Modern Slavery, Domestic Work, and the Criminal Law

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides a critical account of the political and regulatory consequences of modern slavery discourse. The criminalization of modern slavery frames the regulatory problem around evil wrongdoers, and slaving and trafficking as a manifestation of a (usually foreign) vice perpetrated by organized criminal gangs. This marginalizes the responsibility of states in maintaining labour law and migration regimes that create the structural conditions for exploitation and abuse. The chapter then traces the continuities with domestic abuse and the forms of abuse that are criminalized in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA). It argues that modern slavery practices cannot be severed from a wider appreciation of patriarchal structures in society.