Human trafficking is all around you. This is how it works
2,189,043 views |
Noy Thrupkaew |
TED2015
• March 2015
Behind the everyday bargains we all love -- the $10 manicure, the unlimited shrimp buffet -- is a hidden world of forced labor to keep those prices at rock bottom. Noy Thrupkaew investigates human trafficking – which flourishes in the US and Europe, as well as developing countries – and shows us the human faces behind the exploited labor that feeds global consumers.
Behind the everyday bargains we all love -- the $10 manicure, the unlimited shrimp buffet -- is a hidden world of forced labor to keep those prices at rock bottom. Noy Thrupkaew investigates human trafficking – which flourishes in the US and Europe, as well as developing countries – and shows us the human faces behind the exploited labor that feeds global consumers.
This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Call the the National Human Trafficking Resource Center’s toll-free hotline for confidential assistance.
About the speaker
Noy Thrupkaew reports on human trafficking and the economics of exploitation through the lens of labor rights.
An informative video series on anti-trafficking work from the New York Anti-Trafficking Network | Explore
Ryan Beck Turner | Christian Science Monitor, June 4, 2014 | Article
A guide to how we shouldn’t — and should — be talking about this issue
The Economist, March 14, 2015 | Article
A very good introductory three-part series on human trafficking from The Economist
Crystal DeBoise | The Hill, January 25, 2015 | Article
New York Anti-Trafficking Network, January 14, 2015 | Explore
This has a useful infographic that accompanies the previous article.
New York Anti-Trafficking Network, June 11, 2012 | Explore
Apps and websites for conscientious consumers
Greg Asbed | The Huffington Post, June 17, 2014 | Article
This is a guide for conscientious business. Please also see anti-trafficking/workers’ rights organizations section for more.
International Labour Organization, 2015 | Explore
| Book
“Dedicated to ending human rights abuses and forced labor associated with the raw materials found in products we use every day.”
| Explore
Verité provides research, training and resource development to deter abuse and promote good labor practices.
Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild | Holt Paperbacks, 2004 | Book
An excellent anthology about the women who are part of increasingly globalized and still-marginalized work sectors.
Open Democracy | Explore
This partnership between Open Democracy and international researchers yields a wealth of insightful dispatches, reports and analysis. Each month also features a special issue devoted to a central theme.
Hila Shamir | UCLA Law Review, November 6, 2012
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The following two articles, by Hila Shamir and Janie Chuang, present powerful arguments for understanding human trafficking as part of a larger continuum of general labor exploitation.
Janie A. Chuang | The American Journal of International Law, October 2014 | Article
Incisive critique of definitional slippage between the terms “human trafficking,” “modern-day slavery,” and “forced labor,” and the resulting impacts on policy.
Jennifer Lynne Musto and danah boyd | Social Politics, Summer 2015 | Article
Musto and Boyd raise urgent questions about the use of technology to combat trafficking.
Anne T. Gallagher | Cambridge University Press, 2012 | Book
Landmark text on international human-trafficking law
Jo Doezema | Zed Books, 2010 | Book
Fascinating scholarship on the framing of discourse about “trafficking in women”
Kimberly Kay Hoang and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas | Idebate Press, 2014 | Book
An edited volume featuring critical perspectives on anti-trafficking work
Laura María Agustín | Zed Books, 2007 | Book
Provocative and radical critique of anti-trafficking work
Denise Brennan | Duke University Press, 2014 | Book
Rich with the perspectives of survivors, this book tells the stories of formerly trafficked people after they’ve left exploitative situations — but who struggle to access services, find safe and affordable housing, and find jobs above “poverty’s edge.” A damning critique of the limitations of the human-trafficking framework, and of US labor and migration policies.
