Department of Finance

Ireland to apply to be part of EU measures combating human trafficking – Irish Examiner
|

Ireland to apply to be part of EU measures combating human trafficking – Irish Examiner

ByEyes on Trafficking News

Justice Minister Simon Harris received Government approval to join an EU directive which will amend the anti-trafficking directive and focus on combating human trafficking while protecting victims. The proposal is designed to “strengthen the ability to combat crimes related to human trafficking and to harmonise human trafficking rules across EU member states”, a Government spokesperson…

California lawmakers revive effort to ban involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes
|

California lawmakers revive effort to ban involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes

ByEyes on Trafficking News

Last year, voters in Vermont, Oregon, Tennessee and Alabama approved historic ballot measures that removed slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime from their state constitutions, which could lead to limitations on forced prison labor. They joined a growing list of states that passed similar initiatives in recent years, including Nebraska, Utah and Colorado….

Movement grows to abolish US prison labor system that treats workers as ‘less than human’
|

Movement grows to abolish US prison labor system that treats workers as ‘less than human’

ByEyes on Trafficking News

Hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people work in US prisons as part of their sentences, often without basic protections and for little to no pay For more than two decades imprisoned in California, Samual Brown worked more than a dozen different jobs and was transferred between penitentiaries throughout the state – earning less than a…

End of slavery exception in state constitutions could reform prison labor
|

End of slavery exception in state constitutions could reform prison labor

ByEyes on Trafficking News

In the days when the COVID-19 virus was new, less understood and more deadly, officials in Louisiana turned to state prison inmates to produce essential but scarce products to slow the rapid spread of the virus. There were occupational hazards and health concerns for the imprisoned people mixing chemicals to create hard-to-find hand sanitizer. For…

‘A vestige of slavery’: Why advocates are fighting to make prison labor voluntary
| | | |

‘A vestige of slavery’: Why advocates are fighting to make prison labor voluntary

ByEyes on Trafficking News

Prisoners making license plates is a popular stereotype, but most of the nation’s 800,000 incarcerated workers hold jobs more similar to those on the outside: They cook and serve food, mop floors, mow lawns, and cut hair. Unlike other workers, though, the incarcerated have little say, if any, in what jobs they do. They face…