Inequality and Injustice: The Roots of Human Trafficking
Baldemar Vasquez | September 10 | 1:30 - 2:30 PM | Room 3018
Inequity and a lack of human rights is at the root of human trafficking. Human trafficking education, awareness, and micro level interventions will not contribute much to ending trafficking, without attention paid to those institutional forces that drive inequality to create a thriving market for labor, sex, and drug trafficking. Using Latin America as a case in point, the audience will learn about the causes for the prevalence in trafficking, which include: (a) U.S. broken foreign policy with Mexico and Latin America, including trade agreements and immigration laws that criminalize the poor and supports endemic corruption and drug cartels; (b) U.S. global corporate supply chains and investor greed; and (c) our broken U.S. Congress and their inability to guarantee mechanisms for citizens and immigrants to exercise their human rights, civil rights and labor rights. This is a call to attack institutional inequality by creating a counter institutional moment among the victims and the poor. Examples of how to fight back and restore human rights and human dignity will be provided.