OSCE Urges World to Address Labor Exploitation

According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sex may sell, but labor exploitation should be an area of policy priorityfor governments around the world.  In the first day of a two-day conference in Vienna, OSCE strongly urged the attending nations to worker harder and do more to prevent the exploitation and trafficking of workers, especially seasonal agricultural workers.  The OCSE human trafficking representative Eva Biaudet said,

In most countries labor inspections are very limited or nonexistent in the agricultural sector. The political framework exists, now we need political will and action at the national level. In many countries it is accepted that there is continued demand for seasonal agricultural work to be filled by foreigners, but at the same time legal migration channels are still limited.

OSCE, along with many other international organizations, had previously emphasised policy around trafficking into commercial sex industriesmore than labor industries like agricultural and domestic work.  I see this shift as due in part to better awareness and education in governments and international organizations about the prevalence of trafficking in a number of industries other than the commercial sex industry.  While continuing to improve policies to prevent trafficking into commercial sex is crucial in Europe and the rest of the world, I hope more groups like OSCE recognize the danger than growing trafficking into labor industries poses and the reality of abuse and exploitation that all trafficking victims face.  Human trafficking occurs in just about every job industry, and prevention efforts should be targeted to those specific industries.  Ending trafficking in migrant agricultural work will require a different implementation strategy than in strip clubs, or domestic servitude, or factory labor.

As an international community, we cannot assume any industry is free of human trafficking.