Labor trafficking in the United States

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Labor trafficking in the United States is a form of human trafficking where victims are made to perform a task through force, fraud or coercion as it occurs in the United States. Labor trafficking is typically distinguished from sex trafficking, where the task is sexual in nature.[ citation needed ] People may be victims of both labor and sex trafficking.

Contents

History

Convicts leased to harvest timber circa 1915, in Florida Convicts Leased to Harvest Timber.png
Convicts leased to harvest timber circa 1915, in Florida

Many Native American tribes practiced some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale. [1] The arrival of the Europeans ushered in the Atlantic slave trade, where Africans were sold into chattel slavery into the American continent. It lasted from the 15th through 19th centuries and was the largest legal form of human trafficking in the history of the United States, reaching 4 million slaves at its height.[ citation needed ] It first became illegal in the northern states, which favored other forms of human trafficking, such as debt bondage. Following the Civil War, chattel slavery became illegal throughout the United States through the thirteenth amendment, except as punishment for a crime. [2] Three years later, the peonage system of slavery was abolished in New Mexico Territory. [3]

Though the amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the United States, the amendment did not clearly define slavery. Factors such as Black Codes, white supremacist violence, and selective enforcement of statutes continued to subject some black Americans to involuntary labor, particularly in the South. Employers had complete control over black employees, and were allowed to use corporal punishment. If blacks tried to "escape" employment, they were arrested and brought back to their employers. They were also arrested and enslaved if they failed to find a job or were homeless. [4] Many blacks were arrested for minor offenses and subject to often brutal forms of penal labor. A system of convict leasing emerged which sold black prisoners to do the work previously done by slaves. The black codes were eventually overturned and ruled unconstitutional during the civil rights movement.

In addition to race-based slavery, many poor Americans were enslaved through debt bondage. One common system was the truck system, in which victims were paid in credits to the company store. The pay was not enough to sustain life, and so victims were often indebted to the company store, and were unable to leave until the debt was repaid. The 19th and 20th centuries saw major reforms of labor law and debt bondage is outlawed. Today, illegal forms of unfree labor are considered labor trafficking. Under federal law, this includes any form of force, fraud or coercion, but differs under state law.

At the beginning of the 19th century, there was growing concern over "white slavery", which referred to the kidnapping of females to work in the sex industry. A number of laws, such as the Mann Act, were passed to protect white females, and eventually extended to children and women of all races and to a lesser degree men. The laws have continued to change, especially regarding the boundary between a willing prostitute and an innocent victim. Currently, under federal law, prostitutes are considered a victim of human trafficking if either under 18 or being controlled through force, fraud or coercion. However, this is not fully implemented, and in many states, prostitutes who are considered victims under federal law are still arrested and prosecuted under state law. Some states have adopted the federal standard, while others have only partially adopted them.

Estimates on prevalence

It is difficult to determine the exact extent of labor trafficking in the United States because of the secretive nature. The U.S. government only keeps a count of survivors, defined as victims of severe instances of human trafficking, who have been assisted by the government in acquiring immigration benefits. [5] The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) notes that while only 15% of trafficking cases identified by law enforcement involve labor trafficking, there is significantly more labor trafficking victims seeking service than sex trafficking victims. They suggest that labor trafficking victims are harder to identify, that police and prosecutors were unfamiliar with labor laws, they lacked the infrastructure to identify labor trafficking, and research tends to focus on sex trafficking. [6]

According to the National Human Rights Center in Berkeley, California, there are currently about 10,000 forced laborers in the U.S., around one-third of whom are domestic servants and some portion of whom are children. In reality, this number could be far higher due to the difficulty in getting exact numbers of victims, due to the secretive nature of human trafficking. Research at San Diego State University estimates that there are 2.4 million victims of human trafficking among illegal Mexican immigrants. [7] Research by the Urban Institute says that law enforcement agencies do not prioritize labor trafficking cases, were reluctant to help victims obtain authorization to legally remain in the United States, and felt there was not enough evidence to corroborate victim statements. [8]

In 2014, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported 990 cases of forced labor trafficking in the US, including 172 which also involved sex trafficking. The most common types of labor trafficking included domestic work, traveling sales crews, agriculture/farms, restaurant/food service, health & beauty services, begging, retail, landscaping, hospitality, construction, carnivals, elder care, forestry, manufacturing, and housekeeping. [9]

Agriculture

In the agriculture sector, the most common victims of trafficking are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, undocumented immigrants, and foreign nationals with temporary H-2A visas. [10] Due to the nature of agricultural work as being seasonal and transient, the ability of employers to exploit these workers is high. Such exploitation may take the form of threats of violence and playing on vulnerabilities (i.e. immigration status). In some cases, workers are held in a state of perpetual debt to the crew leaders who impose mandatory transportation, housing and communication fees upon the workers which are high in relation to pay received, therefore further indebting the worker. Crew leaders may also provide workers with H-2A visas and transportation to the place of work from a home country.

