The way in which the concept 'human trafficking' has been constructed in the UK (in the words and actions of law enforcement bodies, state-funded NGOs and courts, for example) has changed significantly since the early 2000s. Yet legal and policy definitions of trafficking have remained largely consistent. This is surprising if we expect the state, through instruments like legislation and policy statements, to authoritatively define particular concepts and categories in a way that then shapes how others think and act. This did not happen - at least not straightforwardly - in the case of trafficking. What, then, was the state's contribution to the construction of 'human trafficking' in the UK? To answer that question, this thesis explores the three most significant state interventions relating to trafficking: a 2007 policy statement, a 2009 set of administrative rules and a 2015 piece of legislation. Each had different characteristics and was used in a different way. I argue that the state used these instruments not to authoritatively define 'human trafficking' but to shape already existing or incipient ideas and assumptions about trafficking. The state collated, codified and legitimised certain configurations of ideas and assumptions through the three instruments discussed. To place the state's activities in context, the thesis also investigates how the state first came to recognise 'human trafficking' as an issue and what influence the concepts and categories shaped by the state went on to have. The former is addressed through identifying the ideas and assumptions that fed into the state's early efforts and tracing their historical development. The latter is addressed through examining the ways in which actors who are engaged in implementing the concepts and categories shaped by the state have had to adapt their ideas and practices in order to do so.

The following analysis of antislavery poetry evidences the shared language of abolition that incorporated the societal dynamics of law, gender, and race through shared themes of family, the assumed expectation of freedom, and legal references. This thesis focuses upon four women antislavery poets and analyzes their poems and their individual experiences with their sociohistorical contexts. The poems of Hannah More, Ann Yearsley, Phillis Wheatley, and Sarah Forten show this shared transatlantic language of abolition.

Modernt slaveri är ett samlingsbegrepp innefattande människohandel, tvångsarbete och slavliknande metoder och utgör ett globalt problem av mycket allvarlig karaktär. Även i industriländer såsom Sverige och Storbritannien förekommer offer för modernt slaveri. Förekomsten av modernt slaveri är dock som störst i utvecklingsländer, framförallt i Asien, där många multinationella företag har sina leverantörer. I oktober år 2015 trädde brittiska Modern Slavery Act 2015 i kraft, som omfattar företag verksamma i Storbritannien med en omsättning över 36 miljoner pund. Det medför att även stora svenska företag såsom H & M, Sandvik, IKEA och Saab omfattas av lagen. Lagen innebär att berörda företag måste publicera ett uttalande för varje räkenskapsår avseende de faktiska steg företaget tagit för att säkerställa att modernt slaveri varken förekommer inom den egna organisationen eller i dess leverantörskedjor. Har inga sådana aktiviteter företagits, måste företaget likväl enligt lagen publicera ett uttalande som i sådant fall redovisar just detta. Det ställer krav på företagen och deras hållbarhetsarbete, både ur aspekten att det blir enklare för konsumenter att jämföra företag sinsemellan men också genom en ökad press på företagen att kunna redovisa faktiska åtgärder. I uppsatsen undersöks hur två stora svenska företag, IKEA och Saab, arbetar med socialt hållbarhetsarbete idag, i syfte att analysera de troliga konsekvenserna för berörda svenska företag av Modern Slavery Act 2015. Vidare besvaras i uppsatsens analys frågan om Sverige bör införa motsvarande lagstiftning i syfte att utvidga svenska företags sociala ansvarstagande. Slutsatsen är att Modern Slavery Act 2015 kommer innebära att berörda svenska företag är tvungna att se över sitt hållbarhetsarbete. Hur stora konsekvenserna blir beror på vilken bransch företaget verkar i, vilken förväntan samhället har på företaget sedan tidigare samt hur omfattande företagets befintliga hållbarhetsarbete är. Det torde vara en fördel för Sverige att införa liknande lagstiftning, framförallt ur aspekten att problemet med modernt slaveri konkretiseras, uppmärksammas och uppmuntrar företagen till att vidta faktiska åtgärder.

Forced Labour in the Czech Republic Abstract The submitted dissertation thesis examines so far neglected issue of forced labour in the Czech Republic in its complexity, i.e. both its lawful (e.g. work performed by imprisoned persons) and unlawful forms. It seeks to discover whether the present law (and extra-legal regulation) on this topic is sufficient. For this purpose it examines not only the corresponding law across individual branches of law, but also its place in the historical and moral- philosophical context. In the first parts, the submitted thesis deals with the existence of free will as a precondition of considering a work freely chosen and with the existence and content of objective morality as a precondition of considering anything morally right. Special attention is dedicated to forced labour during Protectorate and communist regime in Czechoslovakia. The core parts of the submitted thesis consist of an analysis of corresponding international, European and national law. The attention shifts from first international conventions dealing with this issue adopted by International Labour Organisation to rich case law of the European Court of Human Rights and finally to Czech legal order where e.g. transfer of an employee to alternative work without his or her consent, transfer of employees' rights,...

