Labour Exploitation Research Articles

The Fight Against Human Trafficking for the Purpose of Exploitation for Forced Labor

Human trafficking is a serious crime that abuses people's fundamental rights and dignity. It involves the criminal exploitation of vulnerable people for the sole purpose of economic gain. Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of exploitation for forced labor is one of the most challenging aspects of "modern slavery". First of all, it is challenging to put into practice the interpretation if we are dealing with a concept of a standard work or a forced work, because often the victims prefer not to complain or they refuse to testify as witnesses since they are dependent from their traffickers for work and housing. Secondly, the fight against trafficking for this purpose, that is, the exploitation of labor, requires coordinated action between the state, civil society, unions and the private sector. The concept of "forced labor" in the context of human trafficking is not defined in international legal instruments, but is used to define slavery or practices similar to slavery. Different countries have different concepts regarding the concept of what is called forced labor and what is related to the object of human trafficking. This paper aims to briefly address the concept of trafficking for the purpose of forced labor and the current challenges of legislation and protection in practice of victims of trafficking.
 
 Received: 26 September 2023 / Accepted: 26 October 2023 / Published: 23 November 2023

Under the radar? Modern slavery and labour exploitation risks for the hotel industry

The UK's tourism and hospitality industries, having the highest concentration of migrant workers compared to other industries, face complex challenges in managing the risks of labour exploitation and modern slavery (MS); issues largely neglected in academic research. New employment models risk weakening workers' power in employment relations, potentially leading to increased vulnerability and exploitation risk. Based on analysing primary and secondary sources, this article examines the nature of these risks. Our findings show the following drivers: power imbalances; possible enforcement gaps; normalisation and moralisation of possible exploitation; and potential threats posed by macro-level political and socioeconomic issues/events; these, including more competitive labour markets, paradoxically also present opportunities. We develop significant, novel theoretical contributions and propose the new ‘(in)conspicuous exploitariat’ concept, encapsulating their (dis)empowerment, and potential future risks/opportunities. The research advances theory, with implications for policy and practice, for both the UK and the international tourism and hospitality industries.

The dangers of rationalizing temporary foreign worker programs as a solution to food waste

In this Forum piece, I argue that actors in Canada’s agri-food industry have begun to frame the employment of temporary migrant workers as a remedy to food loss and waste. This discursive shift threatens to further entrench Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs, which have been critiqued as enabling labour exploitation and facilitating the poor treatment of precarious racialized workers from the global South. I detail the limitations and violations associated with these temporary migration programs, and discuss how they have been criticized as neo-colonial tools of the Canadian state. I then discuss the increased policy attention paid to food loss and waste in Canada and other locales, suggesting that this is an emergent environmental issue that is still in discursive flux. As the framing of temporary migrant workers as a solution to food waste gains discursive coherence in Canada, it becomes important to attend to what is centred and what is discarded by this narrative. I argue that this emerging framing invokes a sustainability crisis in order to reinforce the status quo of exploitative migrant labour systems, and that such a discursive move is ethically problematic.

Exploring the concepts of decent work through the lens of SDG 8: addressing challenges and inadequacies.

Promoting decent work and sustainable economic growth within the framework of Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8) entails addressing gender inequality, the consequences of market economies, and the role of the informal sector while also considering environmental sustainability. Research on SDG 8 remains limited, often adopting an appraisal perspective, and the concept of decent work within this goal remains relatively unexplored. Additionally, the focus on the challenges and inadequacies of achieving sustainable economic growth through decent work in the context of SDG 8 is insufficient, resulting in significant knowledge gaps. To contribute to filling these gaps, this paper adopts a descriptive and critical review perspective, systematically analyzing 108 journal papers and reports to investigate the concept of decent work within SDG 8. The research addresses the challenges and inadequacies related to decent work embedded in SDG 8. The review reveals that while progress has been made in tackling gender inequality in the labor market, gender bias, income discrepancies, and underrepresentation of women in senior positions persist, hindering inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all - SDG 8. Moreover, SDG 8's focus on inclusive and sustainable development falls short of effectively addressing market economies' structural disparities, insecure working conditions, and exploitative labor practices. Additionally, support for informal sector workers, who lack essential rights such as legal protection and social security, remains insufficient. Ecological destruction is sometimes an unintended consequence of purely market-based labor markets with an emphasis on economic growth, with SDG 8 lacking sufficient integration of environmental sustainability in its framework. The novelty of this study comes from its in-depth, critical, and policy-focused analysis of the ideas around decent employment in the context of SDG 8. The findings underscore the importance of providing fair, safe, and secure employment opportunities to support economic growth and development while upholding workers' rights. In conclusion, we emphasize the crucial role of promoting decent work and sustainable growth in achieving SDG 8's overall objectives, as it directly impacts other SDGs.

