read those articles and answer the question.(3 double-spaced pages)
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GTFall2020Oct12lecture.pptxGlobal Trafficking Fall 2020
October 12 2020
Is Human Trafficking “Modern-Day Slavery?”
Discussion Board Posts – Week 1
A big thank you to Arleth, Anam, Jiguang, Qiujing, and Lihao for a VERY strong start to our discussion board this quarter.
Excellent grasp of the course material + analysis of widespread misconceptions in light of it–already :-)
Read these posts to recap last week’s lectures!
My replies have some links that might be of interest to some of you.
Today we will go over
O’Connell Davidson Article + connections to last week (trafficking and migration-Chacon).
Background: Use of “Modern-Day Slavery” in anti-trafficking discourse.
Main Issue/Questions: What does it mean to call Human Trafficking “Modern-Day Slavery?” What historical trajectories and concerns shape this analogy?
Kevin Bales video + discussion questions to think about in light of what we have covered so far.
Today’s Article
O’Connell Davidson, Julia (2006). Will the Real Sex Slave Please Stand Up? Feminist Review 83: 4-22.
Julia O’Connell Davidson
Previously Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham (UK)
Now Professor of Social Research, University of Bristol (UK)
Research interests: human rights, childhood, sex work, trafficking, slavery, labor, migration.
Main Point 1: Connections to Chacon Article from last week
Neither “Trafficking” nor “slavery” exist as isolated phenomena. Both are part of a spectrum of migration and labor experiences.
O’Connell Davidson makes similar arguments but mostly in the context of the UK and sex trafficking.
Quick Recap from Chacon
How the clear legal distinction between trafficking and smuggling (not so clear in actual experience) has led to only a limited subset of exploited migrants being assisted under the US TVPA.
The distinction between a legally protected trafficking victim and a criminally smuggled undocumented worker effectively turns not on the conditions of the person's employment, but on the "voluntariness" with which they entered into the employment arrangement.
Main point 1: Connections to Chacon
Just like the policy assumption that trafficking and smuggling are completely different with no overlap, there is an assumption of a clear line between “slavery” and free wage labor.
P. 6-7: Kevin Bales assumes that “modern-day” slavery is completely different from other forms of oppression and labor exploitation.
Quote from Bales, p. 7: "Having just enough money to get by, receiving wages that barely keep you alive, may be called wage slavery, but it is not slavery.”
For those using “modern slavery” language, the difference between slavery and wage labor is that slavery is about total control of a person for economic exploitation. p. 7: complicates the rigid contrast between “total control” and “choice.”
Why make these distinctions? Why this search for the most severe, most horrific, least “regular” forms of exploitation?
p. 10, “The line dividing forced labor from extremely poor working conditions can at times be very difficult to distinguish.”
Along a spectrum or continuum
Exploited Wage Labor
Labor
Slavery
Smuggling
Migration
Trafficking
It is not always easy or possible to draw a line between ‘trafficked’ and ‘not trafficked but just-the-regular-kind-of exploitation’ migrants?
The package of violations covered by the UN definition of trafficking: Violence, confinement, coercion, deception and exploitation can and do occur within both legally regulated and irregular systems of work, and within legal and illegal systems of migration.
Source (not assigned): Bridget Anderson and Rutvica Andrijasevic (2008). Sex, Slaves and Citizens: the Politics of Anti-Trafficking. Soundings 40: 135-145
Elaboration of this point
Situating Davidson’s point in a broader context
In experience (as against rigid legal categories) the legal and illegal, victim and criminal are not so easily distinguished in the context of transnational migration.
Those whom otherwise punitive immigration regimes would regard as deportable can be designated victims of trafficking, gender violence or illness (Brennan 2014; Ticktin 2011).
Those initially rescued as victims of trafficking may be adjudged illegal immigrants (O’Connell Davidson 2006:16).
Main Point 2.
Given the attention and resources devoted to the problem, why is it that the number of people who have been identified and assisted as ‘victims of trafficking’ (VoTs) is so small?
Read in detail P. 5-6: 2003 in London: Out of approx. 300 “immigration offenders” who were arrested, only 4-5 were identified as VoTs. The rest were deported as “illegal immigrants.”