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Over the past four years both the media and academia have highlighted the labour conditions and human rights issues prevalent in Thailand’s offshore fishing industry. Even so, little has been written from the perspective of fish workers, and far less is known about fish work in the Southeast Asian region. This thesis contributes to these gaps by exploring the experiences of fish workers in several ports across Thailand and Vietnam, along with former migrant fish workers, to provide insight into labour conditions for fish workers and the risks associated with migration for fish work. To do so, the thesis draws upon four interview data sets involving 40 fish workers (including boat owners and captains) conducted in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia between 2014-2017, along with a review of the relevant literature on fish work, labour, and migration. After describing the experiences of fish workers in both countries, a number of themes emerge. These include challenges pertaining to recruitment, wages, risks at sea and agency. Each theme is unpacked in turn, to showcase the nuanced experiences of Cambodian fish workers in Thailand and internal migrants in Vietnam, but also to highlight how fish workers navigate complex migration processes. Specific to the Thai context, Derk’s (2010) early work on unfreedoms experienced by migrant Cambodian fish workers in coastal Thailand serves as a framework to compare and contrast working conditions between then and now. The thesis concludes with a reflection on migrant fish work and key areas that require further unpacking within the Southeast Asian context including what is happening in source countries (Cambodia, in this case, but also in other regions in Vietnam), while arguing that a modern slavery framing does not meaningfully protect migrant fish workers from unacceptable working conditions.

Yearly, hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked across borders, most often against their will or without their knowledge. Albeit having been a part of our history, our present and, sadly, probably our future, this form of modern slavery remains rather unexplored in quantitative research due to the lack of reliable data. By using a gravity model, this study investigates how trafficking is affected by prostitution laws. The strength of this paper lies in being able to disentangle the effect of prostitution laws on different types of trafficking and to look at both total trafficking flows as well as only cross-border flows. The results point towards there being a mostly negative correlation between legal prostitution and trafficking inflows, however, most results become insignificant when adding rule of law (a proxy for legal enforcement) to the specification. Allowing for third party involvement and solicitation might be correlated an increase in the inflow of victims exploited for sexual services, this is, however, statistically insignicant. For victims of forced labour, results are more equivocal, illustrating the potentially misleading conclusions that might be drawn in studies looking only at the effects of prostitution laws on total trafficking flows.

Human trafficking is the fastest growing and the third largest transnational crime. It is driven by the demand for commercial sexual services and cheap labour, and the ample supply of vulnerable people to exploit together with a prevailing system of impunity makes it a highly profitable crime. It imposes grave human rights violations upon its victims, and has devastating effects on society. A global agreement to combat human trafficking – the Palermo Protocol – was adopted by the United Nations in the year 2000. This global agreement provides a legal definition for human trafficking and requires states to take actions to prevent human trafficking, prosecute the perpetrators and protect the victims. Most states have joined this agreement and have made subsequent efforts to implement it. The Council of Europe has adopted a specific convention that even strengthens it. Despite the many efforts to combat human trafficking the number of victims continue to increase and the number of convictions remain low. Some scholars suggest it is because of the incomplete or lack of national implementations, while other scholars suggest the international legal framework is inadequate. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the international legal framework is adequate to combat human trafficking, and to discuss strengthening options. It uses a classical analytical legal method that examines and analyses the most relevant international agreements. Conclusions are that the Palermo Protocol focuses mainly on prosecution, requires too little preventing and protecting measures, and has a weak compliance mechanism. Human rights treaties also address human trafficking but their weak compliance mechanisms make them ill equipped to compel states to act. To combat human trafficking, measures to prevent, prosecute and protect are all crucial, and such measures can probably best be enforced by strengthening all relevant legal areas (human rights law, labour law, migrant law, refugee law and humanitarian law) and engaging all parts of society.

Modern Slavery is a complex type of crime. It may take many forms starting from the forced labor, servitude, sexual exploitation, organ harvesting, slavery, to trafficking and others. UK’s Modern Slavery Act, 2015 is undoubtedly an admirable effort to tackle such heinous crimes in the society however the act is criticized as weak regarding the victim support and wellbeing during and after the identification. All potential victims upon consent are referred at first by the first responders to National Referral Mechanism (NRM) process which is a UK framework adopted in 2009 in line with the council of Europe’s directives to identify & support victims of modern slavery. There are two separate guidance’s regarding the NRM process one is for England & Wales and the other is for Scotland & Northern Ireland. The aim of this literature review study is to explore the wellbeing status of the modern slavery victims during the post identification (NRM) period and how does the act support such victims. The study finds that it lacks a needs-based support system for victims that addresses issues like safe housing, advocacy, adequate so called “reflection and recovery” time period of support resulting in poor trust and confidence among the victim groups upon the authorities. Moreover, structural changes like amendments to the labor, immigration laws are required to make a long-term meaningful impact on the lives of the victims. At last the author provides some recommendations about the matters affecting the lives of the victims the most.

This study critically examines the Government of Canada's conceptualization of transnational corporate accountability and exploitative labour in its legislative response to modern slavery in global supply chains. With a primary focus on the government's recently proposed Bill S-216: Modern Slavery Act - which would mandate companies to report on their activities to reduce modern slavery in their supply chains - empirical data is drawn from parliamentary debates about this bill and its earlier iterations as well as a report produced by the House of Commons committee originally charged with studying the issue. Informed by the corporate crime and business management literature as well as a neo-Marxist theoretical lens that employs such concepts as Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony and global capitalism, the dominant views taken up in conversations hosted by the Canadian state are captured using critical discourse analysis. Overall, dominant voices accepted into the federal government's approach reinforce neoliberal assumptions of wealth accumulation, profit maximization, and free-market economies, thereby trusting transnational corporations to self-regulate and use their financial capital to curb the conditions that engender exploitative labour. The findings of this interdisciplinary study reveal that the legislative proposal culminating from the policy-making discourse defers to measures that prioritize the social benefits of corporate social responsibility, which ultimately eclipse the need for criminal sanctions against Canadian corporations with operations that employ modern slavery. This research helps to expose the reproduction of corporate impunity as a result of the inability/unwillingness to address the status quo of global capitalism.