Exploring the Links Between Racial Exclusion and Human Trafficking of Migrant Workers in Qatar

Qatar has become a significant destination for migrant workers looking to escape unemployment in their home countries. However, highly active labour migration pathways create migration industries that exploit the increased supply of labour migrants, leading to trafficking. Human trafficking has been a longstanding concern in Qatar, especially with low-skilled migrant workers in the informal, domestic service and construction sectors. United Nations bodies and non-governamental organisations have criticised Qatar over the treatment of its migrant workforce, especially with concerns about trafficking for labour exploitation and forced labour. In addition to complaints of human trafficking, concerns have been raised concerning perceived racialised drivers of exploitation in Qatar. According to the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Ms Tendayi Achiume, Qatar battles with issues of structural racial discrimination concerning its migrant workforce. This article examines the links between race and the trafficking of migrant workers in Qatar.

Migrant agricultural workers in search of a dignified life: Labour conditions as a source of vulnerability in Spain

AbstractThis study analyses the dynamics of agency and social vulnerability of international migrant agricultural workers in intensive agriculture in Murcia (South‐East Spain). It engages with the work of a group of scholars who analysed the emergence and reproduction of Murcia as an intensive agricultural enclave by taking an expanded vision of social reproduction, which includes a subjective and contextual dimension in the definition of what constitutes a ‘dignified life’. Based on a qualitative study of the life stories of foreign migrant agricultural workers and ex‐workers in Murcia, two main arguments are developed. Firstly, the idea of migrant workers’ agency as intrinsically positive is evaluated as problematic. Secondly, agricultural labour conditions should be conceptualized as an independent social vulnerability driver. These findings contribute to the existing literature on migrant agricultural labour in Europe's intensive agriculture by pointing at migrants’ exploitative and undesired labour market position rather than just at their suffered citizenship inequalities.

Straw craft, imperial education and ethnographic exhibitions as tightly braided sites of gender production in Haiti and Curaçao

Woven straw work produced in the Caribbean in the early twentieth century represented a small but sustainable percentage of the region's exports. Following the US occupation in Haiti (1915–1934), handicrafts were promoted as economic ‘development’: commodified folklore fashioned for the delight of visiting tourists. Up until 1946 in Curaçao, as a strategy of the Catholic church's civilising mission, young women trained to plait the so-called ‘Panama hat’ at technical schools (Römer, 1977); the products of their labour were often exhibited at international expositions and exported for sale in Europe and the United States. This article argues that missionary education that claimed to modernise, industrialise and revalue local handicraft skills to the benefit of local populations in Haiti and the Dutch Caribbean has instead perpetuated colonial gendered and racialised divisions of labour that prepare and discipline students for factory work in the global textile industries. I use straw artefacts and photographs from the collection of the Dutch National Museum of World Cultures as a starting point to trace the entanglements between imperial education and ethnographic exhibitions as sites of gender production. Drawing on Jean Casimir's concept of contre-plantation (2001), I explore how histories of indigenous craft knowledge during specific periods of resistance in Haiti have nurtured disidentification with a gendered logic of labour exploitation and racial capitalism.

