| Forced labor and slavery are topics of WCL conference by mike unger 
Photo by Jeff Watts
From left: Seth Rosenthal, Jay Greenberg, Elizabeth Keyes, and Charles Song participated in a panel discussion on strategies to address human trafficking at the WCL conference on forced labor and slavery. An estimated 12.4 million
people around the globe are engaged in forced labor, and 2.4 million of those were trafficked. It was with that staggering and sobering statistic that Nisha Varia, senior researcher at the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, opened an all-day summit Thursday at the Washington College of Law entitled “Forced Labor and Slavery: The Other Side of Trafficking.” Varia, whose recent research and advocacy has focused on human rights abuses against migrant domestic workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka employed in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Middle East, was the conference’s keynote speaker. “Forced labor and slavery take many forms,” she said. “Abuses against domestic workers are pervasive, serious, and very symbolic.” The rest of the conference featured panel discussions on labor trafficking in the United States and abroad; litigation, law enforcement, and policy strategies to address trafficking; and attending to the needs of trafficking survivors. |
