Human trafficking is all around you. This is how it works
2,175,041 views | Noy Thrupkaew • TED2015
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
TalkTraffic Video Series
Ryan Beck Turner | Christian Science Monitor, June 4, 2014 | Article
How Not to Talk About Human Trafficking
A guide to how we shouldn’t — and should — be talking about this issue
The Economist, March 14, 2015 | Article
Everywhere in (Supply) Chains
A very good introductory three-part series on human trafficking from The Economist
Crystal DeBoise | The Hill, January 25, 2015 | Article
Five Things We Should Do Better for Survivors of Human Trafficking
New York Anti-Trafficking Network, January 14, 2015 | Explore
Five Things You Can Do to Fight Human Trafficking
This has a useful infographic that accompanies the previous article.
New York Anti-Trafficking Network, June 11, 2012 | Explore
Be a Conscientious Consumer
Apps and websites for conscientious consumers
Greg Asbed | The Huffington Post, June 17, 2014 | Article
Worker-Driven Social Responsibility (WSR): A New Idea for a New Century
This is a guide for conscientious business. Please also see anti-trafficking/workers’ rights organizations section for more.
International Labour Organization, 2015 | Explore
Combating Forced Labour: A Handbook for Employers and Business
| Book
Responsible Sourcing Network
“Dedicated to ending human rights abuses and forced labor associated with the raw materials found in products we use every day.”
| Explore
Verité
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
Global Woman
An excellent anthology about the women who are part of increasingly globalized and still-marginalized work sectors.
Open Democracy | Explore
Beyond Slavery
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
| Article
A labor paradigm for human trafficking
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
Exploitation creep and the unmaking of human trafficking law
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
The trafficking-technology nexus
Musto and Boyd raise urgent questions about the use of technology to combat trafficking.
Anne T. Gallagher | Cambridge University Press, 2012 | Book
The International Law of Human Trafficking
Landmark text on international human-trafficking law
Jo Doezema | Zed Books, 2010 | Book
Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters
Fascinating scholarship on the framing of discourse about “trafficking in women”
Kimberly Kay Hoang and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas | Idebate Press, 2014 | Book
Human Trafficking Reconsidered
An edited volume featuring critical perspectives on anti-trafficking work
Laura María Agustín | Zed Books, 2007 | Book
Sex at the Margins
Provocative and radical critique of anti-trafficking work
Denise Brennan | Duke University Press, 2014 | Book
Life Interrupted
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
Illicit Flirtations
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
Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women
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
Freedom Network
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
Anti-Slavery International
| Explore
Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking
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
Adhikaar
| Book
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Provides free legal representation to trafficking survivors
Institute for Policy Studies | Explore
Break the Chain Campaign
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
Coalition for Homeless Youth
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
Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
Guarantees fair wages and conditions for workers at participating farms | Explore
Fair Food Program
| Explore
Damayan Migrant Workers Association
An NYC-based grassroots organization for Filipino workers founded by Filipina domestic workers. Their Baklas campaign focuses on ending labor trafficking.
| Explore
Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center
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 Domestic Workers Federation
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
International Labor Rights Forum
| Explore
International Labor Recruitment Working Group
A coalition of workers’ rights and anti-trafficking groups seeking reform of labor recruitment and the US guest worker program
| Explore
Mentari
Mentari was founded by two survivors of human trafficking and provides advocacy and direct services.
| Explore
National Domestic Workers Alliance
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
New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice
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
Pilipino Workers Center
| Explore
Project Issara
“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
Safe Horizon’s Anti-Trafficking Program
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
Sex Workers Project
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
Sex Work Activists, Allies, and You
| Explore
Solidarity Center
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
Thai Community Development Center
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
T'ruah
“Answering the rabbinic call for human rights,” this organization collaborates closely with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers on supply-chain issues.
| Explore
United Workers Congress
“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
Where’s the Accountability?
