5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Trafficking/modern slavery operates at the intersection of the economy and coercion. The theorization of trafficking chains centers on how trafficking/modern slavery is driven by a search for profits, value, and material benefits through the coercive exploitation of the vulnerability of others. Yet, trafficking/modern slavery is not an outcome of capitalism alone but depends on situations of vulnerability that are systematically structured by colonial and gendered inequalities. The policy analyses show how trafficking/modern slavery has been made a crime under international law but argues that the regulation of the economy is critically important. Eradicating trafficking/modern slavery depends on bodies of law other than the criminal, the drive for more sustainable models of development and the deepening of democratic institutions. Society as a whole – economy, violence, polity, and civil society – creates the situations of vulnerability that are exploited, so interventions need to be wide-ranging and comprehensive. Covering theory, law, available data and the urgent need to improve it, the book outlines the policy fields and pathways that address the root cause of trafficking/modern slavery in complex inequalities with an emphasis on the intersectional inequalities in a detailed analysis of sexual exploitation, the form of trafficking that most affects women and girls, as well as large proportions of migrants from lower income countries. An important theme developed throughout the book is how the alternative forms of modernity – social democratic, neoliberal, authoritarian – provide different contexts and opportunities for exploitation, situations of vulnerability, and interventions.

Critics: Margaret Abraham and Chris Tilly