Labour Exploitation In Human Trafficking Law

The 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations (UN) Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, is a noteworthy achievement and, crucially, provides the first internationally agreed definition of the human trafficking. However, it fails to provide clarity as to the exact scope and meaning of exploitation. Instead, it provides an open-ended list of forms of exploitation that ''at a minimum'' amount to exploitation. The international definition's preference for an enumerative approach has subsequently been replicated in most regional and domestic legal instruments. In the absence of a clear definition of exploitation, it is difficult to draw the line between exploitation in terms of violations of labour rights and extreme forms of exploitation such as those listed in the UN Protocol; namely, forced or compulsory labour, practices similar to slavery and slavery. This book addresses this legal gap by seeking to conceptualise labour exploitation in criminal law. The book uses exploitation theory to understand its application in law. The legal and theoretical analysis of exploitation first identifies the foundational elements of exploitation and then applies them to a comparative, empirical, domestic criminal case law analysis of two European national legal orders: Belgium and England & Wales. The book concludes with a proposition for a legal conceptualisation of labour exploitation that identifies the necessary and sufficient conditions that are required to determine whether or not the involuntary provision of work or services amounts to labour exploitation. The book's presentation of an evidence-based conceptualisation of labour exploitation is not only of added value for scholars but also for legal practitioners, policy makers and civil society representatives who are required to interpret and apply human trafficking law policy and practice in order to determine the existence (or not) of exploitative working conditions.

This guide proposes a multi-faceted approach to combating and preventing human trafficking, by including a broad range of useful legal frameworks as well as institutional actors. If offers lawmakers and law enforcement authorities (both police and labour inspectors) with practical aid to understand and implement international standards on human trafficking and to take action accordingly, in particular from the viewpoint of forced labour and child labour. The broad spectrum of sanctions - criminal, administrative and civil - are highlighted and the guide demonstrates the importance of immigration and labour law, especially with regard to the identification, protection and rehabilitation of victims as well as the monitoring of recruiters and other auxiliaries.

Although much literature on human trafficking focuses on sex trafficking, a great deal of human trafficking results from migrant workers, compelled - by economic deprivation in their home countries - to seek better life opportunities abroad, especially in agriculture, construction and domestic work. Such labour migration is sometimes legal and well managed, but sometimes not so – with migrant workers frequently threatened or coerced into entering debt bondage arrangements and ending up working in forced labour situations producing goods for illicit markets. This book fills a substantial gap in the existing literature given that labour trafficking is a much more subtle form of exploitation than sex trafficking. It discusses how far large multinational corporations are involved, whether intentionally or unintentionally, in human trafficking for the purposes of labour exploitation. They explore how far corporations are driven to seek cheap labour by the need to remain commercially competitive and examine how the problem often lies with corporations’ subcontractors, who are not as well controlled as they might be. The essays in the volume also outline and assess measures being taken by governments and international agencies to eradicate the problem.

Combating trafficking in human beings (THB) for labor exploitation requires additional skills, knowledge, and awareness for effective investigation and prosecution, and for the identification and assistance of victims of this form of THB. Actors other than the police and the prosecution services (such as labor inspectorates, social investigation services, and municipalities) have also become involved in these activities. It is unclear which role these actors can have in identifying victims and in investigating and prosecuting (cross-border) THB for labor exploitation and which improvements are needed. They are often unfamiliar with, for instance, the specific needs of victims, how trafficking networks operate, and how to cooperate with colleagues abroad. These problems obviously hamper the combating of THB for labor exploitation. In addition, difficulties in defining THB for labor exploitation still exist. Labor exploitation, as such, is not a term used in the Palermo Protocol or the EU Directive on Preventing and Combating THB and Protecting Victims. One can say that labor exploitation includes, at least, forced and compulsory labor and services, slavery, and slavery-like practices, although this does not solve the problems encountered in defining the crime. In this book, these and other problems, as well as the challenges of dealing with these problems, are identified. It includes research in five countries (Austria, The Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, and Spain), research on the EU legal framework, an analysis of the country studies, as well as four articles reflecting on these problems.

In recent decades the international community has focused its attention on trafficking in persons, one of the most worrying phenomena of the 21st century. In Part I, this book examines trafficking in persons in the light of the recent definition of the phenomenon given by the UN Trafficking Protocol, and various other international legal instruments including treaties and 'soft law'. It analyses trafficking causes and consequences, and the most common forms of exploitation related to it. Part II reviews the most important international conventions against slavery and the slave trade, and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. It also analyses the most important policy documents setting the basic standards of protection for trafficked victims - namely the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights' Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking - and comments on the extension of the jus cogens principle of international law that prohibits slavery, to argue that trafficking in persons ought rightly to be considered a part of it. Part III deals with the Council of Europe and the European Union, and their fight against trafficking in people, arguing that the focus has been placed mistakenly on the prosecution of traffickers rather than on the protection of trafficked victims. The book concludes with a recommendation to shift towards a more balanced approach to trafficking in persons, and the overriding need to conduct further research on specific issues related to the spread of trafficking and the exploitation of its victims.

This edited volume examines contemporary global discourses on trafficking, forced labor and modern slavery from a variety of perspectives.

Combating trafficking in human beings (THB) for labor exploitation requires additional skills, knowledge, and awareness for effective investigation and prosecution, and for the identification and assistance of victims of this form of THB. Actors other than the police and the prosecution services (such as labor inspectorates, social investigation services, and municipalities) have also become involved in these activities. It is unclear which role these actors can have in identifying victims and in investigating and prosecuting (cross-border) THB for labor exploitation and which improvements are needed. They are often unfamiliar with, for instance, the specific needs of victims, how trafficking networks operate, and how to cooperate with colleagues abroad. These problems obviously hamper the combating of THB for labor exploitation. In addition, difficulties in defining THB for labor exploitation still exist. Labor exploitation, as such, is not a term used in the Palermo Protocol or the EU Directive on Preventing and Combating THB and Protecting Victims. One can say that labor exploitation includes, at least, forced and compulsory labor and services, slavery, and slavery-like practices, although this does not solve the problems encountered in defining the crime. In this book, these and other problems, as well as the challenges of dealing with these problems, are identified. It includes research in five countries (Austria, The Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, and Spain), research on the EU legal framework, an analysis of the country studies, as well as four articles reflecting on these problems.