Anti-Trafficking Review, 2014 | Explore
Following the Money: Spending on Anti-Trafficking
Anne Elizabeth Moore | Truthout, January 27, 2015 | Article
Special Report: Money and Lies in Anti-Human Trafficking NGOs
David A. Feingold | Foreign Policy, October 20, 2009 | Article
Think Again: Human Trafficking
This article upends conventional wisdom about human trafficking. It is several years old, but still very applicable.
Anne T. Gallagher | November 2014
| Article
The Global Slavery Index: Seduction and Obfuscation
A thought-provoking critique of the new, philanthropist-backed Global Slavery Index
Glenn Kessler | The Washington Post, April 24, 2015 | Article
Why You Should Be Wary of Statistics on 'Modern Slavery' and 'Trafficking'
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
ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour: Results and Methodology
United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking | Explore
Statistics on Human Trafficking
Maggie McNeill | The Washington Post, March 27, 2014 | Article
Lies, damned lies and sex work statistics
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
Is One of the Most-Cited Statistics About Sex Work Wrong?
Examines statistics about average age of entry into prostitution
Michelle Ye Hee Lee | The Washington Post, January 29, 2015 | Article
A bipartisan fail over claims there was a 300 percent increase in ‘escort’ ads during the Dallas Super Bowl
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
The Super Bowl and Sex Trafficking
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
What’s the Cost of a Rumor?
The definitive report on sporting events and sex trafficking
Pete Pattisson | The Guardian, September 25, 2013 | Article
Revealed: Qatar's World Cup 'slaves'
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
Conditions Are Not Improving for Qatar's Desperate World Cup Workers
And an update
University of Detroit Mercy | Explore
Black Abolitionist Archive
Edward E. Baptist | Basic Books, 2014 | Book
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism
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
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
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
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: Maximum Struggle for a Minimum Wage
Juan F. Perea | Loyola University Chicago School of Law, July 19, 2010 | Article
The echoes of slavery: Recognizing the racist origins of the agricultural and domestic worker exclusion from the National Labor Relations Act
Mary Bauer and Meredith Stewart | Southern Poverty Law Center, 2013 | Article
Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States
International Labor Recruitment Working Group, 2013 | Article
The American Dream Up for Sale: A Blueprint for Ending International Labor Recruitment Abuse
Karl Flecker and Teresa Healy | Solidarity Center, 2015 | Article
International Labor Migration: Re-regulating the private power of labor brokers
| Explore
Our Publications
Verité offers a number of reports on labor brokers as part of its “Help Wanted” initiative.
Cindy Hahamovitch | Princeton University Press, 2013 | Book
No Man's Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America)
Colleen Owens et al. | Urban Institute, October 21, 2014 | Article
Understanding the Organization, Operation, and Victimization Process of Labor Trafficking in the United States
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
Product of Mexico: Hardship on Mexico’s farms, a bounty for U.S. tables
CBS, 1960 | Watch
Harvest of Shame
Frontline, June 25, 2013 | Watch
Rape in the Fields
Mary Bauer and Mónica Ramírez | Southern Poverty Law Center, 2010 | Article
Injustice on Our Plates: Immigrant Women in the U.S. Food Industry
Janie Chuang | Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, 2013 | Article
The U.S. Au Pair Program: Labor Exploitation and the Myth of Cultural Exchange
Tiffany Williams | National Domestic Workers Alliance, January 2015 | Article
Beyond Survival: Organizing to End Human Trafficking of Domestic Workers
Benjamin Weiser and Vivian Yee | The New York Times, January 9, 2014 | Article
Claim against Indian Diplomat Has Echoes of Previous Cases
Martina E. Vandenberg | The Washington Post, January 1, 2014 | Article
Diplomats who commit domestic-worker crimes shouldn’t get a free pass
An op-ed by the founder of the Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center
US Government Accountability Office, July 29, 2008 | Article
U.S. Government's Efforts to Address Alleged Abuse of Household Workers by Foreign Diplomats with Immunity Could Be Strengthened
Government Accountability Office report on diplomat abuse of domestic workers
| Explore
Xyza Cruz Bacani
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
“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
Our Fashion Year
Dan Barry | The New York Times, March 9, 2014 | Article
“The ‘Boys’ in the Bunkhouse: Toil, abuse and endurance in the heartland
Mother Jones, Accenture for Humanity United | Explore
Exploitative Labor Practices in the Global Shrimp Industry
Fairfood International, 2015 | Book
Caught in a Trap: The story of poverty wages behind Asian shrimp sold in European supermarkets
Key reports on trafficking into the seafood/shrimp industry in Southeast Asia
Environmental Justice Foundation, 2013 | Article
The Hidden Cost: Human Rights Abuses in Thailand’s Shrimp Industry
Melissa Brennan | Solidarity Center, 2009 | Article
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Human Trafficking & Exploitation of Migrant Fishing Boat Workers in Thailand
| Explore
The 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winners: International Reporting
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
Are slaves catching the fish you buy?
