Closing the Accountability Gap in Corporate Supply Chains for Violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-489
Author(s):  
Jennifer GREEN
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Legal Enforcement ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Trafficking Victims ◽  
Accountability Gap

AbstractOver 40 million people around the world are victims of modern forms of slavery: forced labour and human trafficking. People are tricked into working under onerous conditions, and unable to leave or return home due to physical, psychological or financial coercion, and many of these trafficking victims produce goods for United States (US) and other multinational corporations that profit by relying on the lower wages earned by workers in their global supply chains. Well-developed legal standards prohibit these practices, and governments, intergovernmental organizations, business associations and non-governmental organizations have developed mechanisms to prevent, detect and provide redress to victims. Some businesses lead or comply with the standards and enforcement mechanisms, but too many do not. US law offers a powerful but under-utilized tool to address trafficking: the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), which imposes civil liability on those who ‘knew or should have known’ about forced labour or human trafficking in their corporate ventures. Unfortunately, courts have ignored or misinterpreted this standard, at times confusing civil and criminal provisions of the statute. Correct and vigorous legal enforcement is key to addressing the accountability gap between the well-developed standards and the continuing use of forced labour and human trafficking. This article is the first to demonstrate that, with regard to the TVPRA standard, corporations have long been on notice of both the obligation to effectively monitor labour conditions and the mechanisms that would accomplish that task. US courts must enforce the ‘knew or should have known’ standard to protect workers – the most vulnerable people in the supply chain – and to prevent an unfair competitive advantage over companies that have established compliance programmes that actually prevent and punish human trafficking and forced labour.

scholarly journals VICTIMS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN THE SYSTEM OF SUPPORT AND PROTECTION IN SLOVAKIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 601-608
Author(s):  
Magdaléna Horáková ◽  
Barbara Pavlíková
Keyword(s):  
Case Management ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
Successful Solution ◽  
Common Purpose ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Trafficking Victims ◽  
Social Work Program ◽  
A Current

Introduction: Studies aimed at supporting or protecting victims of human trafficking are rare, although this is a current issue with global overlap. The aim of this work is to identify the specifics of the victims who use the services of organizations under the Program for Support and Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking in Slovakia.Methods: This research study was conducted using the method of content analysis of interviews with workers of organizations providing services under the Program for Support and Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking in Slovakia and documents issued by the Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak Republic (MoI SR) in 2010-2017.Results: 210 victims of human trafficking included in the Program for Support and Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking were identified in the monitored period - 111 women and 99 men. From the perspective of origin, the area of the Eastern Slovakia was most prevalent. The demographic environment (village, district town, municipal city) did not play a significant role. The most common purpose of human trafficking was sexual exploitation and forced labour. There is no systematic approach in addressing the issue.Conclusion: The creation of a pilot field social work program for victims of human trafficking using case management would help take into account the specificities of human trafficking victims. The program would allow for coordinating the services that might provide a solution to the problem of a trafficked person  At the same time, by using case management, we can prevent the provision of the same services to the client by several organizations and increase the likelihood of a successful solution to the client´s situation and work efficiency.

Rising Waters, Rising Threats: The Human Trafficking of Indigenous Women in the Circumpolar Region of the United States and Canada

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 162-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Sweet
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Close Monitoring ◽  
Sex Trade ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Trafficking Victims

Among indigenous people around the world, human trafficking is taking a tremendous toll. While trafficking is not an exclusively indigenous issue, disproportionately large numbers of indigenous people, particularly women, are modern trafficking victims. In Canada, several groups concerned about human trafficking have conducted studies primarily focused on the sex trade because many sex workers are actually trafficking victims under both domestic and international legal standards. These studies found that First Nations women and youth represent between 70 and 90% of the visible sex trade in areas where the Aboriginal population is less than 10%. Very few comparable studies have been conducted in the United States, but studies in both Minnesota and Alaska found similar statistics among U.S. indigenous women. With the current interest in resource extraction, and other opportunities in the warming Arctic, people from outside regions are traveling north in growing numbers. This rise in outside interactions increases the risk that the indigenous women may be trafficked. Recent crime reports from areas that have had an influx of outsiders such as Williston, North Dakota, U.S. and Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, both part of the new oil boom, demonstrate the potential risks that any group faces when people with no community accountability enter an area. The combination of development in rural locations, the demographic shift of outsiders moving to the north, and the lack of close monitoring in this circumpolar area is a potential recipe for disaster for indigenous women in the region. This paper suggests that in order to protect indigenous women, countries and indigenous nations must acknowledge this risk and plan for ways to mitigate risk factors.