JB Farm Labor contractor hired hundreds to work on an asparagus farm in San Joaquin County. Once hired, they were held hostage and threatened with physical harm if they complained to authorities. After California Rural Legal Assistance was unable to locate JB Farm Labor contractor, they sued the grower who was ordered to pay the workers back-pay. [11] [12] In 2010, the company Global Horizons was indicted on charges of trafficking more than 400 Thai workers through a program of bonded labor. Charges were ultimately dropped in 2012. [13]

In November 2002, Ramiro Ramos, his brother Juan, and their cousin Jose Luis, sub-contractors of a farm in Immokalee, Florida, were charged ten to twelve years each for holding migrant workers in involuntary servitude. [14] The human trafficking ring was uncovered by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a local organization that focuses on human rights of the Mexican and Central American immigrants in the region who are exploited for cheap or unpaid labor. [14] The Coalition has also led the Campaign for Fair Food, which resulted in the Fair Food Program. They argued that larger companies put pressure on suppliers to constantly cut prices, leading many suppliers to engage in human trafficking. They successfully campaigned for several large companies to only buy tomatoes from growers that followed certain standards that guarded against human trafficking and pay them an extra cent per pound for tomatoes which would go directly to the growers. [15]

Fishing

According to an Associated Press investigation published in 2016, [16] exemptions from federal human trafficking, minimum wage, and other labor protection laws have allowed certain fishing boats to operate with foreign workers in what critics have described as a "human trafficking scheme" and debt bondage. The exemptions apply to "highly migratory species" caught outside the Exclusive Economic Zone, in practice largely tuna and swordfish caught off Hawaii. [17] Though the fish are delivered to ports on Honolulu and San Francisco, crew members are not allowed to leave the vessels for years at a time, and have their passports held by boat owners. Paid as little as $0.70 per hour, some fishermen work in unsanitary conditions, and some report abuse or being deceived into taking a job which they thought would pay considerably more than the land-based jobs they were leaving. The fish are sold on to restaurants, hotels, and stores like Sam's Club and Costco; Whole Foods Market suspended purchases after the AP report. [18]

Bills to reform state and federal laws have been introduced, but as of November 2017, have not been passed. [19] Activist groups filed a request for investigation with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in July 2017, though the commission can only make non-binding recommendations. [20] In January 2018, one boat owner settled a human trafficking lawsuit brought by two escaped fishermen, but the practice largely continues. [21]

Garment industry

The garment industry is particularly susceptible to labor trafficking in part because of a highly immigrant work force, low profit margins, and a tiered production system. [22] The production of garments is often divided into several parts. Major retailers will often subcontract work to different companies, which will subcontract to other smaller companies. The limited number of contracts will often go to the cheapest subcontractor. The largest cost is often human labor, so subcontractors that pay their employees the least are often the ones that get the contracts. Because of the tiered nature, it is difficult to regulate and there is little incentive to verify that subcontractors are obeying the law. Coupled with a worker population that is vulnerable because of their visa status and unfamiliarity with American laws, this creates a system that is ripe for human trafficking. [23]

In the El Monte Thai Garment Slavery Case, 72 Thai nationals were discovered working and living in an apartment complex ringed with barbed wire and spiked fences, sewing clothes for major retailers and manufacturers in El Monte, California. [24] Some of the captives had been held for as long as seven years by the leader of a human trafficking ring, "Auntie Suni." [25] The play Fabric was based on the events of the case. [26]

In the United States v. Kil Soo Lee, Lee was the director of Daewoosa, Ltd., a garment factory located in American Samoa. Lee recruited internationally for his workers, targeting Vietnam, China and Samoa. The workers were required to pay $3,600 to $8,000 to be hired plus an additional $5,000 if not completed. When they arrived, Lee detained their passports. The living conditions were highly controlled, including a curfew. Complaining about the conditions resulted in punishment: lack of food, physical abuse, detainment or deportation. The United States Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) began, in May 1999, an investigation on Lee, eventually reimbursing many unpaid workers. The day the back payments were made, Lee demanded the workers sign the checks over to him, which he placed in his personal account. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]