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas | Stanford University Press, 2011 | Book
In this ethnographic study, scholar Rhacel Parreñas worked in a hostess bar in Tokyo in the aftermath of US State Department policy mandating that Filipina hostesses in Japan were the largest group of trafficked individuals in the world. A fascinating look at the unintended consequences of anti-trafficking policies, and the real lives of the women affected by them.
| Explore
A network of more than 100 NGOs from around the world, focusing on anti-trafficking and labor and migration issues from a human rights perspective.
| Explore
A network of anti-trafficking organizations in the United States that focuses on rights-based, survivor-centered service provision and advocacy
A UK-based organization with international reach and multiple campaigns (cotton, chocolate, domestic work, among others) | Explore
| Explore
A broad-based coalition of US anti-trafficking organizations, led and supported by Humanity United
This NYC-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting the Nepali community campaigns for workers’ rights, including those of domestic workers and nail salon workers. | Explore
| Book
Provides free legal representation to trafficking survivors
Institute for Policy Studies | Explore
Seeks to prevent abuse and exploitation of migrant women workers. Break the Chain has done groundbreaking work on cases involving domestic workers exploited by diplomat employers, among other issues.
| Explore
Service providers and advocates working to support runaway, homeless and street youth, including those with involvement in the sex trade
A worker-based human rights organization that has developed worker-driven social responsibility initiatives | Explore
Guarantees fair wages and conditions for workers at participating farms | Explore
| Explore
An NYC-based grassroots organization for Filipino workers founded by Filipina domestic workers. Their Baklas campaign focuses on ending labor trafficking.
| Explore
Trains pro bono attorneys to represent trafficking survivors in the United States, provides technical assistance, and also performs research
A membership-based international coalition of domestic worker organizations. At the forefront of the passage of the ILO convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers (2011), the ILDF has an active campaign to encourage ratification of the treaty. | Explore
International Labor Rights Forum is dedicated to strengthening workers’ rights. Major campaigns include improving conditions in cocoa agriculture in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, light manufacturing in China, apparel production in Bangladesh, cotton in Uzbekistan and bananas in Latin America, among others. | Explore
| Explore
A coalition of workers’ rights and anti-trafficking groups seeking reform of labor recruitment and the US guest worker program
| Explore
Mentari was founded by two survivors of human trafficking and provides advocacy and direct services.
| Explore
This an an alliance behind five successful state domestic workers’ bills of rights (with active campaigns to support two more pending bills) and many other campaigns. In addition to the bills and their work on human trafficking, the alliance also organizes internationally.
| Explore
A social justice group and legal team dedicated to organizing marginalized workers in many different sectors, including construction, seafood processing and manufacturing. I speak about one of their projects, the National Guestworker Alliance, in my talk.
A nonprofit based in Southern California dedicated to supporting Filipino workers’ rights | Explore
| Explore
“A public-private sector platform to tackle human trafficking in Southeast Asia, with an initial focus on forced labour in Thailand’s export-oriented industries affecting global supply chains.” It operates a 24-hour migrant worker hotline in Thailand with extensive work on the seafood industry.
| Explore
Founded in 2001, this is one of the largest social service providers for survivors of trafficking on the East Coast. It also houses a support and survivor-leadership group called Voices of Hope.
| Explore
It engages in policy advocacy, supports sex workers’ rights, and provides social and legal services for individuals in the sex trade, including those who have been trafficked into forced prostitution.
Sex Work Activists, Allies, and You offers an approachable introduction to the facts and history behind sex work, and an extensive list of sex work organizations and sex workers’ rights groups. | Explore
| Explore
This AFL-CIO-affiliated group works in approximately 60 countries with workers in garment factories, mining and other sectors to improve access to labor protections and support worker organizing.
| Explore
Through its Slavery Eradication & Rights Initiative, the Thai Community Development Center provides social and legal services to Thai trafficking survivors in the United States, including the men who were part of the Global Horizons case I mention in my talk.
| Explore
“Answering the rabbinic call for human rights,” this organization collaborates closely with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers on supply-chain issues.
| Explore
“A strategic alliance of workers that are either by law or by practice excluded from the right to organize in the United States,” including day laborers, restaurant workers, and other groups
Anti-Trafficking Review, 2012 | Explore
Anti-Trafficking Review, 2014 | Explore
Anne Elizabeth Moore | Truthout, January 27, 2015 | Article
David A. Feingold | Foreign Policy, October 20, 2009 | Article
This article upends conventional wisdom about human trafficking. It is several years old, but still very applicable.
