During the April Moritz Center for Societal Impact Lunch & Learn session, Dr. Noël Busch-Armendariz led a thoughtful discussion on the impact of human trafficking and exploited labor. Her research focuses on labor and sex trafficking, but research finds that labor involves more victims than sex trafficking.
She explained that trafficking is “a tough, complex, multilayered topic,” and provided statistics that paint a sobering picture. Globally, according to Dr. Busch-Armendariz, up to 50 million people are trafficked daily, with 27.6 million exploited specifically for labor. In Texas alone, 234,000 people face labor exploitation every day among the estimated 313,000 people trafficked statewide, and traffickers take $600 million in earned wages from labor victims.
Trafficking is a societal problem that can “hide” in plain sight in services such as nail salons, landscaping services, kitchen help in restaurants, and cleaning and janitorial services, especially in hotels, she said. It also touches the supply chains in common goods such as coffee, clothing, cell phones and laptop computers.
In addition to being aware of the problem, Busch-Armendariz recommends being an informed consumer by looking for the Fair Trade label on products and checking a product’s supply chain on sites like Sweat and Toil. In addition, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center offers a hotline at 1-888-888-3737.
The conversation continues next month when Drs. Daniel Parrish and Kirk Von Sternberg present “Choices-Teen and Lessons Learned from Recruitment with Youth and Technology Use” on Wednesday, May 7, at 11:30 a.m.
Bring your lunch to Walter Webb Hall’s second-floor common room. The Moritz Center will provide desserts and refreshments.