scholarly journals Barking Up the Right Tree? NGOs and Corporate Power for Deforestation-Free Supply Chains

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 3869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Kathrin Weber ◽  
Lena Partzsch
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Research Participant ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Natural Resource Governance ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Right

: Supply chain sustainability has become a key issue for multinational corporations (MNCs). Hundreds of MNCs in agri-commodity sectors have recently committed to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. In this article, we examine the power of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participating in two initiatives that support the implementation of such commitments: the Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) and Transparency for Sustainable Economies (Trase). Drawing on document and literature research, participant observation as well as semi-structured interviews, we find that these NGOs exercise power with MNCs, in particular in terms of raising awareness and changing corporate self-perceptions. At the same time, though, there is a bias towards representing the positions and interests of materially strong actors in global supply chains. In doing so, NGOs risk reinforcing MNCs’ power over more marginalized actors. In this light, we argue that initiatives such as AFi and Trase can only be a first step towards a new economic system that respects ecological limits and delivers social justice. In order to shape transformative change, NGOs need to more actively push discussions about equitable distribution, emancipation and justice in natural resource governance.

scholarly journals Perceptions of Governmental and Nongovernmental Actors of Human Trafficking Victims: The Case of Vietnam

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oanh Nguyen ◽  
Toi Le
Keyword(s):  
High Education ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Sex Tourism ◽  
Education Levels ◽  
Organ Removal ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Trafficking Victims ◽  
Study Sites ◽  
Depth Interviews

This article explores how governmental and nongovernmental actors perceive victims of human trafficking in Vietnam. This research utilises a qualitative design, drawing on data from 30 in-depth interviews with police officials from eight study sites and two nongovernmental organisations. Findings identify that some victims of human trafficking do not fit the traditional victim images of this crime, including trafficked men for sex tourism, forced labour, organ removal, sex workers, migrants in search of seasonal employment and girls with high education levels. Implications for policies and practice are suggested from these findings.

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

2021 ◽  
pp. 135050682110207
Author(s):  
Rutvica Andrijasevic
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Sex Work ◽  
Social Reproduction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
Separate Treatment ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Sexual Commerce

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.

Measuring the Hidden Numbers of Human Trafficking Through Multiple Systems Estimation: Lessons Learned and Challenges Outstanding

2021 ◽  
pp. 001112872098719
Author(s):  
Davina Durgana ◽  
Jan van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Multiple Systems ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Prevalence Estimates ◽  
Trafficking Victims ◽  
Developed Nations ◽  
Further Development

This article takes stock of studies conducted in eight countries to estimate the prevalence of human trafficking by employing the technique of Multiple Systems Estimation on data on victims of human trafficking recorded by state and non-state institutions. It presents an overview of MSE-based prevalence estimates of human trafficking victims per 100,000 inhabitants of these countries, disaggregated by type of exploitation, gender, and age. For some countries it also presents the different likelihoods of various sub-categories of trafficking victims, such as minors and migrant workers, to be detected by authorities and/or NGOs. Next, the article recounts what these studies have taught us about the suitability of applying MSE on existing multi-source databases to estimate the prevalence of trafficking victimization. The article concludes with a discussion on the promises and limitations of MSE and its prospects for further development, especially among developed nations.

International Labor Organization

1952 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-306
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Forced Labor ◽  
Labor Organization ◽  
International Labor Organization ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Council Decision ◽  
International Labor ◽  
Forced Labour

The ad hoc Committee on Forced Labor which was established jointly by the United Nations and the International Labor Organization, pursuant to an Economic and Social Council decision of March 1951,1 held its first session in Geneva from October 8 to 27, 1951.3 The committee, composed of Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar (India, chairman), Paal Berg (Norway) and F. F. Palavicini (Mexico), issued an invitation to all non-governmental organizations to supply it with documentary material and information. The committee reported that it would have to investigate “all the laws and regulations of the various states which might illustrate the different systems of forced labour employed in those States”, adding that it might also have to investigate existing administrative practices which enable forced labor to be put into effect. At its next session, scheduled to be held at New York from May 26 to July 3, 1952, the committee was to examine the replies of governments to its questionnaire, as well as hear and question the representatives of interested non-governmental organizations.

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