Anne T. Gallagher | November 2014
| Article
A thought-provoking critique of the new, philanthropist-backed Global Slavery Index
Glenn Kessler | The Washington Post, April 24, 2015 | Article
Human trafficking statistics provide lots of fodder for the Washington Post’s excellent “Fact Checker” column. Here’s a good one.
International Labour Organization, 2012 | Article
United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking | Explore
Maggie McNeill | The Washington Post, March 27, 2014 | Article
Maggie McNeill, a former sex worker, does an excellent job of dispatching many persistent myths around forced prostitution.
Chris Hall | The Atlantic, September 5, 2014 | Article
Examines statistics about average age of entry into prostitution
Michelle Ye Hee Lee | The Washington Post, January 29, 2015 | Article
A refutation of the myth that the Super Bowl (and other sporting events) leads to a spike in incidences of sex trafficking
Kate Mogulescu | The New York Times, January 31, 2014 | Article
An op-ed from the founder and supervising attorney of New York’s Trafficking Victims Advocacy Project at the Legal Aid Society
Julie Ham | Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, 2011 | Article
The definitive report on sporting events and sex trafficking
Pete Pattisson | The Guardian, September 25, 2013 | Article
What we should be talking about when it comes to sporting events and trafficking – these are fully corroborated incidents, and are woefully underreported
Miriam Wells | Vice, May 21, 2015 | Article
And an update
University of Detroit Mercy | Explore
Edward E. Baptist | Basic Books, 2014 | Book
Baptist couples individual slave narratives with economic analysis in his brutal and revealing portrait of the Deep South’s cotton empire – and its vast influence in the creation of the American economy.
Douglas A. Blackmon | Anchor, 2009 | Book
A relentlessly researched and gorgeously written account of the convict-lease system — essentially the sale of convicts, charged with trumped-up crimes like vagrancy, to employers.
Jonathan Grossman | Monthly Labor Review, 1978 | Article
Juan F. Perea | Loyola University Chicago School of Law, July 19, 2010 | Article
Mary Bauer and Meredith Stewart | Southern Poverty Law Center, 2013 | Article
International Labor Recruitment Working Group, 2013 | Article
Karl Flecker and Teresa Healy | Solidarity Center, 2015 | Article
| Explore
Verité offers a number of reports on labor brokers as part of its “Help Wanted” initiative.
Cindy Hahamovitch | Princeton University Press, 2013 | Book
Colleen Owens et al. | Urban Institute, October 21, 2014 | Article
This report covers labor trafficking in general, but many of the trafficking survivors interviewed came to the United States on guestworker visas. A fascinating and important report.
Richard Marosi and Don Bartletti | Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2014 | Article
CBS, 1960 | Watch
Frontline, June 25, 2013 | Watch
Mary Bauer and Mónica Ramírez | Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010 | Article
Janie Chuang | Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, 2013 | Article
Tiffany Williams | National Domestic Workers Alliance, January 2015 | Article
Benjamin Weiser and Vivian Yee | The New York Times, January 9, 2014 | Article
Martina E. Vandenberg | The Washington Post, January 1, 2014 | Article
An op-ed by the founder of the Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center
US Government Accountability Office, July 29, 2008 | Article
Government Accountability Office report on diplomat abuse of domestic workers
| Explore
Street and documentary photographer Xyza Cruz Bacani worked as a domestic worker for nearly ten years. Her project “900 Square Feet of Hidden Hope” centers on a Hong Kong shelter for exploited and abused domestic workers.