Domestic labor

Domestic servitude is the forced employment of someone as a maid or nanny, and victims are often migrant women who come from low-wage communities in their home countries. [32] Domestic workers perform duties such as cleaning, cooking and childcare in their employers home. They are commonly US citizens, undocumented workers or foreign nationals most commonly holding one of the following visa types: A-3, G-5, NATO-7 or B-1 [33] The most common victims of this type of trafficking are women. Similar means of control[ clarification needed ] to agricultural work are common. Additionally, a lack of legislation regarding the duties and protection of these workers facilitates their exploitation. Employers often use workers' lack of knowledge of the language or legal system as a means of control and intimidation. This is also commonly paired with various forms of abuse and/or passport revocation. Many domestic workers are brought to the United States on a promise of a better life or an education. [34] Traffickers are usually married couples from the same country of origin as the trafficked person, [35] and are usually not involved in organized criminal networks, [36] making it more difficult to identify instances of this type of trafficking. Perpetrators of domestic servitude are often well-respected members of their communities and lead otherwise normal lives. [36] Areas with large middle-class and upper-middle-class populations are commonly the destinations of this type of trafficking. [32]

The Associated Press reports, based on interviews in California and Egypt, that trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. includes an extension of an illegal but common practice in Africa. Families in remote villages send their daughters to work in cities for extra money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life. Some girls work for free on the understanding that they at least will be better fed in the home of their employer. This custom has led to the spread of trafficking, as well-to-do Africans accustomed to employing children immigrate into the U.S. [37]

Legally employed domestic workers are distinct from illegally employed domestic servants. While legally employed domestic house workers are fairly compensated for their work in accordance with national wage laws, domestic servants are typically forced to work extremely long hours for little to no monetary compensation, and psychological and physical means are employed to limit their mobility and freedom. [32] In addition, deportation threats are often used to discourage internationally trafficked persons from seeking help. [32]

Peddling and begging

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, instances of trafficking of adults and children in traveling sales crews, peddling and begging rings are rising. [6]

In one highly publicized case, a group deaf Mexicans were kidnapped and brought to New York City to sell key chains and miniature screwdriver kits in the subways, at airports, on roadsides. All of their earnings were turned over to the bosses, who controlled their food and sleeping arrangements. They were forced to work 18 hours a day and were not allowed to contact family. They were discovered after two of the slaves escaped and made their way to the police. [38] [39] [40]

Traveling sales crew

Jon Erpenbach authored Malinda's Traveling Sales Crew Protection Act. Jon Erpenbach.jpg
Jon Erpenbach authored Malinda's Traveling Sales Crew Protection Act.

Traveling sales crews have the highest rate of labor trafficking after domestic labor. The traveling nature makes it easier for traffickers to control their victims' sleeping arrangements and food and to alienate them from outside contact. Traffickers may withhold food or threaten to abandon their victims in unfamiliar locations without money if they do not comply. Unlike other professions, members of traveling sales crews are considered independent contractors even if they do not have any autonomy in their life outside of work. As independent contractors, they are not overseen by several laws meant to prevent abuse, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Victims often incur debt from their traffickers, and enter into a form of debt slavery. [41]

Malinda's Traveling Sales Crew Protection Act [42] is a Wisconsin law that gives traveling sales crew members similar employment rights as part-time workers in Wisconsin are currently guaranteed by state law. It also requires all crews to register with the Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection before going door to door in state communities. By registering members of the crew, alerts for members with outstanding warrants in other states can be identified and criminals detained. [43] It is the only law in the United States that regulates traveling sales crews. [41] Wisconsin governor James E. Doyle said the intent of the law is to "stop companies from putting workers in dangerous and unfair conditions". The bill was passed in a form that applies only to sales workers who travel in groups of two or more. [44] It was authored by Jon Erpenbach. [43] Southwestern Advantage lobbied against the bill, arguing that their independent contractor business model nurtured the entrepreneurial spirit. [45] [46] During the hearings, former Southwestern student dealers testified on both sides of the issue. [47]

Military

The United States Armed Forces has been alleged to hire contractors to conduct work on its overseas military bases that are engaged in what some auditors describe as potentially "forced labor and human trafficking." These contractors' workers are often foreign laborers that conduct their work in poor and sometimes dangerous conditions for low pay. Additionally, the contractors sometimes keep their workers' passports, which restricts their freedom of movement. [48] [49] [50]

Media

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debt bondage</span> Form of slavery

Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. Where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, or where the debt is excessively large the person who holds the debt has thus some control over the laborer, whose freedom depends on the undefined or excessive debt repayment. The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined, thus allowing the person supposedly owed the debt to demand services indefinitely. Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peon</span> Social category

Peon usually refers to a person subject to peonage: any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which the victim or a laborer (peon) has little control over employment or economic conditions. Peon and peonage can refer to both the colonial period and post-colonial period of Latin America, as well as the period after the end of slavery in the United States, when "Black Codes" were passed to retain African-American freedmen as labor through other means.

