By The International Organization for Migration, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

This second IOM regional situation analysis on trafficking in persons (TiP) for forced criminality (FC) in Southeast Asia's online scamming centres offers practitioners, policymakers and the donor community a concise overview of counter-trafficking initiatives. It encompasses IOM's key figures, achievements, prominent press coverage and publications from the year of 2023, accompanied by recommendations for 2024.

Bangkok: IOM, 2024. 19p.

By William F. McDonald

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the many forms of victimization of immigrants, including trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation and forced labor; assaulting, robbing and raping; refusing to pay wages; renting illegal living space that violates health codes; and domestic abuse both in general, and in particular, of mail-order brides.

McDonald examines a broad range of quantitative and qualitative data from historical and international sources including the USA, Canada, Mexico, Britain, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, and Spain. He writes with a view to correcting myths about the relationship between immigrants and crime, noting that immigrants are more likely to become victims than offenders.

The book outlines the multiple forms and contexts in which immigrants are victimized, exploited, and harmed. Reviewing micro- and macro-level victimological and sociological theories as they apply to patterns and forms of immigrants’ victimization, this study ultimately seeks to understand reasons for which immigrants are victimized by their own kind, and by persons outside their community.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 135p.

By Pankhuri Agarwal.

Working with a simplistic notion of release from bondage as “freedom”, mainstream anti-trafficking activists focus on rescue. They argue that victims of trafficking are “free” once removed from their employers. Critics contest this approach and argue that significantly less attention is paid to the role of the state and the NGOs in producing conditions due to which people remain vulnerable. This research lends empirical support to this critical position through a multi-sited ethnography of informal migrant workers, sex workers, and law enforcement officers, traversing through courtrooms, police stations, district welfare offices, worksites, shelter homes, and offices of NGOs, in New Delhi, India. It corroborates that the authority of law is compromised ‘on ground’ and is actively negotiated within the legal space of anti-trafficking efforts. Instead of being instantly transported to “freedom”, the workers end up in protracted legal proceedings, ranging two to thirty-seven years, to seek justice and rights. Their rights are neglected due to a Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Their mobility is restricted due to improper documentation. Their suffering is intensified through an evasive legal system. The result – arbitrary, unjust legal outcomes after an endless wait and dependence on intermediaries. In fact, their journey through the system, with cost and time overruns, has no direct or precise chronology, and often moves in a circle rather than reaching an end. The workers resemble the class of people that Denise Ferreira da Silva (2009) describes as “nobodies”. They continue to struggle to achieve the rights and recognition that would allow them to escape this status. The combination of empirical data, doctrinal analysis, and socio-legal theory in this research provide an insight on the harm and limits of the anti-trafficking discourse with reference to India.

Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 2021. 233p.

By Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (TRACIT)

Among the worst crimes associated with illicit trade is the demand it creates for forced and child labor. The TRACIT report, The Human Cost of Illicit Trade: Exposing demand for forced labor in the dark corners of the economy,​ studies an overlooked corner of the global economy, namely the incidence of forced labor in illicit market activities. The report shows that women, children and men of all ages and race are forced to labor in illicit sectors, where they are abused by organized criminals in their pursuit of profits.

Occurrences of forced labor are examined in eight sectors where illicit practices are regularly reported. These activities include: (i) counterfeiting of apparel, footwear and luxury goods; (ii) counterfeiting of electronics machinery and equipment; (iii) substandard and falsified medical products; (iv) illegal mining; (v) illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing; (vi) illicit tobacco products; (vii) illegal pesticides; and (viii) illegal timber.

This report shows how organized criminals are using and abusing labor and demonstrates how forced labor intersects with multiple forms of illicit trade. The findings suggest that putting an end to these human rights abuses will only be possible by eradicating illicit trade and the demand for forced labor associated with it.

NY: Tract.Org. 2021. 52p.