See another similar example discussed on p. 16.
How do police and immigration officials in the UK determine who is or isn’t a victim of trafficking?
Looking for a very specific constellation of abuses: illegal immigration was facilitated by someone + prostitution forced by means of physical violence or its threat + plus false imprisonment.
Threshold of victimhood is set very high: Physical suffering is the litmus test to sort VoTs from undocumented migrants working in the sex sector.
It is assumed that where there is no evidence of this type of physical assault, no rights violations have taken place.
See the views reported on p. 15-16.
Main Point 3
Spectrum of employment relationships and working conditions in the sex industry in London (primarily Soho’s walk-up brothels).
O’Connell Davidson provides 3 examples, read on p. 11-13.
Sex Trafficking situation.
Exploitative work conditions and relationships.
Relatively good work conditions, relationships, and earning opportunities.
Far from representing a step forward in terms of securing rights and protections for those who are subject to exploitative employment relations and poor working conditions in the trade sex, the current policy emphasis on sex slaves and VoTs limits the state’s obligations towards them.
O’Connell Davidson, p. 20.
Wrapping up the argument
“
”
Frequent use of the language of “modern-day slavery” to describe human trafficking today
In anti-trafficking activism, policies, documentaries, media coverage, etc.
This is especially the case in U.S. policy and media.
NGOs like Free the Slaves, Walk Free, Not For Sale, and media campaigns like CNN Freedom Project often refer to contemporary forms of human trafficking as “modern-day slavery.”
This year is the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. The movement led by British parliamentarian William Wilberfoce took decades to succeed...Nothing less is required today of every nation taking up the contemporary challenge to eliminate human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery.
U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report 2007, p. 6.
An example of how human trafficking is termed “modern-day slavery” in policy documents.
“
”
TIP Report 2010 – Compares Transatlantic slavery with bonded labor in India
A Bill of Sale dated 1819 documents the receipt of $400 in exchange for a “Negro man named Willoby aged twenty years….to be a Slave for Life agreeable to the laws of Virginia.”
“A 2007 official release certificate confirms that a 52-year-old Indian man “has been found to be a bonded labourer against his wishes and forced to work against reasonable wages….in order to extinguish the debt, under physical threat to his life.” The certificate declares the man free from all obligations and debt liabilities and directs his previous employer “not to suppress or intimidate the released bonded laborer or his family members.”
Documentaries and media coverage: Images from last week + more
National Geographic documentary directed by Lisa Ling
Meena’s story features in Nicholas Kristof’s reports, his co-authored book “Half the Sky,” and a 2014 film directed by Lucy Liu.
The issue is all over new media, too.
http://podcast.co.uk/how-stuff-works-how-human-trafficking-works/
Explaining the analogy between trafficking and “Modern-Day Slavery”
Authors referenced (not assigned): Short pieces from Open Democracy online platform and “short courses” series on Beyond Trafficking and Slavery.
Karen Bravo, Transatlantic Slavery and Contemporary Human Trafficking.
Laura Lammasniemi, “White Slavery”: the origins of the anti-trafficking movement.
Janie Chuang, The Challenges and Perils of reframing trafficking as “modern-day slavery.”
Tryon P. Woods, The antiblackness of modern-day slavery abolitionism.
What are the two main historical referents here?
Details fro Lammasniemi
22
The transatlantic slave trade – the transport of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic ocean from Africa to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th century.
“White slavery” – 19th century panic about virtuous and victimized white women, criminal foreign men, and border control. Concerns around “sex slaves” are especially powerful due to this analogy.
Why is the “slavery” referent so powerful?
Emotional exhortation to action: the slavery frame has helped ignite outrage and galvanized political support for the issue of human trafficking.
“Slavery imagery is used to distill the complex phenomenon of trafficking into a simple narrative of crime perpetrated by evil individuals and organizations, and suffered by victims who (like 18th century trans-Atlantic slaves) must have been kinapped or otherwise brought to the destination countries against their will. Depicting slavery as the product of individual deviant behavior, modern-day slavery abolitionism creates a simple moral imperative with enormous popular appeal.” (Chuang short article-not assigned).
