Abstract

Excerpted From: Elizabeth Eckholm, Rolling up Our Sleeves: Using Public Health to Address Labor Trafficking, 20 University of Saint Thomas Law Journal 1058 (Summer, 2024) (104 Footnotes) (Full Document Requested)

As our communities start to approach the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, starting a conversation around public health may feel triggering for some. As we marked the two-year anniversary of the declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, the American Public Health Association (APHA) honored the memory of nearly one million Americans who have lost their lives to the pandemic and reflected on the critical role of public health operations to ensure the health of all our nation's communities. Public health goes beyond looking at health as is commonly thought of in clinic and hospital settings. The APHA's movement to becoming a healthier society looks at improving everything that impacts health--from housing, education, and income to community design, transportation, and our environment. Leading public health organizations recognize the issues plaguing the well-being of our communities go beyond a doctor's diagnosis and encompass issues related to climate change, human rights, violence, mental health, and substance abuse. When we look at societal issues from a public health perspective, we are forced to utilize a holistic approach to prevention and healing.

Labor trafficking--a form of human trafficking--presents similar societal consequences to its cousin, and now recognized public health issue, gang and urban violence. Victims of trafficking frequently suffer physical and mental abuse, which often manifests as physical, sexual, and psychological trauma. Forced labor cases often involve victims being forced to work long hours in unsanitary and hazardous conditions and suffering from financial or physical punishment, all of which can cause or contribute to injuries and illnesses. Labor trafficking has substantial consequences on the health and well-being of our communities. If we, as a society, start addressing labor trafficking through a public health lens, we can focus on holistic, preventative measures and community support to eradicate labor trafficking from harming future generations.

In this Note, I will begin Part I by defining labor trafficking and the history of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000. To fully understand what labor trafficking entails, we must look at the populations and communities most affected by it and understand how it is different from sex trafficking as a form of human trafficking. In Part II, I will then investigate how current public health organizations address gang and urban violence as they have become widely recognized public health issues. This will then set up my comparative analysis in Part III which will discuss how violence as a public health issue has started to create a model that communities can utilize in addressing labor trafficking and its intersection with public health. Finally, in Part IV I will highlight some policy recommendations based on current initiatives being pursued by activists, areas of improvement based on what we know about past public health initiatives, and legislative reform.

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Research is still being conducted and will likely continue for many years on the global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Early data taken from the National Human Trafficking Hotline found that when comparing post-shelter-in-place time with pre-shelter-in-place time in 2019 and 2020, the number of crisis trafficking situations increased by more than 40 percent. The issue of labor trafficking in our society can be looked at through many different lenses--racial disparity and discrimination; socioeconomic and class disparities; access to mental health services and dismantling mental health stigmas; criminal justice; policy-orientated jurisprudence; and human rights and dignity, and the list goes on. We have looked at the unique ways in which victims of labor trafficking undergo abuse, coercion, and harm, and the ways that the current systems in place are inadequate to address their needs.

It is not a new phenomenon to utilize public health in addressing a seemingly criminal justice issue. Gang and street violence have widely been recognized as public health issues that affect the well-being of communities through physical and psychological suffering. There are many commonalities between this type of violence and labor trafficking, from the various lenses through which the issues can be addressed, to its historical roots in slavery and racial discrimination, and their various misconceptions and stigmas. The utilization of public health in addressing gang and street violence has taught us that law enforcement and criminal justice initiatives do not need to be mutually exclusive from public health goals.

Labor trafficking requires a public health approach if we hope to truly work towards its prevention and pervasiveness on all levels. Public health is broad enough to encompass all lenses and viewpoints in which we can analyze labor trafficking in that it starts by looking to root causes in developing prevention strategies. Looking at societal issues from this perspective, stakeholders are encouraged to utilize a holistic approach to prevention and healing. By identifying the gaps in the current systems and broadening our understanding of the realities that face the victim-survivors of trafficking, stakeholders can develop stronger policies to better serve their communities.

Ms. Eckholm is a University of St. Thomas School of Law graduate. She currently serves as an Assistant Public Defender for the Fourth Judicial District in Minnesota.