With respect to human trafficking, Saudi Arabia was designated, together with Italy, Japan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Germany, Greece, Croatia, Israel, Iceland, Norway, and Angola, as a Tier 2 country by the United States Department of State in its 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report required by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 on which this article was originally based. Tier 2 countries are "countries whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards". The 2021 report shows some effort by the Kingdom to address the problems, but continues to classify the Kingdom as a Tier 2 country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the 21st century</span> Contemporary slavery, also known as modern slavery or neo-slavery

Contemporary slavery, also sometimes known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to occur in present-day society. Estimates of the number of enslaved people today range from around 38 million to 49.6 million, depending on the method used to form the estimate and the definition of slavery being used. The estimated number of enslaved people is debated, as there is no universally agreed definition of modern slavery; those in slavery are often difficult to identify, and adequate statistics are often not available.

The United Arab Emirates is a destination country for men and women that are mostly trafficked for the purposes of labor and prostitution. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2" in 2017.

The Arizona League to End Regional Trafficking (ALERT) is a coalition representing partnerships with law enforcement, faith-based communities, non-profit organizations, social service agencies, attorneys and concerned citizens. ALERT helps victims of human trafficking by providing: food and shelter; medical care; mental health counseling; immigration assistance; legal assistance; language interpretation; case management; and other culturally appropriate services throughout the state of Arizona. Through education, outreach and a variety of programs and services, ALERT strives to end the suffering and dehumanization of victims of human trafficking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human trafficking in the United States</span>

In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women; victims can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.

Bahrain is a Source and destination country for men and women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Men and women from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Ethiopia, and Eritrea migrate voluntarily to Bahrain to work as domestic workers or as unskilled laborers in the construction and service industries. Some, however, face conditions of forced labor after arriving in Bahrain, through use of such practices as unlawful withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, contract substitution, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical or sexual abuse.

Qatar is a transit and destination country for men and women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and, to a much lesser extent, forced prostitution. Men and women from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Sudan, Thailand, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and China voluntarily travel to Qatar as laborers and domestic servants, but some subsequently face conditions indicative of involuntary servitude. These conditions include threats of serious physical or financial harm; job switching; the withholding of pay; charging workers for benefits for which the employer is responsible; restrictions on freedom of movement, including the confiscation of passports and travel documents and the withholding of exit permits; arbitrary detention; threats of legal action and deportation; false charges; and physical, mental, and sexual abuse. In some cases, arriving migrant workers have found that the terms of employment in Qatar are wholly different from those they agreed to in their home countries. Individuals employed as domestic servants are particularly vulnerable to trafficking since they are not covered under the provisions of the labor law. A small number of foreign workers transit Qatar and are forced to work on farms in Saudi Arabia. Qatar is also a destination for women who migrate and become involved in prostitution, but the extent to which these women are subjected to forced prostitution is unknown. Children have been used in Qatar and other Gulf countries as camel jockies. Most children are trafficked from Africa and South Asia. This practice has ceased in most areas though. Workers have been forced to work in bad conditions; their salaries are sometimes withheld.

Iraq is both a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced prostitution and forced labor. Iraqi women and girls, some as young as 11 years old, are subjected to conditions of human trafficking within the country and in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Qatar, and possibly Saudi Arabia for forced prostitution and sexual exploitation within households.

Human trafficking in Brazil is an ongoing problem. Brazil is a source country for men, women, girls, and boys subjected to human trafficking, specifically forced prostitution within the country and abroad, as well as a source country for men and boys in forced labor within the country. The United States Department of Homeland Security, describes human trafficking as "the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act."

