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Human trafficking has grabbed the headlines around the world but what is human trafficking and what is its relationship to forced labor, debt bondage and slavery? Has the focus on human trafficking and particularly trafficking into forced prostitution, undermined or marginalized efforts to address forced labor, debt bondage and slavery? The answer to the first question is that, although they are interconnected, they are not the same in international law or in practice, which has led to much confusion and misinformation. The answer to the second question is yes, global mobilization to counter 'trafficking' has diverted attention away from the great number of persons who are in forced labor, debt bondage and slavery but who were not trafficked into these situations. So, the purpose of this paper is to provide some conceptual clarity to the current confused state and to issue a call for governments and civil society to address the human rights abuses suffered by victims of all of these crimes.

ABSTRACTThe modern‐slavery paradigm promotes analogies between contemporary trafficking and the transatlantic, white, and indigenous slave trade. The analogy some scholars use to address debt bondage in past and present Southeast Asia prompted me to consider the hypothesis that the debts incurred by Vietnamese sex workers with moneylenders, procurers, and migration brokers are a remnant of indigenous slavery. However, the ethnographic and legalistic study of debt in the Vietnamese sex sector across Southeast Asia in relation to debt‐bondage traditions provides limited support to the transhistorical thesis. Nonetheless, it throws light on the creditor–debtor relationship and shows that sex workers need credit to finance production and social reproduction in a region undergoing rapid capitalist development, and that because of their exclusion from financial, labor, and labor migration markets, they access it through personalized arrangements that generate strong obligations and dependencies with the potential for restrictions of freedom, in a social structure that promotes patronage, vertical bonding, and dependency. [debt, (modern) slavery, trafficking, sex work, migration, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore]

AbstractThis article examines the survival strategies of forestry workers and craftspeople in the late Ottoman Empire. Through the example of the Tahtacı, a semi-nomadic community specialized in lumbering in the forests along the western and southern coasts of Anatolia, it visualizes the adaptation strategies of forestry labourers in the changing economic and ecological environment of the Mediterranean Basin, which became warmer, less forested, and more integrated into regional and global markets after the mid-nineteenth century. Contrary to the generally accepted view that perceives the Tahtacı as a self-isolated, authentic clan with a static way of life, this article considers them a highly adaptive community that developed a wide range of strategies to earn their livelihood under intense commercialization in forestry and agriculture.

In this paper, we deal with one form of bonded labour generating under the brokerage system. We have led a qualitative survey in a small village of South India to study the phenomenon of brokerage. In this village, labourers are seasonal migrants who in order to migrate, take advance from brokers. The village is characterised by a high number of brokers who are in competition to attract labourers to their team. In this environment, labourers have the bargaining power to demand high amount of advance. Therefore, brokers bond them in order to reduce their bargaining power and to avoid competition.

PurposeThe concept of social capital has known unrelenting success over recent years. However, some ambiguities continue to surround the topic. Several authors have spelled out the link between social capital and trust, but there has been limited empirical analysis focusing on the creation of trust and the ensuing link with social capital. The purport of this article is to carry out such an analysis.Design/methodology/approachThe article presents some results of a research led in the brick kiln industry in the State of Tamil Nadu, India. The research was based on a qualitative and quantitative survey. The study analyses the dependency relationship between labourers/middlemen.FindingsThe article shows that all the actors involved in the brick kiln industry are linked to one another by the middlemen.Originality/valueThe study brings forward the role of trust in the make‐up of networks and the negative effects that its absence leads to in the structure of networks.

The article highlights some of our findings from a study carried out in the brick kiln industry in Tamil Nadu, India. We have led both a qualitative and a quantitative survey. As child labour is a common factor in the brick kiln industry, we show that in the interlinked credit-labour market employers do not directly employ children, but they have implemented a system that constrains parents to use their children to improve their productivity. In such an environment parents use child labour to improve their bargaining power.

"Migrant workers usually arrive in the Arab Gulf States with contracts valid for a period of two years, or sometimes up to four years. They are supposed to leave the country immediately after the expiration of their contracts if not renewed or extended. Regulations in the framework of the kafala system tie temporary contract labourers closely to their local employers, who are legally and economically responsible for them during their stay, and often control their mobility and ability to leave the country or change employers.; This chapter examines the main aspects and legal frameworks of the kafala system, and the recruitment policies and practices for labour migration to the Arab Gulf until the year 2016. Focussing on the UAE and Qatar and the findings of ethnographic fieldwork conducted 2014 in Dubai and Doha, it explores official recruitment practices, as well as perspectives of migrants and employers. The chapter illustrates illegal practices, which employers, recruitment agencies, labour brokers, and intermediaries have developed to circumvent certain provisions of both sending and receiving countries in order to generate additional profits out of migration processes. I will show that the kafala regulations cannot be assessed in general as a system of bonded labour, but that especially low-income Asian labour migrants often end up in situations of debt-bondage. This is particularly the case when they fall victim to deceptive recruitment, contract frauds or illegal visa trading." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku) ((en))

This Article examines the constitutionality of statutes which allow courts to transfer outstanding legal financial obligations to private debt collection agencies. In Washington State, the clerk of courts can transfer the legal financial obligation of a formerly incarcerated person if he or she is only thirty days late making a payment. Upon transfer, the debt collection agencies can assess a "collection fee" of up to 50% of the first $100.000 of the unpaid legal financial obligation, and up to 35% of the unpaid debt over $100,000. This fee becomes part of the LFO debt imposed at sentencing, and like that debt, must also be paid in full. Interest accrues at 12% per annum, there is no account for a LFO debtor's indigence or ability to pay, and the collection fee is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Not only do these collection fees further consign a formerly incarcerated person to a lifetime of poverty and exacerbate already-severe barriers to community re-entry, but they increase the risks for re-arrest and re-incarceration. Equally troubling is that these fees extend the time during which an ex-offender is tethered to the criminal justice system. This Article argues that Washington State's collection agency referral law, and similar laws in other states, may violate constitutional due process and excessive fine edicts.