Kevin Bales

What Predicts Human Trafficking

If the international community has achieved agreement on the definition of human trafficking, we still have only a partial understanding of what drives it. We know that poverty and vulnerability represent ‘push‐factors’ and that employment opportunity presents an important ‘pull‐factor.’ But which of these factors is the most important? The regression analysis of 76 variables undertaken here confirms that corruption, poverty, conflict, and the ‘pull’ factor of opportunity are all significant predictors of trafficking. Some of the most obvious strategies for slowing trafficking, on the basis of this analysis, would include those activities known to reduce ‘push’ factors, such as measures to reduce governmental corruption in both origin and destination countries, population control measures, especially poverty reduction, and tackling international inequalities in wealth. International financial institutions should give incentives to programmes for land reform, education and training, and health care, rather than promulgate ‘austerity’ requirements that undermine such programmes.

Slavery in Europe: Part 2, Testing a Predictive Model

Since the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act and the United Nations Palermo Protocols of 2000, there has been an increased focus on the magnitude and complexity of modern day slavery. Yet, surprisingly, little empirical work exists. A comprehensive review of the literature by Elżbieta Gożdziak and Micah Bump in 2008 found that quantitative methodologies were noticeably scarce and that the dominant anti-trafficking discourse was not evidence based. One reason for this scarcity has been the difficulty in obtaining reliable representative data. In this paper, we utilize a novel measure of contemporary slavery in Europe that illustrates one way to fill this gap. Using this measure as a dependent variable, we test one of the first predictive models of slavery. Employing multivariate regression analysis, we find that several predictors—state stability risk, freedom of speech, access to financial services, geography, and age—are significantly predictive of cross-national variation in slavery across Europe. We conclude by outlining a research agenda to develop a better empirical understanding of modern day slavery. This is essential for the development of more effective government policies and responses, with an eye toward the eventual significant reduction or eradication of slavery.

Getting What We Want: Experience and Impact in Research with Survivors of Slavery

This chapter examines the ethical and moral dilemmas present in conducting research within vulnerable populations. In particular, we explore the process of conducting interviews with trafficking victims that identify as transient minor sex workers. In light of the primary responsibility to ‘first, do no harm’, investigating the variety of unintended negative consequences implicit in data collection and presentation is a process that is both tedious and engaging. Experience and literature are employed in analysing the threats to the physical, social, and psychological integrity of all participants in this project, including the researcher, the subjects, the sponsoring institution(s), and the audiences.

Slaves to destruction

Forced labour is unjust in its own right, but recognising its effect on the environment may help hasten its end, says Kevin Bales

Forced marriage, slavery, and plural legal systems: an African example

ABSTRACT:Slavery, long abolished under international law, left a devastating imprint on Africa. However, enslavement of women through forced marriages remains a common phenomenon in many African states. These African states share the common feature of legal pluralism where traditional legal systems continue to be observed alongside national laws in which slavery is outlawed. Where traditional practices condone the marriage of underage girls who are legally unable to consent, the questioning of age-old accepted forms of marriage can generate strong reactions. This article traces the position of forced and child marriages in international law, and investigates how legality becomes a moveable target when legal systems exist in parallel. Despite international and African Union conventions on slavery and human rights declaring that marriages not based on the full and free consent of both parties are considered a violation of human rights and a form of slavery, these practices persist. These instruments are assessed to gauge the level of conformity (or variance) of African state practice where forced marriages commonly occur. Importantly, the reasons behind noncompliance and the impact of legal pluralism are explored in African states where forced marriages commonly occur.

Slavery as Social Institution

This article is a replacement of the previous edition article by O. Patterson, volume 21, pp. 14146–14152,

Anti-Slavery and the Redefining of Justice

Across time and cultures slavery has been, and is, ubiquitous. From the beginning of written history and into the twentieth century, slaves provided both the motive power of empire building and were the householder’s clever and useful beast of burden, while sustaining the power that in turn legitimised their subjugation. The abolition of legal slavery, a process taking nearly two centuries once begun, was a profound transformation in human history, no less a legal and economic reformation than a shift in individual and social consciousness. In the twenty-first century, our response to this crime is still shaped by the themes of slavery past but with little knowledge of slavery present. We see that lack of knowledge in the fact that the application of systems of justice to slavery is by no means common, and is often seen as novel.