Forced Labour Migration and

Migrant Rights Activism in Asia

MA in Human Rights and Democratisation (Asia Pacific)Professor Nicola Piper

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Objectives

› Shedding light on conceptual confusion between FL, slavery, trafficking (yet, many overlaps)

› Sensitisation of political discourse around those concepts

› Institutional architecture around this topic area

› NGO/trade union campaigns

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Trafficking

› Trafficking

- usually treated as a women’s/children’s issue (historical reasons)

- predominantly applied to prostitution/’sex and entertainment’ sector

The main international NGO networks involved:

- Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW)

- Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)

- ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography & Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes)

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But trafficking is more than that….

› “people are generally not aware that anti-trafficking laws can be applied just as readily to a situation involving the exploitation of a male industrial cleaner, for example, as they could to a woman brought to Australia for the purpose of sex slavery”

› (Fiona David, “Labour Trafficking”, 2010: iii)

Remaining issues for critical debate concern the validity of drawing a distinction between sex trafficking and labour trafficking……

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Trafficking in Persons

› Article 3 of the UN Trafficking Protocol (UN 2000) defines trafficking as a process composed of three elements:

› 1. an action by the trafficker (recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons), and

› 2. the action must be undertaken by one of the following means: force or threat of force, other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power, giving or receiving payments to achieve consent of a person having control over another; and

› 3. the action must be undertaken for the purpose of ‘exploitation’, a concept which includes at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs

UN Definition

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Trafficking/forced labour

Two components/angles:

1. migration (internal/international)

a. irregular (“illegal”) migration across borders

b. rural to urban in internal context (China, VN)

= confiscation of passports;

2. exploitation/force/coercion element

= false promises, abduction, debt bondage

a. who is victim/perpetrator?

b. who is responsible? (legally, politically)

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Migration element

› Drivers of migration (push and pull factors)

› Migration policies - restrictive/selective, on employer tied temporary basis, few legal channels

› Migration process- involvement of recruitment agencies/middle person/brokers – incurrence of huge debts

(Bassina Farbenblum’s work)

› Feminisation of migration- domestic/care work (Stuart’s topic)

Understanding migration dynamics

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Exploitation/Coercion element

› 1. crime angle (punitive approach)- focus on individual traffickers as violators

- in context of international migration, states see themselves as victims (of illegal border crossing)

(difference between smuggling and trafficking – confusion over that)

2. human rights angle- focus on human rights of the trafficked

violence against women

victim support

labour rights (e.g. ‘sex work’ frame) = POST-MIGRATION

Two angles:

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Forced Labour

› not solely related to context of migration

› from work/employment perspective

- specific sectors:

• agriculture/plantations

• fishing

• cleaning

• hospitality

• domestic work

• construction

• manufacturing industries

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Forced Labour - advocacy

› Integrating Forced Labour into Forced Migration

- addressee: Global Migration Governance institutions/fora/discourse

• migration-development nexus

- actors:

• Migrant Forum in Asia (which is part of the PGA and the GCM) and

• global trade unions (esp BWI, ICTU – e.g. 2022 FIFA World Cup campaign)

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“Make migration a choice not a necessity”

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“right not having to migrate”/”right to remain”

› „..... the right not to emigrate should be in place in the countries of origin. This implies creating the necessary conditions that transform migration into a choice rather

than a necessity“

› (Final Declaration of the 5th World Social Forum on Migration, clause 31, 2012)

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Forced Migration frame…

› Human rights as a core framework in development

› Right to Development (Declaration from 1986)

› Rights-based approach to development

› In context of labour migration:

- Right to Work/Decent Work and Right to Social Security/Protection ‘at home’ and ‘abroad’ – ICESCR

In context of critiquing the neoliberal growth-oriented model of development built on privatisation, withdrawal of the state from providing public goods etc.

= specific gender implications (triple feminisation of work, migration and poverty)

But: difficulties of addressing social and economic rights persist!

…to address the “push” factors from a HR perspective

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Statement by President Benigno Aquino III….

Expressing the need to move from a

› “government that treats its people as an export commodity and a means to earn foreign exchange, disregarding the social cost to Filipino families to a government that creates jobs at home, so that working abroad will be a choice rather than a necessity, and when its citizens do choose to become OFWs, their welfare and protection will still be the government priority”

› (Aquino, 2012)

› Blurring of citizenship and human rights by placing greater emphasis on responsibilities to deliver migrant rights by origin countries…..

……in his Social Contract with the Filipino People

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Advocacy – Levels of Engagement

› Global and national level – how about regional (ASEAN)?

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The END

› Thank you for your attention!