Organizing the Exploitation of Vulnerable People: A Qualitative Assessment of Human Trafficking
基于对性产业中被迫劳动的女性、人贩子、妓院经理等的访谈，归纳出组织剥削弱势人群的四个相互关联的实践，揭示其如何侵蚀并最终消除受害者的自主性。
Focusing on the organizing practices by which vulnerable individuals are exploited for their labor, we build a model that depicts how human traffickers systematically target impoverished girls and women and transform their autonomous objection into unquestioned compliance. Drawing from qualitative interviews with women forced into labor in the sex industry, human traffickers, brothel managers, and other sources (e.g., doctors, nongovernment organizations, and police officers fighting human trafficking), we inductively theorize that organizing of vulnerable individuals for human exploitation involves four interrelated practices—(1) deceptive recruiting of the vulnerable, (2) entrapping through isolation, (3) extinguishing alternatives by building barriers, and (4) converting the exploited into exploiters—that together erode and eventually eliminate workers’ autonomy. We conclude by discussing implications of our research for theory—specifically, the literature on human exploitation and loss of worker agency.