The Modern Slave Trade
The modern slave trade is a grave human rights abuse that threatens the social, political, and economic stability of all nations. It promotes the disintegration of families and communities, fuels organized crime, depletes countries’ human capital reserves, undermines public health, and creates opportunities for extortion and subversion among government officials (Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice www.nij.gov/topics/crime/human-trafficking.)
The United Nations defines human trafficking as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation.” (UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CTOC/index.html.) This definition has been adopted across several countries, including the United States.1
While trafficked victims are primarily women and children, the widening wealth gap between industrialized countries in the global north and lesser-developed countries in the global south has created a class of “economic refugees” as persons who are forced to leave their countries of residence to find work. Economic refugees often travel in irregular migration status, which makes them vulnerable to forced labor and other forms of human commoditization across industry sectors.
