People who are trafficked often face a multitude of health risks and consequences arising from violence, deprivation of basic needs and exploitative working conditions. These health risks and consequences cut across various policy domains beyond Ministries of Health to Labour, Immigration, Policing and Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), raising the question of how policy-makers should intervene or coordinate across sectors to address human trafficking. In this talk, I will discuss human trafficking and health research and implications for health and OHS policy-making, based on fieldwork experiences examining how males trafficked for commercial fishing are identified and assisted by various agencies in Thailand. I will also discuss challenges related to human trafficking research based on recent fieldwork and experiences of conducting the Study on Trafficking, Exploitation and Abuse in the Mekong (STEAM), a multi-site survey of individuals using selected post-trafficking services in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Moderator: Ms.Reena Tadee
October 15, 2014
