The Trafficking of Migrant Workers: What are the Links Between Labour Trafficking and Corruption?

Trafficking in human beings, including the trafficking of persons for migrant labour exploitation is a violation of human rights. Yet what is often neglected in deliberations on the situation of trafficked migrant workers is the existence of the overarching discourse of universal human rights protecting all workers, regardless of situation, exploitation, or legal status. International human rights standards do offer protection to migrant workers that ought to be more widely applied. Yet there remains reluctance by states to offer trafficked migrant workers little more than scant protection for fundamental rights. Attempting to locate and describe the subject of labour trafficking is currently conducted at the peril of simplifying the issues to a few basic and inadequate descriptions. While it is speculated that the worker subjected to labour trafficking is multifaceted, distinct features are largely unknown. The limitations in drawing conclusions are primarily due to a lack of data on the number and circumstances of trafficked migrant workers. This paper will also analyse how and where corruption oils the wheels of trafficking networks. It is suggested that a symbiotic relationship between corruption and trafficking exists, a relationship that both increases risks for migrant workers and facilitates the processes of trafficking of people for labour exploitation. Consequently it should be crucial that any analysis of labour trafficking allocates significant resources to identifying the particulars of a possible relationship between trafficking and corruption. However, to the detriment of holistic strategies to understand and combat labour trafficking, corruption is yet to be named and targeted in most anti-trafficking statistical research or policy studies. This paper concludes with a summary of three sets of recommendations on approaches to address labour trafficking, and in part address the corruption that intersects with labour trafficking.