| Explore
“Domestic Slavery,” a highly original work by Raphael Dallaporta and Ondine Millot, juxtaposes seemingly mundane photographs of facades of buildings around Paris alongside reportage of the real-life exploitation that took place in each one.
| Explore
Dan Barry | The New York Times, March 9, 2014 | Article
Mother Jones, Accenture for Humanity United | Explore
Fairfood International, 2015 | Book
Key reports on trafficking into the seafood/shrimp industry in Southeast Asia
Environmental Justice Foundation, 2013 | Article
Melissa Brennan | Solidarity Center, 2009 | Article
| Explore
Pulitzer-prize winning series from Reuters’ Jason Szep and Andrew R.C. Marhsall on persecution of the Rohingya, members of a stateless and heavily persecuted Muslim ethnic minority in Southeast Asia, who account for many of those trafficked into the fishing industry in Thailand and throughout the region.
Robin McDowell et al. | Associated Press, March 25, 2015 | Article
Profiles of individual survivors
Robin McDowell and Margie Mason | Associated Press, April 3, 2015
| Article
A follow-up
Alan Taylor | The Atlantic, March 1, 2015 | Article
Reuters photographer Minzayar took these unforgettable portraits at an internet cafe in Sittwe, Burma, as Rohingya customers reconnected with family members over Skype – and sometimes negotiated with human traffickers holding their loved ones for ransom.
Olivia Guzman | National Guestworker Alliance, June13, 2014 | Article
Powerful testimony by a guestworker in the U.S. seafood industry
Steven Greenhouse | The New York Times, June 29, 2012 | Article
An update
Kate Hodal et al. | The Guardian, June 10, 2014 | Article
Six-month investigation on Thailand fishing industry – very impressive supply-chain work
Rebecca Smithers | The Guardian, June 11, 2014 | Article
Margie Mason | Associated Press, June 1, 2015 | Article
Associated Press, June 30, 2015 | Watch
| Explore
Sex Work Activists, Allies, and You advocates “for understanding, respect, and change by connecting the public with the people and facts behind sex work." Accessible introduction to the issues, along with an extensive list of sex-work organizations.
danah boyd | Apophenia blog, August 15, 2012 | Article
Technology researcher danah boyd offers an explainer for what those in anti-trafficking can learn from the sex-workers’ rights movemenT.
Ruth Jacobs, January 8, 2014 | | Article
These two interviews, conducted by UK-based writer Ruth Jacobs, develop Boyd’s themes of potential collaboration between sex-workers’ rights movements and anti-trafficking advocates. Both interviewees are former sex workers; one also identifies as a trafficking survivor.
Ruth Jacobs, March 2, 2014 | | Article
| Explore
Ruth Jacobs has a wealth of interviews with other advocates with very divergent opinions on these topics. Well worth reading a number of them to see how they may converge, be in tension, and inform your own understanding.
Melissa Gira Grant | Verso, 2014 | Book
Grant challenges mainstream perceptions of sex work; the next book on this list, Chateauvert, largely focuses on the broader issues of sex-worker organizing and history.
Melinda Chateauvert | Beacon Press, 20141 | Book
Young Women’s Empowerment Project | Explore
Young Women’s Empowerment Project, 2009 | Article
Young Women’s Empowerment Project, 2012 | Article
Kristen Hinman | Village Voice, November 2, 2011 | Article
Fascinating backstory of research on young people in the sex trade
Ric Curtis, et al. | Center for Court Innovation, 2008 | Article
Executive summary of research mentioned in Village Voice piece
Ric Curtis et al. | Center for Court Innovation, 2008
| Article
Vol. 1 of the report
Amanda Hess | Slate, April 23, 2014 | Article
An introduction/backstory to related research in Atlantic City
Meredith Dank et al. | Urban Institute, 2015 | Article
This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Call the the National Human Trafficking Resource Center’s toll-free hotline for confidential assistance.