Louise Shelley

On her book Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective

Cover Interview of April 10, 2011

In a nutshell

There is more than one business model of human trafficking and there are enormous variations in human trafficking in different regions of the world. This book examines all forms of human trafficking in a global and comparative perspective.

Transnational crime is an important part of the rise in human trafficking as criminals are drawn by the enormous supply of people and the demand for cheap domestic servants, agricultural workers and laborers for dangerous industries.

The rise of sexual exploitation has been rapid and a truly global phenomenon, drawing increasing numbers of children and young women into this sphere. The growth of this crime has been very rapid because there is neither certainty nor severity of punishment. Unlike in the drug trade, criminal prosecutions for human trafficking are rare and profits are rarely confiscated.

Drawing on a wide body of academic research—actual prosecuted cases, diverse reports, and fieldwork and interviews I conducted over the last sixteen years in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Europe—the book concludes that human trafficking will be a defining issue of the 20th century.

Human trafficking will grow as a result of economic and demographic inequalities in the world, the rise of conflicts, and possibly global climate change. Coordinated efforts of government, civil society, the business community, multilateral organizations, and the media are needed to stem its growth.

globalization / gender / 20th century / children / human rights / migration / 21st century / slavery / crime /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009