Rethinking Human Trafficking

March 5, 2019

CNN reported early this year, "Human trafficking is an estimated $150 billion industry, and one of the fastest-growing transnational criminal activities of the 21st century." TonightJulietta Hua Ph.D. is presenting a talk titled "Rethinking Human Trafficking: Labor, Race, and the Case of Foxconn."

In 2011, stories circulated in English-language news media of a series of suicides that took place over one year on the properties of Foxconn Technology Group in China, one of the largest producers and providers of component parts for personal technology. The Foxconn suicides were never explicitly discussed as matters of human trafficking, but they did eventually converge with anti-trafficking campaigns that championed responsible consumption and supply-chain politics.

Dr. Hua raises the question, how might the routinization of violence taking place in legitimated sites of production, like the Foxconn factories, become part of the story of human trafficking?

Date: March 5; Time: 7 p.m.; Location: Bradley Hall, Room 145