Economic Migration Gone Wrong: Trafficking in Persons Through the Lens of Gender, Labor, and Globalization

Abstract

The last decade brought much needed attention to the global plight of human trafficking, as numerous members of vulnerable populations are trafficked all over the world to be enslaved in a broad range of industries including, but far from limited to, commercial sex. Yet, the global community’s efforts to successfully mitigate trafficking and protect those most likely to fall victim to it continue to fall short. This Article argues that the lack of success in fighting human trafficking is to a large extent the result of framing the existing discourse of human trafficking as primarily a matter of criminal law and human rights of women and children rather than addressing the economic and global market conditions within which human trafficking thrives. It is, as Jonathan Todres puts it, a design failure rather than an implementation failure.2 This Article further suggests that the almost exclusive focus on criminal and human rights discourse developed in response to the paradigmatic story of human trafficking—young women or children being duped and kidnapped for exploitation—in the illegal commercial sex industry. However, that focus continues to marginalize the impact on the role of women, children, and migrant workers from developing nations in the global economy. We will not be able to mitigate human trafficking or to achieve economic and social equality around the world without acknowledging the gendered and class underpinnings of human trafficking discourse.