Beyond Trafficking and Slavery

Beyond Trafficking and Slavery is an online platform that provides analysis and commentary on human trafficking and modern slavery. The platform features articles and reports from experts in the field, and aims to promote critical thinking and constructive dialogue about trafficking and slavery. Beyond Trafficking and Slavery also seeks to challenge prevailing assumptions and narratives about trafficking, and to promote a more nuanced understanding of the issue.

 

Will life get better for Qatar’s migrant workers now the World Cup is over?
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Will life get better for Qatar’s migrant workers now the World Cup is over?

For nearly 12 years now, the preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar has shone a spotlight on the use and abuse of migrant workers in the global economy today. Hundreds of thousands of workers went into debt paying recruiters for a job placement; many were never paid what they were promised; and…

Does life get better for Qatar’s migrant workers once the World Cup ends?
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Does life get better for Qatar’s migrant workers once the World Cup ends?

For nearly 12 years now, the preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar has shone a spotlight on the use and abuse of migrant workers in the global economy today. Hundreds of thousands of workers went into debt paying recruiters for a job placement; many were never paid what they were promised; and…

A crisis in a crisis: How charity workers are struggling to make ends meet
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A crisis in a crisis: How charity workers are struggling to make ends meet

Hounslow LIFE isn’t the only division of Hestia where staff have concerns. One staffer at a south London women’s and children’s refuge told openDemocracy: “How can [women’s charities] Solace and Refuge pay to keep up with the inflation cost, but Hestia, who has a similar contract with local authorities, cannot?” She showed openDemocracy adverts for…

Ministers take openDemocracy to court to avoid handing over secret Covid review
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Ministers take openDemocracy to court to avoid handing over secret Covid review

The government is taking openDemocracy to court to resist having to publish its secret “lessons learnt” review of the Covid pandemic. Chiefs at the Department of Health and Social Care only last month agreed to publish the document, following an 18-month Freedom of Information battle that ended with a disclosure order by the independent watchdog….

Senegal failing to tackle misogyny amid growing violence against women
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Senegal failing to tackle misogyny amid growing violence against women

“If you ever have sex with a physically disabled woman, you will break the legs of any woman you sleep with next,” reads a post in Homme Choc, a private Facebook group set up by men in Senegal. The group, whose name is French for ‘shocking men’, was launched in 2019, in response to Femme…

Migrant workers: Qatar still to answer for mass wage theft
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Migrant workers: Qatar still to answer for mass wage theft

In conversation, Indian migrant workers to Qatar confirmed this account to me. They were laid off and repatriated without clearing their end-of-service benefits and unpaid salaries following the Covid-19 outbreak. Migrants rights NGOs, meanwhile, catalogued case after case of wage theft happening to migrant workers in Qatar, the wider Gulf, and other major destination countries….

Migrant workers still paying off debts that brought them to Qatar
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Migrant workers still paying off debts that brought them to Qatar

To recover this outlay, the survey found that men need to spend at least 18 months earning money in Qatar before they break even. Women need around six months. If they are sent home too early, or if they fail to earn enough while there, they will return to debts that they will struggle to…

Death in Qatar, but no just compensation for families back home
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Death in Qatar, but no just compensation for families back home

Her husband, Kashiram Belbase, had made plywood forms to contain the concrete being poured for the Doha Metro, a gleaming mass transit that now ferries fans to the stadiums. One evening in March 2015, after returning to the labour camp after a 13-hour day, he had dinner and went to bed, as usual. “At 12…

The other Albanian migrant crisis
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The other Albanian migrant crisis

All of this poses a puzzle: if legal emigration to other destinations is a possibility, why is there such desperation to reach the UK? And why now? One explanation relates to chain migration and the UK’s labour shortages. The UK hosts a large diaspora from Albania’s poorest region, Kukes County. That attracts relatives and acquaintances…

Should aid agencies set their sights on modern slavery?
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Should aid agencies set their sights on modern slavery?

Given that this is the nub of it, it is wholly bizarre that the global estimates barely mentions the Forced Labour Protocol, an international law agreed in 2014. Because this protocol answers that very question. The Forced Labour Protocol is about several things. But at its heart, it requires those governments that ratify it to…