Brunei is a destination, and to a lesser extent, a source and transit country for men and women who are subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Men and women from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, China, and Thailand migrate to Brunei for domestic or other low-skilled labor but sometimes face conditions of involuntary servitude upon arrival. There are over 88,000 migrant workers in Brunei, some of whom face debt bondage, non-payment of wages, passport confiscation, confinement to the home, and contract switching – factors that may contribute to trafficking. There were credible reports of nationals from South Asian countries subjected to nonpayment of wages and debt bondage in Brunei for up to two years to pay back foreign recruitment agents. Some of the 25,000 female domestic workers in Brunei were required to work exceptionally long hours without being granted a day for rest, creating an environment consistent with involuntary servitude. There are reports of women forced into prostitution in Brunei, and reports that women arrested for prostitution attest to having been victims of trafficking. Brunei is a transit country for trafficking victims in Malaysia, including Filipinas, who are brought to Brunei for work permit re-authorization before being returned to Malaysia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human trafficking in California</span> Overview of the situation of human trafficking in the U.S. state of California

Human trafficking in California is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor as it occurs in the state of California. Human trafficking, widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery, includes

"the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in Haiti</span>

Slavery in Haiti began after the arrival of Christopher Columbus on the island in 1492 with the European colonists that followed from Portugal, Spain and France. The practice was devastating to the native population. Following the indigenous Tainos' near decimation from forced labor, disease and war, the Spanish, under initial advisement of the Catholic priest Bartolomé de las Casas and with the blessing of the Catholic church, began engaging in earnest during the 17th century in the forced labor of enslaved Africans. During the French colonial period, beginning in 1625, the economy of Saint-Domingue, was based on slavery; conditions on Saint-Domingue became notoriously bad even compared to chattel slavery conditions elsewhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Contemporary slavery in the United States</span>

Slavery is a system which requires workers to work against their will for little to no compensation. In modern-day terms, this practice is more widely referred to as human trafficking. Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”. The practices of slavery and human trafficking are still prevalent in modern America with estimated 17,500 foreign nationals and 400,000 Americans being trafficked into and within the United States every year with 80% of those being women and children. Human trafficking in the United States can be divided into the two major categories of labor and sex trafficking, with sex trafficking accounting for a majority of cases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human trafficking in Virginia</span>

Human trafficking in Virginia is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, or forced labor as it occurs in the state of Virginia, and it is widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery. It includes "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of unfree labor in the United States</span>

The history of forced labor in the United States encompasses to all forms of unfree labor which have occurred within the present day borders of the United States through the modern era. "Unfree labor" is a generic or collective term for those work relations, in which people are employed against their will by the threat of destitution, detention, violence, lawful compulsion, or other extreme hardship to themselves or to members of their families.

Human Trafficking or "trafficking in persons" is the recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for mainly the purposes of forced labor or prostitution. Other reasons for human trafficking are the removal of organs, forced marriage, and other exploitations. South America is one of the biggest source and destination locations in the world and has struggled with the issue for many years. The ILO estimates that of the 20.9 million victims of human trafficking in 2012, 1.8 million were from Latin America. There are many factors that cause human trafficking, like a high demand for domestic servants, sex laborers, and factory workers, the existence of already established trafficking networks that often take advantage of young women and children, corruption in the governments and local law enforcement agencies, a governmental disinterest in the issue and a lack of opportunity for women in South American regions where trafficking occurs. People exploited in human trafficking are often impoverished, members of indigenous peoples, unemployed, victims of abuse, illiterate, substance users, homeless, or involved in gang activity. Research by the United States Department of State has also found that LGBTQ+ people are vulnerable to human trafficking. By far, sex trafficking is the leading type of human trafficking, making up 79 percent of all human trafficking. This is then followed by forced labor at 18 percent. About 20 percent of trafficking victims are children. Primary destinations for trafficking and illegal immigration are the United States, Spain, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Canada. Globalization, capitalism and societal attitudes facilitate and reduce the barriers to human trafficking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in Kuwait</span>

Open chattel slavery existed in Kuwait until 1949. Slavery was formally abolished in Kuwait in 1949. In practice, slavery was not actually abolished as such, but the law no longer recognized it after 1949, which meant that every slave who applied for manumission was guaranteered to be freed. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves. Slavery of people from Africa and East Asia was succeeded by the modern Kafala system of poor workers from the same region were slaves had previously been imported.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in Bahrain</span>

Open slavery existed in Bahrain until the 1930s. Slavery was formally abolished in Bahrain in 1937. Slavery ended earlier in Bahrain than in any other Gulf state, with the exception of Iran and Iraq. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves. Slavery of people from Africa and East Asia was succeeded by the modern Kafala system of poor workers from the same region were slaves had previously been imported.

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