Reflection of Syrian Refugee Women Living in Türkiye in National and International Academic Studies

Women and children are among the groups most adversely affected by civil wars and forced migration. Female refugees encounter several hardships, including exposure to physical and sexual violence, torture, human trafficking, early marriages, polygamy, labor exploitation in uninsured jobs for low wages, language barriers, and cultural adaptation problems. Today, refugee women’s experiences in countries where they seek asylum have been the subject of many academic studies. This study aims to determine the themes on which studies on Syrian refugee women in Türkiye have focused on both the national database ULAKBİM and the international database Web of Science between 2011 and 2023. Thus, this study aims to identify the focus areas of academic research on Syrian refugee women in Türkiye in both databases and provide recommendations to researchers in this field on the topics they can explore.

Modern slavery disclosure regulations in the global supply Chain: A world-systems perspective

This study provides a linguistic analysis of three modern slavery disclosure regulations, the California Transparency in the Supply Chain Act (CTSCA) 2010, section 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018. These regulations require companies to report their actions to tackle labour exploitation within global supply chains. Based on World-System Theory (WST: Wallerstein, 1975, 1979, 2015) and by relying on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we examined the disclosure regulations and found that the texts of and discourses around the regulations are not neutral and allow social wrongs to continue in global supply chains. Although regulators claim modern slavery disclosure regulations to be a step in the right direction, our investigation reveals a different picture: the linguistic features of the regulations support the perpetuating risk of modern slavery in global supply chains based in the periphery countries. We argue that changing the current global power structure/system is necessary to address the grand challenges of regulating modern slavery. There is a need for disclosure regime that can protect vulnerable communities, including workers in the global supply chains.

‘They Want the Horse to Run but Without Providing Feed’: Labour Exploitation of Healthcare Workers in China

‘They Want the Horse to Run but Without Providing Feed’: Labour Exploitation of Healthcare Workers in China

Fruit production and exploited labor in northern Italy: Redefining urban responsibility toward the agrarian ground

AbstractImmigrants play a crucial role in the development of capital‐intensive, industrialized agriculture and often find themselves living in derelict, stigmatized neighborhoods where they become not only objects of fear and exclusion but also objects of racketeering, exploitation, and profit‐making dynamics. Global trends and migration flows trigger new concerns among policymakers who realize that food production is not only a rural issue. Discussing the Italian case of the Saluzzo Fruit District and the Prima Accoglienza Stagionali (PAS, First Reception of Seasonal Workers) project, this contribution focuses on the role that cities as institutional complexes can have in preventing illegal recruitment and exploitation of labor in agriculture as well as improving the living conditions of migrant field hands through the activation of urban–rural synergies for multifactor and multilevel cooperation. Results offer an overview of the potentiality of the abandonment of an emergency approach limited to the sole provision of shelters to migrant workers for adopting a more structured and holistic approach to territorial planning.

Architectures of Coloniality

The Owens Valley Paiute, traditional caretakers of the “Land of Flowing Water,” face continued threats to their livelihood due to decades of water extraction from the region by the city of Los Angeles. The precarious state of Indigenous lands and peoples across California is entangled with historical processes supported by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the off-reservation boarding school system. During the first half of the twentieth century, Paiute, Mission Indian and other Indigenous youth were sent to the Sherman Institute in Riverside, the last of twenty-five boarding schools to be built and operated by the BIA. Accompanying its Mission Revival style façade and the associated narratives of racial uplift, the school aimed to distance students from tribal affiliations, teaching them Anglo, heteropatriarchal forms of domesticity, and training them to become wage laborers in the farming, construction, and domestic service trades. After graduation, many students were employed by the federal government to convert tribal lands to agricultural plots and private property, while many others found low-wage, unskilled positions in the building and maintenance of Southern California’s expanding metropolis. This paper investigates the role of the Sherman Institute in the exploitation of Indigenous lands and labor for regional development, and therefore, the production of racialized precarity for Indigenous peoples. By engaging with Indigenous epistemologies, the paper works to stretch the limits of history/theory, to expose systems of confinement for their racialized underpinnings, and to introduce more fluid conceptions of land, property, and personhood.

