Where is the Political Courage?
In the US Department of Labor’s 2018 report on modern-day slavery and child labor, released Thursday, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta framed the practice as an economic issue, rather than the urgent human rights problem global leaders have long considered it.
Modern-day slavery, also known as forced labor, involves people who are coerced into working under the threat of violence or intimidation, according to the United Nations.
It also includes scenarios in which employers withhold a worker’s passport, threaten to call immigration authorities, or manipulate a worker’s debt so they can’t leave. The UN states that nearly every country in the world has agreed that “not being subject to forced labour is a fundamental human right.”
So has the United States. But to the Trump administration, forcing people to work for little or no money is also an “unfair advantage” for foreign businesses.
“American workers cannot compete with producers abroad who use child labor or forced labor, provide unsafe working conditions, or do not pay workers what they are legally owed,” Acosta wrote in the report. “These reprehensible practices undercut the higher standards we maintain to protect the well-being of our workforce here at home.”
Annick Febrey, director of government relations with the Human Trafficking Institute, a nonprofit organization that works to abolish modern slavery, told Reuters that this kind of language is “reflective of the current administration’s trade policies and focus on America First.”
In the Trump administration, “America First” means focusing first and foremost on promoting US economic interests — and relegating human rights concerns to a distant second (at best).
In the US Department of Labor’s 2018 report on modern-day slavery and child labor, released Thursday, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta framed the practice as an economic issue, rather than the urgent human rights problem global leaders have long considered it.
Modern-day slavery, also known as forced labor, involves people who are coerced into working under the threat of violence or intimidation, according to the United Nations.
It also includes scenarios in which employers withhold a worker’s passport, threaten to call immigration authorities, or manipulate a worker’s debt so they can’t leave. The UN states that nearly every country in the world has agreed that “not being subject to forced labour is a fundamental human right.”
So has the United States. But to the Trump administration, forcing people to work for little or no money is also an “unfair advantage” for foreign businesses.
“American workers cannot compete with producers abroad who use child labor or forced labor, provide unsafe working conditions, or do not pay workers what they are legally owed,” Acosta wrote in the report. “These reprehensible practices undercut the higher standards we maintain to protect the well-being of our workforce here at home.”
Annick Febrey, director of government relations with the Human Trafficking Institute, a nonprofit organization that works to abolish modern slavery, told Reuters that this kind of language is “reflective of the current administration’s trade policies and focus on America First.”
In the Trump administration, “America First” means focusing first and foremost on promoting US economic interests — and relegating human rights concerns to a distant second (at best).
