Human trafficking and labor exploitation: Toward identifying, implementing, and evaluating effective responses

Abstract

In an Editorial, Ligia Kiss and Cathy Zimmerman discuss the need for research on the prevention of human trafficking and mitigation of its effects.

Challenges to pre-migration interventions to prevent human trafficking: Results from a before-and-after learning assessment of training for prospective female migrants in Odisha, India

“…Women may have minimal levels of control over household decisions or migration decision making with agents and when they reach employers, their welfare and wellbeing is often entirely dependent on them. Employers’ rights will generally dominate the rights of domestic workers because of social norms and weak implementation of legislation, where it exists, which means that domestic workers will have few avenues to assert new knowledge in a power relationship that widens as women progress along the path of migration [ 7 ].…”

“…Awareness-raising activities operate under the programmatic assumption that if individuals are equipped with knowledge about risks, labour and migration regulations and documentation and their rights, they will be safer during migration and at work [ 6 ]. However, recent calls for better evidence and evaluation of interventions to prevent exploitation have suggested the multi-dimensional nature of the risks of human trafficking beyond individual knowledge and behaviour [ 7 ].…”

Combatting Human Trafficking since Palermo: What Do We Know about What Works?

“…Alongside this, and for prevention projects, in particular, there is also a need to expand understanding of human trafficking to assess the myriad of contextual factors and underlying systems that combine to cause human trafficking. For example, any impact assessments of labor trafficking projects should look at labor migration policies, social protections, and transparent labor recruitment methods (Kiss & Zimmerman, 2019). This also requires a change in donor behavior to prioritize robust evaluation and see impact evaluation as a tool to assess these broader interventions.…”

An Epidemiological Perspective on Labor Trafficking

“…The complex interplay of social, economic, political, and cultural factors that give rise to labor trafficking demands such a comprehensive approach to developing effective interventions (U.S. State Dept, 2009). To begin the "second generation" of anti-trafficking responses, there is a need for a systematic, integrated approach across the migration pathway (Kiss & Zimmerman, 2019) and human trafficking supply chain (Kammer-Kerwick et al, 2018) that "addresses structural conditions in addition to individual-level behaviors and risks" (Kiss & Zimmerman, 2019, p. 2). At the same time, attention should also be paid to the conditions surrounding the "demand chain" for cheap labor that drives exploiters to engage in illicit recruitment, or to carry out employment under working conditions that are below statutory standards (Cyrus & Vogel, 2015).…”

“…Structural violence is closely linked to injustice and is often economically driven, as in the case of labor trafficking, through the increasing power of corporations and governance structures that favor businesses or employers over workers' rights (Kiss & Zimmerman, 2019). These forms of structural violence are in part the result of ideas and practices in the global economy embraced by governments and corporations, such as trends of deregulation, risk transfer and cost reduction measures, and the rise of a consumer society characterized by cheaply produced and readily available products (Abel & Kunz, 2018).…”