Based on long-term ethnographic research, including documentary research, qualitative interviews and observations made at a Portuguese shelter for “sex trafficked women,” this paper explores the counter-trafficking apparatus questioning who benefits from it. The discussion explores the contrasts between an institutional commitment to constructing this apparatus and the actuality of procedural efforts purporting to support “trafficking victims.” The author argues that the higher goal of building a countertrafficking apparatus — in itself a political objective — limits the rights of “victims,” making processes that claim to be part of their protection de facto neo-liberal anti-political exercises in reenforcing bureaucratic state power.
This report presents a summary of findings from two case studies conducted in Burma on the intersection of labor, environmental, and social risk in the cultivation of bananas and informal logging in northern Burma. These case studies were conducted ...Read More
Workers on tea plantations in the Assam region of India are systematically denied their rights to a living wage and decent working and living conditions. The fact that they are unable to meet their basic living costs is starkly illustrated by our fi...Read More
A report by Human Rights Watch on labor exploitation and trafficking of children in tobacco farms in Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina. Children on tobacco farms face severe health and safety risks, including accute nicotine poisoning, c...Read More
Australia needs a “Modern Slavery Act” that addresses three issues as a priority: Anti-Slavery Commissioner - appointment of an Anti-Slavery Commissioner to provide independent oversight, with powers to monitor laws and hold business and th...Read More
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