Traffick stop: Addressing labour exploitation of migrant workers in Canada

Policy efforts to reduce human trafficking in Canada have heavily focused on sex trafficking relative to labour trafficking. Partly as a result, victims of labour trafficking often lack effective protection from exploitation and coercion. This study looks at one important avenue through which labour trafficking can occur in Canada – the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Many migrant workers in the program lack the legal standing and resources to escape exploitative and dangerous situations. This problem is compounded by inconsistent definitions and interpretations of labour trafficking, a lack of reliable data, and weak protective mechanisms in legislation. Through an analysis of the policy problem in Canada, this study proposes and evaluates four policy options to enhance the security and protection of victims and survivors of labour trafficking. The recommendations aim to improve migrant worker mobility in the labour market such as granting migrant workers the ability to change employers, and address data collection issues that have bedeviled existing efforts. A strategy for implementing these options is also considered to illustrate some of the trade-offs and challenges that exist

Qualitative Analysis of Factors Supporting Child Labour Trafficking in Nigeria: Public Perceptions and Cultural Relativism

This study aimed to establish how socio-cultural and economic factors support the endemicity of child labour trafficking in Nigeria. The research was conducted among rural and urban households and stakeholders in southern Nigeria. A field survey was conducted in Ekiti, Edo, Kwara, Lagos, and Osun States. The study utilised cultural relativism and the margin of appreciation theories. The qualitative research approach used in-depth interviews, focus groups, and personal observation methods to collect data. Researchers interviewed 70 participants, including parents/guardians, stakeholders (government officials and private agency representatives), traffickers, trafficked children, and their employers. Societal context, especially the perception of child rights, plays an essential role in creating conditions in which child labour trafficking flourishes and constrains global efforts to eliminate the problem. Specifically, findings revealed that poverty, banditry/terrorism, religious practices, socialisation, fostering, cheap labour/urbanization, and materialism are key socio-economic factors contributing to the incidences of child labour trafficking in Nigeria. The paper concludes that international child labour trafficking continues because conditions within states maintain enabling environments for child rights violations. Consequently, understanding socio-cultural and economic contexts within states is essential to develop policies and practices that help curb or minimise the harm of international child labour trafficking

Assessment of Causes and Consequences of Child Labour Trafficking, The Case of Wolaita Sodo Town, SNNPRS, Ethiopia

Even if child labour trafficking Labour is illegal, now a days, it is becoming the structural part of many economies both in formal and informal sectors and also it has been received a little attention by different scholars.  This is what motivated the researchers to conduct research on assessment of causes and consequences of Child labour Trafficking, the case of Wolaita Sodo Town. The researchers were employed mixed type of researcher design to achieve planned objective and both primary and secondary sources of data were used to gather sufficient data. The primary data was collected by schedules questionnaires and semi-structured interview method of data collection used because they helps the research to react to and report subtle aspects of events and behavior as they occur and collected data were analyzed and summarized by use of frequency, percentage and presented by using table.  In addition, to test significance of collected data Chi square and t-Test were employed. The finding of study shows that poverty, family breakdown, looking, searching for job and ill treatment of guardians were identified as a major causes of child labour trafficking has significant value at (P< 0.05).  In addition, the study shows that children who lost either of their parents by death highly exposed to child labour trafficking and the children after they took to other places they engaged in various activities which expose them to various abuses include hotel waiter, shoe shining, lottery selling, wood working and garage.   Furthermore, the finding of the study indicates that child labour trafficking resulted to unwanted pregnancy, drugs and alcoholism, rape and prostitution, deprivation of family love and affection, and lack of school. In order to minimize the child labour trafficking the government should pay attention to child migrants and create awareness among parents and community about impacts of child labour trafficking on children particular and on the world as a whole. Keywords: Child Labour, Causes, Consequences, Wolaita sodo

The Intersection of Exploitation and Coercion in Cases of Canadian Labour Trafficking

Internationally, human trafficking intervention, research, and policy-making has leaned towards sex trafficking rather than labour trafficking. Aiming to understand the characteristics of labour trafficking within Canada, a country considered by many to have strong labour protections and clear pathways for labour migration, this article reports on a review of documented cases over the past fifteen years in Canada where labour exploitation intersected with coercion. Our analysis is centred on the notion that this is the crux of what constitutes labour trafficking—coercion being used to facilitate labour exploitation. In total, we collected thirty-six cases, involving an estimated 243 victims, and we placed these within a matrix that crosses gradations of labour exploitation (deception, labour standard violations, and occupational health and safety (OHS) violations) with gradations of coercion (from systemic to direct). We collected these cases through a scan of media, governmental, academic, and legal sources. A new contribution to the literature, this exploitation-coercion matrix helps to highlight limitations in current approaches to the identification and response to labour trafficking in Canada. Our study results demonstrate: 1) the degree to which precarious immigration status is central to labour trafficking; 2) that this trafficking is frequently practised by small business owners in legal employment sectors; and 3) that there is a high presence of men and low presence of minors as victims. These findings contrast with the archetypal portraits found in much of the trafficking media and literature of the trafficking victim as young and female and the trafficker as organized criminal

