Labour Migration, Human Trafficking and Multinational Corporations

8    Doing Canada’s dirty work

A critical analysis of law and policy to address labour exploitation trafficking

Bethany Hastie

Introduction

Since the inception of the Palermo Protocol in 2000, trafficking in persons has become a hot topic of legal debate. Most Western countries have enacted domestic legislation aimed at tackling human trafficking. In Canada, most of the debate and legislative measures have been aimed at tackling trafficking for sexual exploitation. However, labour exploitation is a serious and potentially growing problem that also deserves serious attention. Migrant labourers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in Canada, and because migrant labour is regulated through government programmes, exploitation often goes undetected. ...