Enslavement, slaveholders, international law, wartime abuses and forced marriage are just some of the areas speakers from Canada, the聽US and the UK will discuss at an upcoming conference on modern slavery.

Modern Slavery, Human Rights and Development will take place from June 26 to 28 at 91亚色鈥檚 Keele campus. The conference is organized by 91亚色聽Professor Annie Bunting of聽the Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples at 91亚色 and the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery & Emancipation at the University of Hull in the United Kingdom, with the support of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Over the last decade, the problem of modern slavery has moved from being a marginal concern to a mainstream issue, with trafficking in persons for the purposes of forced prostitution as the primary focal point. Other related problem areas include bonded labour, which includes child labour, 鈥渃lassical鈥� slavery and descent-based discrimination, forced labour for the state, wartime enslavement and servile marriage, as well as the severe exploitation of migrants and domestic workers.

The conference hopes to connect emerging literature concerned with modern slavery and human trafficking with more established scholarship in the related fields of human rights and human development. It also aims to offer a constructive critique of key policies and programs that have recently been introduced by both governments and non-governmental organizations to combat modern slavery.

In the first session, Joel Quirk (left), deputy director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of聽Slavery & Emancipation at the聽University of Hull, will look at 鈥淐ompeting Visions: Human Trafficking versus Forced Labour?鈥� Quirk is a Research Councils UK Fellow in law, culture & human rights and the author of The Anti-Slavery Project: From the Slave Trade to Human Trafficking (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). He is also the United Kingdom representative on the International Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route Project. Jean Allain (right), a Leverhulme Research Fellow聽at the School of Law at Queen鈥檚 University of Belfast, will tackle 鈥淢odern Slavery: From Human Rights to International Criminal Law鈥�. He is the author of several books, including The Slavery Conventions: The Travaux Pr茅paratoires of the 1926 League of Nations Convention and the 1956 United Nations Convention (2008).

Speaker Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick (left), assistant director of the Center for the Study of Social Movements聽& Social Change at the University of Notre Dame, will discuss 鈥淭wo to Tango: Slaveholders, Mobilization and Social Change鈥� in the second session. He was formerly the national outreach coordinator for Free the Slaves, an international human rights group working to end contemporary slavery.聽Rhoda Howard-Hassmann of Wilfred Laurier University will look at 鈥淪lave Labour in North Korea" in the same session.

In the third session, 91亚色 Professor Annie Bunting聽(right)聽(LLB '88)聽of the Law & Society Program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and The Harriet Tubman Institute will talk about 鈥淓nslavement, Forced Marriage and Modern Slavery鈥�. Bunting is currently directing an international research collaboration on forced marriage in conflict situations with historians of slavery and women鈥檚 human rights scholars.

During this same session, Benjamin N. Lawrance (left), the Barber B. Conable Jr. Endowed Chair in International Studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology, will discuss 鈥淔orced Marriages, Marital Simulacra and their Perpetrators: Conceptualizing Protagonists and Process in West African Asylum Claims鈥�.

鈥淢odern Slavery and Global Inequality: Lessons from Global Justice and Human Rights Debates鈥� is what Christien van den Anker (right)聽of the University of West of England will speak about in session four. She is currently lead editor of the Journal of Global Ethics and director of the Migrant Rights Centre in聽Bristol. Her most recent work is a forthcoming聽co-edited collection on human rights and migration. Andrew Crane, the George R. Gardiner Professor of Business Ethics at 91亚色鈥檚 Schulich School of Business, will then discuss 鈥淢odern Slavery as a Management Practice: Exploring the Conditions and Capabilities for Human Exploitation鈥�.

The fifth session 鈥� Research Methods and Case Studies 鈥� will feature Karlee Sapoznik (left), a PhD candidate at 91亚色, talking about 鈥淐ocoa Trafficking and Hereditary Slavery in Mali: Investigating Omissions, Contextualizing Reports and Challenging Popular Narratives鈥�. Sapoznik is president and co-founder of the , a non-profit organization in Toronto. Darshan Vigneswaran of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious聽& Ethnic Diversity will look at 鈥淢ethods and Modern Slavery: A South African Case Study鈥� and Jonathan Blagbrough of the Children Unite in the United Kingdom will discuss 鈥淭he Politics of Child Domestic Labour鈥�.

In the final session, Fuyuki Kurasawa of 91亚色鈥檚 Department of Sociology will tackle 鈥淰isual Representations of Modern Slavery,鈥� while Roy L. Brooks of the University of San Diego School of Law will look at 鈥淩edress, Human Rights and Human Development.鈥�

To view the conference program, click here.

For more information about the Modern Slavery, Human Rights and Development conference, visit website.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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