Labour Migration Human Trafficking And Multinational Corporations

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.

Since the signing of the UN Trafficking Protocol, anti-trafficking laws, policies and other initiatives have been implemented at the local, national and regional levels. These activities have received little scholarly attention. This volume aims to begin to fill this gap by documenting the micro-processes through which an anti-trafficking framework has been translated, implemented and resisted in mainland and island Southeast Asia. The detailed ethnographic accounts in this collection examine the everyday practices of the diverse range of actors involved in trafficking-like practices and in anti-trafficking initiatives. In demonstrating how the anti-trafficking framework has become influential – and even over-determining – in some border sites and yet remains mostly irrelevant in others, the chapters in this collection explore the complex connections between labour migration, migrant smuggling and human trafficking.

Migration has become business, big business. Over the last few decades a host of new business opportunities have emerged that capitalize both on the migrants’ desires to migrate and the struggle by governments to manage migration. From the rapid growth of specialized transportation and labour immigration companies, to multinational companies managing detention centres or establishing border security, to the organized criminal networks profiting from human smuggling and trafficking, we are currently witnessing a growing commercialization of international migration. This volume claims that today it is almost impossible to speak of migration without also speaking of the migration industry. Yet, acknowledging the role the migration industry plays prompts a number of questions that have so far received only limited attention among scholars and policy makers. The book offers new concepts and theory for the study of international migration by bringing together cross-disciplinary theoretical explorations and original case studies. It also provides a global coverage of the phenomena under study, covering migrant destinations in Europe, the United States and Asia, and migrant sending regions in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The business of labour migration intermediation has existed as long as people traded and migrated across territories, countries and continents. Recent technological innovations and the global expansion of production and trade have led to an unprecedented increase in international labour migration, providing a fertile ground for labour migration intermediaries. As many recipient countries have created high entry barriers, especially for low-skilled workers, migrants are often at the mercy of informal recruiters. In the worst case, they end up in the clutches of unscrupulous smugglers and traffickers. The growing trend towards informal labour migration intermediation creates regulatory challenges, which are discussed in the book. Which regulatory regimes are best suited to formalize the migration intermediation business, and to protect migrants from exploitation and abuse? Under what conditions will they most likely occur? The study uses a mix of qualitative methods, including a comparative analysis of the regulation of labour migration intermediaries in the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation. In both countries, international standards, particularly on human trafficking and private employment agencies, guided regulatory initiatives. Their outcomes, however, depended on a range of factors, including the creation of alliances between business and workers.

Globalization, the economic crisis and related policies of austerity have led to a growth in extreme exploitation at work, with migrants particularly vulnerable. This book explores the lives of the growing numbers of severely exploited labourers in the world today, questioning how we can respond to such globalized patterns of extreme inequality.

In A Transnational Human Rights Approach to Human Trafficking, Yoon Jin Shin proposes an innovative and comprehensive human rights framework to human trafficking, to empower victimized individuals as rights-holders, overcoming the current regime’s state-interest-driven border and crime control approach.

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.

In exploring ways to prevent trafficking, the International Labour Organization-International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (ILO-IPEC) in Bangkok, through the Mekong Sub-regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women (TICW), is looking to reduce demand for those in labour exploitation. The study will focus on four labour sectors in - fisheries and fish processing, manufacturing (small to medium-sized firms), domestic work and agriculture. The research results, which will be available in 2006, will help inform appropriate policy and programme interventions involving employers and workers organizations as well as governments.