Is there a need for new definition of forced labor?

• In Event: Political and Social Discourses about Crime and Justice Panel 2

Abstract

Forced labor is social phenomena which is difficult to accept due to its exceptional nature. We still come across people who, ask, “Does it really exist now?” Such ‘ignorance’ is, in a certain sense, normal because it is difficult to imagine the total enslavement and dependence of another person in XXI Century. On the other hand the level of society’s awareness about forced labor is low because in many places it is not a matter of public debate and the authorities’ interest is minimal. Human trafficking but especially forced labor does not fit into the cognitive patterns of a modern person. The information that ‘forced labor takes place next to us’ cannot find a place in the mind of the recipient, where it can be located and internalized.
Important question arises: Why is progress in eliminating forced labor negligible compared with that in sexual exploitation? The answer is difficult but no doubt that forced labor is difficult to accept, irrespective of age, education, legal knowledge, or historical experiences, because reducing a person to the commodity is contradictory to the elementary principles of people co-existing. On the other hand, among the many features of this crime described in the literature, little is said about the fact that this behavior is well hidden precisely because it is difficult to see it and to recognize it. Also for law enforcement.
Maybe it is worth changing the language that is used to describe forced labor. Maybe criminological jargon not guarantee broad societal interest? That’s’ why I propose new, a five-factor model for the description and analysis of these phenomena. In creating this tool, I departed from classic, legal definitions, instead I try to look at the problem from the humanistic perspective.

Author

• Zbigniew Lasocik, University of Warsaw