Logistics of unfreedom: The labour trafficking of Venezuelan truck drivers in Brazil

This article examines the trafficking of Venezuelan truck drivers for labour exploitation in Brazil. The remilitarisation of politics is increasingly a hallmark of elite-driven strategies to manage the circulation of labour and goods from extractive zones. This article introduces the notion of logistics of unfreedom to explain the growing imbrication between techniques of control by the state and corporations that confine the reproduction of migrants within the realm of logistics processes. The analysis focuses on data from participatory observations and the narratives of 22 Venezuelan refugees who were trafficked from a militarised humanitarian zone in Brazil's Amazon to work for a freight road transport company in Southern Brazil. Findings show that a concerted logistic approach to refugee employment channelled mobility, constrained statutory protection and shaped the ethno-political differentiation of Venezuelans in the labour market. This forced Venezuelans to live in trucks where both productive and socially reproductive aspects of their daily lives were overdetermined by the rhythms of goods distribution. The article concludes that this logistic rationale has converged towards a self-contained regime of labour unfreedom that facilitates the labour trafficking of Venezuelan refugees.

Dual frames of reference: naturalization, rationalization and justification of poor working conditions. A comparative study of migrant agricultural work in Northern California and South-Eastern Norway

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes how agents such as agricultural migrants, agricultural employers and local community representatives apply the dual frame of reference (DFR) to naturalize, rationalize and justify the presence of exploitative labor practices for agricultural migrants. The paper gives a qualitative account of social dynamics in two agricultural-dependent communities located in Northern California and South-Eastern Norway. Qualitative one-on-one interviews with agricultural migrant workers (n = 11), employers (n = 10) and community representatives (n = 12) were conducted in English and Spanish. Our findings demonstrate how DFR is utilized by employers to justify labor strategies that rely on migrant workers, employees to rationalize their participation in exploitive work, and by local community representatives to naturalize the exploitative labor practices of migrant workers in their community. Our research findings further add to the analysis by suggesting that the frames of reference are dynamic based on changes of material conditions in the home country. Lastly, we find a third frame of reference focused on the future of the agricultural worker and the hopes for future generations. Combined, these perspectives add to the understanding of the disempowerment of workers, lack of successful changes and overall, upkeeping of exploitative migrant labor systems in the agricultural industries and beyond.

Legal Protection for Exploitation of Children as Beggars in the Market by Parents in Gorontalo Regency

The phenomenon of exploitation of child buskers is one of the social problems that must be resolved by all groups, both the government and society. This exploitation of children is even carried out by their own parents. The focus of this research study is how the form of legal protection from child exploitation should children get education but only in the market. This study aims to determine the forms of child labor exploitation, the factors that influence working children, and to determine the negative impacts arising from child exploitation. In this study, normative research on written law was examined from various aspects such as aspects of theory, philosophy, comparison, structure/composition, consistency, general explanation. This method is considered suitable by researchers to be used in describing the problem of child exploitation in the Gorontalo district market. Based on the results of this study, biological parents are involved in the form of exploitation of children in the market. Factors that influence children to work in the market are economic factors, family factors, and environmental factors. And the negative impact arising from the exploitation of children in the market is the disruption of children's health, loss of desire to go to school, the emergence of psychological traumas in children. and the emergence of unrest in the community around the red light as well as the community around where the child workers themselves live.

A design stage, multi-objective assessment: material selection with environmental life-cycle analysis, labor, and material health considerations for building structure

During the schematic design stage of a building, assessing trade-offs of lifecycle impact of building elements and materials is crucial for the decision-making process when aiming to reduce negative impacts holistically. A multi-objective assessment is proposed, for environmental, labour exploitation risk (LER), and material health lifecycle impact of the structure and foundation elements in the schematic design stage. Using a real, mid-size, mass timber, educational building in Philadelphia, United States as a case study, we deployed multi-objective optimization (MOO) to consider the range of global warming potential (GWP), LER rating, and material health impact of nine product types over 1602 structure and foundation elements. The parametric workflow paired with Building Information Modelling (BIM) objects aims to provide designers a holistic overview on the cumulative, per material, and per building element impact upstream in the supply chain. The Pareto front solutions reveal that concrete floor with metal deck, hollow structural section framing, and concrete foundation slab, footing, and column pose the greatest risk overall for the case study building, and warrant design consideration to substitute with less impactful alternatives.

