The violent, hopeful world of children who smuggle people
'People will always find a way to get through': the children who work in smuggling
With few ways to earn income on the border, many young men turn to the dangerous but well-paid work of people smuggling
Click on a sketch to read their story
Stories of hope and violence from Juárez, Mexico
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Feature'Only those we forget die': Losing a brother to smuggling gangsRodrigo used to smuggle people. Now he dreams of a life far from violence and poverty
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureBorder-crossing can pay the billsBorder crosser to border cop is a viable career path
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureHope lies on the other side of the borderSome children will go to great lengths to try to help their families
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureTo be the mother of smugglers: 'People judge children like my sons'Caught between poverty and stigma, smuggling is one of the few jobs available for María's sons. And she's already...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureWork and motherhood amidst the border violenceMultiple tragedies haven't stopped this teen mother from forging a new life for her family on the US-Mexico border
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Feature'People will always find a way to get through': the children who work in smugglingWith few ways to earn income on the border, many young men turn to the dangerous but well-paid work of people smuggling
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureCrossing the US-Mexico border, just to seeCrossing the US-Mexico border is a lifeline for some. For others, it’s an adventure
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureSearching for hope in a smuggling townMelly has spent her life assembling goods on the Mexican border. Will her son find a way out, or will he suffer as she has?
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureSmuggling people into the United States, 'you risk a lot'This teenager smuggled people across the U.S.-Mexico border, but the death of a friend made him think again
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureIntroducing our series on children who smuggleOn the US-Mexico border, smuggling offers children a risky way to support their families in times of need
Why do children work? Stories from Ghana
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Feature‘It is how I take care of myself’Some children start work against their parents' wishes, and bans on child labour make it impossible to protect them...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Feature‘To learn a trade’Many children see vocational training, not formal schooling, as the way to escape back-breaking work
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Feature‘To become big men and women’Schools are assumed to be the path to success, but what if the schools are bad, cruel, or don’t exist?
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureThe home economics of child labourYou can't stop child labour without confronting household poverty
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Feature‘We have no helper in this world’Inequality is at the core of child labour, so why isn’t redistribution seen as the solution?
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureTaken in the name of ‘rescue’: a child respondsGhanaian children are being wrenched from their parents and put into care homes to ‘save’ them from work
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Feature'To attain my future'Many say that working children should be in school. But for many children, work is what gets them an education
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: Feature‘We will not have food to eat’Child labour can’t be abolished through force. To address it, we must attend to why children work in the first place
A better approach to child work
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureAre adults willing to listen to children on child labour?Working children have the right to policies informed by their views and best interests
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureMy childhood as a child worker in MalawiOur author wouldn’t be where he is today if bans on child labour had prevented him from working when he needed to
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureBanning child labour jeopardises working children’s right to surviveTrying to ‘eliminate’ child labour only pushes working children into the shadows
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureChild labour: a shock absorber for economic precarityThe only way to reduce child labour in low-income countries is to make it easier for households to survive without it
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureTo be an Afghan child worker in IranMore than a million Afghan children are trying to make their way in Iran. What could smooth the path for them?
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureEmpower and protect, rather than prohibit: a better approach to child workChild labour isn’t going anywhere, so children’s safety in work must become the priority
Get off the fence on sex workers' rights
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: InterviewFreedom Network USA now supports sex workers’ rightsJean Bruggeman goes deep to explain why her organisation is getting off the fence and is backing sex workers’ rights
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureFence-sitting and its discontents: the fear of taking a stand on sex work in the USThe terrain for sex worker activism in the United States has been shaped by the silence of those who fear the...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureThere is no neutral position on whether sex work is work'Neutrality’ is based on the assumptions of the anti-sex work camp, which makes abstention a political stance in its...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureThe anti-trafficking movement has left sex workers behindAnti-trafficking NGOs need to take a stance on sex work – or they will just keep harming us.
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: InterviewCriminalising sex workers’ clients makes trafficking worseAndrew Wallis, the CEO of Unseen, tells us what he really thinks about attempts to introduce Nordic-style...
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Published in:Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: FeatureIt's time to get off the fence on sex workers’ rightsYou cannot effectively combat human trafficking within the commercial sex sector without taking a stand on basic...
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First-hand writing from sex workers, domestic workers, migrant workers, and child workers
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Published in: Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: OpinionUnions call for more sanctions on anniversary of Myanmar’s coupSanctions worked the last time the military was in power. Can they again?
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Published in: Beyond Trafficking and Slavery: AnalysisMyanmar’s Spring Revolution: a history from belowWomen factory workers took to the streets and catalysed a mass movement
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