Resumen de Exploitation Creep and the Unmaking of Human Trafficking Law

Janie A. Chuang

• The U.S. government and influential NGOs have been promoting a greatly expanded legal and policy understanding of the problem of human trafficking, recasting (1) forced labor as trafficking, and (2) trafficking as “modern-day slavery.” The aggregate effect is a doctrinally problematic “exploitation creep.” For strong legal and policy reasons, anti-trafficking efforts should target structural vulnerability to trafficking through strengthened labor frameworks.Onthe same grounds the article contests initiatives to conflate human trafficking with slavery and to address trafficking primarily under an ex post crime-control paradigm focused on perpetrator accountability and victim protection.