The ‘normality’ of labour exploitation: The right to fair and just working conditions in the Union's social market economy

This study argues that the Union maintains a double standard on working conditions in relation to the criteria established at international level, which allows to tolerate situations of labour exploitation as ‘unserious’, ‘proportionated’ or ‘normal’ phenomena. By analysing the gaps in the protection of the right to fair and just working conditions, the idea that an upward convergence of workers’ rights would be supported (and required) by the general duty to protect human dignity and to ensure fair competition in the Single Market is advanced. The relationship between these fundamental principles in the implementation of the right to fair and just working conditions is examined through the notion of ‘social market economy’. The aim is to illustrate what kind of measures could (or should) be taken to integrate the protection of human rights and market efficiency, and whether in practice there seems to be an articulation between these fundamental principles or, on the contrary, an insurmountable contradiction.

ASEAN Children Trafficking: The Status and Recommendations

Trafficking in persons is a major problem worldwide. ASEAN countries are not an exception to the challenge of trafficking in persons. Trafficking in children is a significant problem in ASEAN countries, whereby children are trafficked into exploitative labour and sexual exploitation. This study aimed to highlight the problem of trafficking in children in ASEAN countries and how children are exploited after being trafficked. The study findings will add to the existing knowledge on trafficking in general and the trafficking of children in particular in ASEAN countries. The researcher relied on a library-based (literature review) approach that involved analysis of existing literature on the topic. The study revealed that a lot of children are trafficked in ASEAN countries. It was also discovered that poverty, conflicts, and a promise of a better future are key drivers of trafficking. The research also revealed that labour and sexual exploitation are rampant among trafficked children. This paper adds to the existing body of knowledge on trafficking in children. ASEAN countries should come with joint concerted efforts to tame trafficking in children by sealing all the existing loopholes.

British Colonialism and Prison Labour in Inter-War Palestine

Great Britain ruled modern-day Israel and Palestine from 1917 to 1948. The exploitation of prison labour became a source to fund its colonial government. This study explicates the economic and legal rationale for prison labour, the living and working conditions and discipline of convicts, and public debates and controversies surrounding political prisoners in Mandatory Palestine. With specific references to forced labour in the colonised world, it evaluates the experience of Mandatory Palestine from a transnational perspective and makes a connection between global colonialism and prison labour. Using a rich trove of official documents and newspaper articles as its primary sources, this article links the proliferation of the prison labour system with the introduction and consolidation of British colonialism in Palestine and argues that colonial ideology and practices coloured and justified the use of prison labour.

1.Q. Workshop: Work, health, and migration: understanding the health impacts of precarious and exploitative work

Abstract The ILO estimates that of the 169 international migrant workers globally, the largest share resides in Europe, where increasing numbers are at substantial risk of precarious, exploitative, and hazardous work conditions. While the right to health and decent work of migrants is recognised by European member states, COVID-19 has exposed how some low-wage migrant workers are compelled to accept exploitative and precarious employment terms and conditions, with implications for their health. The vulnerability of migrants to labour exploitation is influenced by both personal factors (such as age and gender) as well as situational factors (such as risk environments across the migration journey and national legislation). Hazardous, precarious, and exploitative work is an entrenched driver of poor health. Data show that low-wage migrant workers have higher injury and mortality rates compared to host workers and face barriers to occupational and mainstream health and vaccination systems. In this workshop, we will discuss the patterns of precarious work and labour exploitation in migrants residing in Europe, physical and mental health effects of labour exploitation, research and policy gaps, and models of good practice to ensure that the health and rights of migrant workers are protected. Workshop plan The workshop will start with 10-minute presentations by each of the 4 speakers (including a short Q&A after each talk). This will then move into a 20-minute audience discussion centred around exploring how to foster intersectoral collaboration across the work, migration, and health research communities to begin addressing some of the evidence and policy gaps in the European region. Key messages • Migrant workers have worse health outcomes than native workers, including higher rates of occupational injury and deaths. • Labour exploitation is an important social determinant of health among migrants which requires greater recognition in research and practice.