Citation

David F. Anti-Traffick. Rev. 2015; 5: 150-152.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW))

DOI

10.14197/atr.201215510

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

On the 3rd of April 2015, Indonesian government officials visited the remote island village of Benjina.1 This followed press reports by Associated Press (AP) that Burmese men were being kept on Benjina island in cages, beaten with stingray tails and paid little or nothing, to fish for a company that occupies the port on the island, Pusaka Benjina Resources.

As news of a possible rescue filtered around the island, AP reports hundreds of men 'weathered former and current slaves with long, greasy hair and tattoos streamed from their trawlers, down the hills, even out of the jungle, running toward what they had only dreamed of for years: Freedom.'

AP used the word 'slavery'. The reporters also described the men as having been 'trafficked'. Were these men 'slaves', or in 'forced labour', or had they been 'trafficked'? Is it important what we call them? Certainly organisations working on this issue spend an awful lot of time focusing and arguing about the finer distinctions between these terms. Some of this debate reflects overlaps and a lack of certainty about the meaning of parts of the legal definitions, while some of this debate reflects political differences.

Do the distinctions between the concepts of human trafficking, forced labour and slavery matter? When and why?

n some ways, even small differences in definitions are critically important. For example, from a political perspective, governments have negotiated and agreed with one another what these terms mean. As a result, they have made national laws to ensure these acts are criminalised. While important grey areas remain, internationally negotiated definitions provide a level of certainty that allows international legal cooperation on this crime type. In theory, those responsible for the Benjina abuses can be prosecuted for roughly equivalent crimes in either Indonesia or Thailand...

Language: en

Keywords

crime; human rights; journal; gender; women; immigration; review; migration; trafficking; anti-trafficking; anti-trafficking review; human trafficking; human trafficking journal; labour rights; prostitution; rights; sex work; trafficked persons; trafficking in persons; transnational crime