Labor and Migration Effects of Human Trafficking Panel
The Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital’s Speaker Series and the Law & Culture Initiative sponsored a panel on April 7, 2010, that discussed Labor and Migration Effects of Human Trafficking. The panel is part of a campus-wide initiative on human trafficking.
Human Trafficking is a crime against humanity. It involves the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving a person through the use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, or other means, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes prostitution, other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, and much worse. Every year, thousands of men, women, and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and in the United States.
We learned through this panel discussion that human trafficking occurs everywhere in the world and takes many forms:
- Occurs both across borders and within a country (not just cross-border)
- Is for a range of exploitative purposes (not just sexual exploitation)
- Victimizes children, women and men
- Victims often think they are coming to the U.S. to work in legitimate jobs and then are forced into illegal human trafficking situations
- Takes place with or without the involvement of organized crime groups
- Is a very complicated issue when it comes to rescuing and/or defending victims of human trafficking
|Adrienne D. Davis, M. Van Cleve Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law - Moderator|
|Bridgette Carr, Professor and Director, Clinic on Human Trafficking, University of Michigan Law
Professor Carr’s research and teaching interests focus on human trafficking, immigration, and human rights. Her previous scholarship and clinical work has centered on the plight of asylum seekers, battered immigrants, and victims of human trafficking. Click here to view profile.
|Suzanne LeLaurin, International Institute St. Louis
Suzanne LeLaurin is the Sr. VP for Individuals and Families and has been employed there since February 1997. She plans, monitors, and evaluates the operations of Social Services/Mental Health, Employment, Education, and Youth/Elderly departments. Ms. LeLaurin is responsible for strategic planning and vision, community liaison, contract monitoring and evaluation. Education and Professional Credentials: MSW from Washington University, MO; LCSW in Missouri since 2000; Certificate in Global Mental Health - Trauma and Recovery Program, from Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, Massachusetts General Hospital and Institute Superiore di Sanita (anticipated May 2007); certified by St. Louis University and Washington University for conducting Human Subjects Research. Click here to view profile.
|Kerry Rittich, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law and the Women's and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto
Professor Rittich teaches and writes in the areas of international law and international institutions, law and development, human rights, labour law, and critical and feminist theory. Click here to view profile.
|Chantal Thomas, Professor and Director, Clarke Initiative for Law and Development in the Middle East and North Africa, Cornell University Law
Professor Thomas focuses her scholarship on the relationship between international law, political economy, and global social justice in a variety of contexts. She teaches in the areas of International Development Law, International Trade Law, Corporations, Contracts, and Law and Globalization. Click here to view profile.
Washington University Law • Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital
Marion Crain, Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law and Director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital
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