Labour Trafficking and Exploitation in Rural Andalusia

This chapter presents the preliminary results of a research project, called “Research on the Vulnerability of Human Rights in Andalusian Rural Areas: Migration, Labour Treatment, and Other Forms of Exploitation for the Strengthening of Andalusian Development Agents”. In the mentioned research, we analyse the trafficking in persons for the purpose of labour exploitation (labour trafficking) and labour exploitation in the rural context of Andalusia. For this, the research focuses on three (3) provinces of Andalusia in which the fieldwork is carried out in rural areas of the provinces of Almeria, Seville and Huelva. For that purpose, this study will be structured in four sections: first, the realisation of a conceptual introduction on “labour trafficking”, its connection with contemporary forms of slavery and exposure of the factors that favour the development of this phenomenon in the Andalusian context; second, presentation of the partial data that allow us to make a localised diagnosis through the contextual approach of labour exploitation and labour trafficking in Andalusia; third, analysis of the results; and fourth, conclusions on the confrontation with the labour treatment in Spain

“Spotting the signs” of trafficking recruitment online:Exploring the characteristics of advertisements targeted at migrant job-seekers

Despite considerable concern about how human trafficking offenders may use the Internet to recruit their victims, arrange logistics or advertise services, the Internet-trafficking nexus remains unclear. This study explored the prevalence and correlates of a set of commonly-used indicators of labour trafficking in online job advertisements. Taking a case study approach, we focused on a major Lithuanian website aimed at people seeking work abroad. We examined a snapshot of job advertisements (n = 430), assessing both their general characteristics (e.g. industry, destination country) and the presence of trafficking indicators. The vast majority (98.4%) contained at least one indicator, suggesting certain "indicators" may in fact be commonplace characteristics of this labour market. Inferential statistical tests revealed significant but weak relationships between the advertisements’ characteristics and the number and nature of indicators present. While there may be value in screening job advertisements to identify potential labour trafficking and exploitation, additional information is needed to ascertain actual labour trafficking. We conclude with an outlook on automated approaches to identifying cases of possible trafficking and a discussion of the benefits and ethical concerns of a data science-driven approach

Taking stock of labour trafficking in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, labour trafficking was criminalised as human trafficking in 2005.1 Since then, criminal investigations into labour trafficking have slowly taken off. Building on a content analysis of files and reports from the labour inspectorate, this paper contributes to the currently limited body of knowledge on the nature of labour trafficking. It does so by focussing on scholarly debates about the nature of the crime and its relation to labour migration. Based on the analysis, it is argued that the bulk of labour trafficking should be understood as a by-product of labour migration, and that labour trafficking often arises from the economic opportunistic motives of businesses and only occasionally occurs in criminal environments. In addition, the paper adds to our understanding of the prosecution of human trafficking by analysing why so many labour trafficking cases in the Netherlands have not resulted in a conviction. Building on a qualitative analysis of case law, it is shown that a major problem in getting suspects convicted is that the human rights threshold against which cases of labour trafficking are tested is often not surpassed, as the abuses in the labour market are often deemed not excessive enough to qualify as human trafficking.NWOCriminal Justice: Legitimacy, accountability, and effectivit

Labour trafficking: Challenges and opportunities from an occupational health perspective

Labour trafficking is intrinsically related to occupational health, however very little attention has been paid to the issue from an occupational health perspective. The recognition of certain work-related health problems in workers in specific work sectors can help to identify victims of labour trafficking. This work identifies a series of opportunities for Occupational Health Services to detect and address labour trafficking and increase awareness of health personnel of the problem

People trafficking in Australia

The clandestine nature of trafficking in persons means that there is little reliable data about the nature and extent of the crime; however, a picture is emerging of the nature of people trafficking as the number of prosecutions grows. Few of the cases identified in Australia to date fit the traditional stereotypes of the forced movement and confinement of trafficked persons by traffickers. This paper summarises what is currently known about the nature of people trafficking in Australia. It includes an examination of how the reality of people trafficking compares with community perceptions of the crime. The authors note the need to establish reliable data-driven monitoring systems to better assess the nature and extent of trafficking into Australia, and the need to educate the Australian community to improve their understanding, given the important role they play in identifying and supporting trafficking victims

Trafficking in persons monitoring report: January 2009–June 2011

Since 2008, the Australian Government has increased the tempo on investigating and understanding these crimes, and the Australian Institute of Criminology’s research and monitoring program is part of this effort.  The Government has introduced new legislation to crack down on trafficking slavery and servile marriages. Human trafficking is a serious but underreported problem as victims are unwilling to come forward. Since 2004 only 14 people have been convicted of people trafficking-related offences (nine of the 14 defendants were convicted of slavery offences, three of sexual servitude, one of people trafficking and one of labour exploitation). Between January 2009 and June 2011 there were 73 police investigations in Australia and 145 trafficked people entering the government’s victim support program—slightly more than in the previous period. Victims continue to be overwhelmingly from south-east Asia, one-third from Thailand alone. Authored by Jacqueline Joudo Larsen, Lauren Renshaw, Samantha Gray-Barry, Hannah Andrevski, and Toby Corsbie