 |
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
|
The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Alice M. Miller, JD, Columbia University School of Public Health, 60 Haven, B-2, New York, NY 10032, 1 212 304 5280, am808@columbia.edu
This presentation focuses attention on the legal and human rights responses to the contemporary global phenomenon of the movement of women, men and children into conditions of forced labor. While this phenomenon has reached world attention as "trafficking" this word has often served to obscure rather than stimulate effective global legal responses to protect the human rights of victims.
This presentation seeks to alert health professionals not only to the specific health consequences of trafficking, but to the existing and emerging legal and policy frameworks in which health responses are made. The rapid adoption of new international and national law has positive and negative aspects from the perspectives of the many women, men and children who move and are moved into domestic servitude, sweatshop labor, unsafe agricultural, forced prostitution, dangerous construction and other work. In particular, the ability of sex workers to claim their human rights, including to promote their health rights and ensure their freedom from violence, freedom of movement etc, can be helped or harmed by the way in which laws define "trafficking" and are applied. Specific examples of the new legal and human rights approaches to "trafficking" which will be discussed and analyzed are the new UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, US Congressional legislation on the Protection of Victims of Trafficking, and the new South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Convention against Trafficking.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Human Rights, Sex Workers
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.