Forced labour in supply chains: Rolling back the debate on gender, migration and sexual commerce

Abstract

This article makes a conceptual contribution to the broader literature on unfree labour by challenging the separate treatment of sexual and industrial labour exploitation both by researchers and in law and policy. This article argues that the prevailing focus of the supply chain literature on industrial labour has inadvertently posited sexual labour as the ‘other’ of industrial labour thus obfuscating how the legal blurring of boundaries between industrial and service labour is engendering new modalities of the erosion of workers’ rights that are increasingly resembling those typical of sex work. This article advances the debate on unfree labour both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, it highlights the relevance of social reproduction in understanding forms of labour unfreedom. Empirically, it demonstrates the similarities in forms of control and exploitation between sex work and industrial work by illustrating how debt and housing operate in both settings.

Work in the Global Economy: Editorial Introduction

“…Attempts, to uncover the heterogeneous position of labour within global production and service networks have revealed that forms of exploitation are diverse and often overlapping. Of particular interest are forms of work such as forced or unfree labour (Andrijasevic 2021, Fudge 2019, McGrath and Strauss 2015 and multiple modes of informal work (Mezzadri 2019). On some estimates, the latter accounts for 60 per cent of the world's employed population.…”

\"Puta\", \"travesti\" e \"brasiliana\": processos interseccionais de tradução e criminalização entre Brasil e Itália

“…A atuação dessa Ong católica, "Albero di Cirene", está em sintonia com discursos e debates complexos, em âmbito italiano e europeu, que moldam uma continuidade de sentido que atrela o "tratta / tráfico de pessoas"; "sfruttamento / exploração" à "prostituzione / prostituição". Muitos trabalhos têm se esforçado para desfazer esse colamento e dissipar, abordando a exploração laboral (também do trabalho sexual) conectada aos casosque são inclusive numericamente majoritáriosde homens cis que migram de países do norte da África para trabalhar em condições precárias e mal remuneradas na agricultura italiana (Andrijasevic, 2021).…”