On 8 October 2018 we published the BTS Round Table on the Future of Work, in which 12 experts explain recent changes to the nature of work and offer new ideas in labour policy, organising, and activism. This piece has been written in response.
We thank the BTS editors for convening this roundtable and this call for contributions. It may come as a surprise to some to see a contribution from an anti-trafficking organisation. Yet for us at GAATW, trafficking has always been an issue of labour and labour migration. Our efforts to challenge exploitation and trafficking must therefore be grounded in a deep understanding of the world of work. This means taking stock of how and why work has changed globally, identifying the specificities of each sector, and finding ways to enable workers to organise and build alliances.
It has long been clear that trafficking, exploitation, and labour rights violations occur in sectors where women, often migrants or of lower socio-economic status, work. These sectors include domestic work, the sex industry, the garment industry, and agriculture. Each of these comes with particular conditions that enable abuse and exploitation. Domestic work takes place in private homes. Sex work is criminalised and highly stigmatised in most countries. Agriculture and the garment sector are rarely monitored effectively.