Those who were enslaved and victimized came from certain ethnic and racial groups and geographical loctions that bore the brunt of the victimization. To some extent, that continues to be the case with human trafficking, but we will complicate this.
Some structural similarities between slavery and trafficking (Karen Bravo: not assigned):
Similar economic rationales and incentive structures + participation of ‘legitimate’ enterprises and institutions
What are the flaws and harms in using this terminology?
Historical Slavery Was Legal; Human Trafficking Is Not.
U.S. Mantle of Righteousness “after” perpetrating transatlantic slavery: the modern traffic in humans is presented as an aberration in our enlightened times (Karen Bravo: not assigned).
Tryon P. Woods (not assigned): Abolitionism against racial slavery showed us how ‘rescue’ movements are always self-referential: they aim at the salvation of the rescuer, not the rescued. Think about this when watching Kevin Bales’ video!
Diminishes the horror of transatlantic slavery. Denial of continued racial legacies of slavery (more on Wednesday).
What about solidarity with those battling racism, racial violence, conditions of work under capitalism, and other enduring legacies of transatlantic slavery?
Concerns around certain kinds of bodies and victims to the exclusion of others.
Due to focus on most “severe” cases, emphasis on punishing the enslavers and rescuing innocent victims, rather than structural solutions.
More on Wednesday (Janie Chuang longer article).
Details in notes
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Kevin Bales: author, speaker, and activist
Refers to forced labor and trafficking situations as “new” slavery.
First book (1999) discusses: brick kilns in Pakistan and brothels in Thailand, labor conditions in Mauritania, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, and India.
Second book (2007) Recalling his own involvement in the antislavery movement, he recounts a personal journey in search of the solution and explains how governments and citizens can build a world without slavery.
Several more books/ speeches: Link to Bales’ website: http://www.kevinbales.net/books.html
Watch Video: Ted Talk by Kevin Bales
Recap main points about Bales from O’Connell Davidson reading before watching.
Watch till about the 17:45 mark.
Questions to think about for discussion board this week
Read the next two slides carefully.
Discussion Questions for Discussion Board
Some discussion questions are being posted today (see next slide).
More will be posted after Wed lecture.
You can use these questions to frame your response, but:
You don’t have to answer all of them! Pick some/ a combination of them. Remember the required length is not more than a paragraph!
Those who are assigned to post for this week can choose to respond to either Monday’s or Wednesday’s lecture/ discussion questions, or both.
You don’t have to stick to these questions.
Write about what sparked your interest, rather than trying to summarize or cover everything.
Questions to think about for discussion board
I. First think about:
How does Bales describe slavery?
What are some of the ways in which Bales talks about the conditions he describes as “slavery” and the people he describes as “slaves?”
What images and stories does he use?
Where does he locate slavery – i.e. which places does he talk about? Which countries? Which populations? Where does he not locate slavery?
In what ways does he reference the trans-Atlantic slave trade?
What we have covered last week and this week about why the most severe forms of exploitation seem to get the most attention and empathy.
Main points about Bales from O’Connell Davidson.
II. Based on the first set of points, think about:
What aspects of his talk did you find powerful, and why?
But try to think about your response self-critically.
In light of what we have covered so far in class, what aspects of his talk did you find problematic, and why?
What could be gained or lost if he focused on a broader range of labor exploitation rather than what he terms slavery?
Assignment Reminders
Deadlines Coming Up
Assigned Discussion Board Posts start this week
The first group of students will be posting assigned discussion posts this week, for which they’ll be graded.
Anyone else in the class is welcome and encouraged to post, but won’t be graded if they were not assigned to post this week.
Make sure you know which week you are assigned to post!
Remember the deadline is Sunday 11:59 p.m., grace period till Monday 9 a.m.
Participation Assignments: Short, Quick and Easy: Deadline coming up!
Remote Learning Accessibility Survey (full points just for doing it)
Introduce Yourself Discussion Board (full points just for doing it)
Syllabus Quiz (multiple attempts allowed)
1 and 2 are worth 5 points each. 3 is worth 10 points.
Deadline: Sunday Oct. 18 11:59 p.m.
Please complete these assignments as soon as possible. The deadline is mainly to accommodate those adding the class late.
