of access to education, or to quality education, is also a factor in exposure to human trafficking, whether that be in terms of debt bondage, domestic servitude, forced labor, child marriage or other issues related to human trafficking. More explicit connections need to be made between the work being done in anti-trafficking spheres and the scholarship of education in order to better understand how to improve the quality and effectiveness of education-related efforts. This essay explores the connections between human trafficking and education.

Association Between Self-Regulation of Learning, Forced Labor Insertion, Technological Barriers, and Dropout Intention in Chile

Early dropout and retention of students are critical problems in both secondary and higher education. Existing models that predict the intention to drop out require the incorporation of complex variables strongly related to student success, such as self-regulated learning. Moreover, new possible predictors have emerged in the context of a pandemic. This study set out to validate scales that measure the phases of self-regulation of learning in Chilean secondary school students and determine the association between self-regulation, forced labor insertion, technological barrier, and intention to quit during COVID-19. An instrumental design was carried out, where 251 students participated, and a cross-sectional predictive design with a sample of 171. Results showed adequate psychometric properties in assessment scales for self-regulation. Furthermore, the logistic regression model carried out to predict the dropout intention was significant. The final model showed that external causal attributions, planning self-evaluation, forced labor insertion, and technological barriers were significant predictors, achieving a success rate of 84.8%. In conclusion, although many factors are considered in dropout intention models, this study incorporated self-regulation skills that can be promoted in students and systematically integrated into school programs to help reduce dropout rates in secondary education, therefore contributing to a successful transition to higher education.

Impact of Economic Downturn on Child Labor in Vietnam

The economic recession led to the economic downturn, loss of jobs and income, and the risk of falling back into the poverty of near-poor and poor households. This recession caused an increase in child labor. This study aimed to analyze the concept of child and child labor under a regulatory framework and assess how the economic downturn affects child labor in Vietnam. This study used analytical research methods through synthesis, comparison, and legal analysis, emphasizing literary research based on secondary research data. This study showed that the economic downturn increased the proportion of child labor because the parents and the family's breadwinner are unemployed or cut down on their income. Children were out of school to help household businesses or look for work for extra income. The economic downturn increased the number of children working in unsafe working conditions. It increased the risk of children being forced into illegal jobs prohibited and exposing children to labor to risk forced labor. It resulted in difficulties preventing and eliminating child labor, especially in a developing country like Vietnam, due to the high number of employees working in the informal sector, who were often unsupported by social security policies such as unemployment insurance and social insurance. This study suggested that the Government should establish policies to promote sustainable economic development and promulgate appropriate social security policies to promptly support workers and their families out of difficulties caused by job loss. Also, it should organize the effective implementation of regulations on eliminating child labor and raise social awareness in preventing and eliminating child labor. KEYWORDS: Economic Downturn, Child Labor, COVID-19 Pandemic.

Forced labor of Jews in the Szydłowiec ghetto during World War II - The nature of the work performed, its dimension and social aspects

Purpose of the study: The article contains information on the forced labor performed by Jews for the benefit of Germans during the Second World War. The research area was narrowed down to the area of the Szydłowiec ghetto and its vicinity (the Radom district in the General Government. The text presents the types of work performed by Jews, forms of forcing them to take up forced labor, and their attempts to bypass German restrictions. Methodology: This article is based on a comparative-historical method, the aim of which is to enable the researcher to identify Jews as a separate social group that was used by the Germans for forced labor. The use of this method is aimed at learning about the historical processes and mechanisms of functioning of selected Nazi restrictions in Poland. In addition, prosopographic and inductive methods as well as a method based on the grounded theory will be used. Moreover, due to the nature of the subject of the work, the research conducted in this field also requires the use of oral history. Main Findings: Extremely burdensome, in many aspects, compulsion for Jews was the almost slave labor they performed for the benefit of the Germans. Every Jew had to work at least one day a week for the Third Reich. Jews were used for various types of work, including snow removal from roads. Slave labor for the benefit of the Nazis was one of the causes of the increasing poverty of Jews. Application: The results of the research make a significant contribution to the knowledge of the history of Jews from Szydłowiec. This research not only broadens the knowledge about the history of the functioning of the Jewish community in Szydłowiec during World War II, but also broadens the knowledge about the history of the Holocaust and the mechanisms of crimes. These studies can be used to further analyze the situation of Jews during the German occupation in the territory of the Radom district, or more broadly, in the territory of the General Government. Novelty/Originality of the study: For the first time in this study, many fragments of Jewish diaries from the Memorial Book of Szydłowiec were used (some of the memoirs were published only in Yiddish). The article is the basis for further research on the history of Jews during World War II in the area of the Radom district.