INTERDEPENDENCE between the world's economies has brought many benefits, but this globalisation also has a dark side that includes increased trafficking of human beings.
Rights advocates say that as capital moves ever more freely in search of low-cost labour, people will also move across borders in search of those jobs, even if the legal means for such migration does not exist. And whether these migrants are legal or illegal, they are often at the mercy of those they depend on for their livelihoods. At the most appalling end of the spectrum, they can be stripped of identity, sold and forced to work for little or no pay.
This was the topic that 300 academics, government officials and social workers gathered to discuss last week in Honolulu, and has been the subject of similar meetings over the past year. While few would argue that globalisation can be reversed, many are interested in both understanding the causes of the increase in trafficking and in finding solutions.
According to author Kevin Bales, there are 27 million slaves in the world today, more than at any time in human history. Several years ago, Bales was involved in revealing that slave labour was widely used in the production of cocoa. His organisation, Free The Slaves, is working with groups to change that.
The conference may have been staged in a place often promoted as an idyllic paradise - and part of the United States - but a trial unfolding at the federal courthouse on the other side of town served to illustrate that no part of the world is immune from the problem.
The case involves about 300 employees of the now-closed Daewoosa garment factory in American Samoa - Vietnamese and Chinese nationals brought to the territory to sew sportswear that was then shipped to Los Angeles and sold in leading US department stores.