Profiles of individual survivors
Robin McDowell and Margie Mason | Associated Press, April 3, 2015
| Article
AP investigation prompts emergency rescue of 300 plus slaves
A follow-up
Alan Taylor | The Atlantic, March 1, 2015 | Article
Ransoms and Reunions: The Internet Huts of Burma
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
Olivia Guzman speaks out on migrant worker slavery
Powerful testimony by a guestworker in the U.S. seafood industry
Steven Greenhouse | The New York Times, June 29, 2012 | Article
Wal-Mart Suspends Supplier of Seafood
An update
Kate Hodal et al. | The Guardian, June 10, 2014 | Article
Revealed: Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK
Six-month investigation on Thailand fishing industry – very impressive supply-chain work
Rebecca Smithers | The Guardian, June 11, 2014 | Article
Slavery in prawn trade: consumers urged to check source of seafood
Margie Mason | Associated Press, June 1, 2015 | Article
Myanmar fisherman goes home after 22 years as a slave
Associated Press, June 30, 2015 | Watch
Tortured Fish Slave Returns Home After 22 Years
| Explore
Sex Work Activists, Allies, and You
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
What Anti-Trafficking Advocates Can Learn from Sex Workers: The Dynamics of Choice, Circumstance, and Coercion
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
In the Booth with Ruth – Jes Richardson, Sex Trafficking Survivor, Former Sex Worker and Anti-Sex Trafficking & Sex Workers’ Rights Activist
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
In the Booth with Ruth – Meg Munoz, Former Sex Worker, Trafficking Survivor, Ally and Rights Advocate
| Explore
Human Rights Interviews
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
Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work
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
Sex Workers Unite: A History of the Movement from Stonewall to SlutWalk
Young Women’s Empowerment Project | Explore
Helpful Tips the Reproductive Justice Movement Can Use to Support Girls, Women and Transgender People of Color Involved in the Sex Trade & Sex Work
Young Women’s Empowerment Project, 2009 | Article
Girls Do What They Have to Do to Survive: Illuminating Methods Used by Girls in the Sex Trade and Street Economy to Fight Back and Heal
Young Women’s Empowerment Project, 2012 | Article
Bad Encounter Line 2012: Denied Help! How Youth in the Sex Trade & Street Economy Are Turned Away from Systems Meant to Help Us & What We Are Doing to Fight Back
Kristen Hinman | Village Voice, November 2, 2011 | Article
Lost Boys
Fascinating backstory of research on young people in the sex trade
Ric Curtis, et al. | Center for Court Innovation, 2008 | Article
The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City
Executive summary of research mentioned in Village Voice piece
Ric Curtis et al. | Center for Court Innovation, 2008
| Article
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City, Volume One: The CSEC Population in New York City: Size, Characteristics, and Needs
Vol. 1 of the report
Amanda Hess | Slate, April 23, 2014 | Article
Most of What You Think You Know About Sex Trafficking Isn’t True
An introduction/backstory to related research in Atlantic City
Meredith Dank et al. | Urban Institute, 2015 | Article
Surviving the Streets of New York: Experiences of LGBTQ Youth, YMSM, and YWSW Engaged in Survival Sex
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.