Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Faith, Works, And Praxis: Emergent Post-Colonialism And The Catholic Church In North America, Alexander Odicino

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The personal papers of American Jesuit priest, Wilfrid Parsons, evince an international information war concerned with the praxis of "facts" pertaining to Mexico’s Church and state conflicts of 1925 to 1939. While editor-in-chief of the Jesuit weekly magazine, "America", (1925-1936) Parsons transformed the publication into the pre-eminent Catholic source of information about the "Mexican situation", consequently enabling him to coordinate the publication of "facts" with several other New York based Catholic publications. However, rather than speaking to strictly Catholic interests in the Mexican conflict, research has shown that, when analyzed as a focal point of information processing, the sources in …

Christian Persecution In Pakistan: An Examination Of Life In The Midst Of Violence, Rebecca Seiler

Senior Honors Theses

As a nation founded on religious freedom, it is the duty of the United States to recognize those who stand up for these beliefs across the world in solidarity. International persecution of Christians has dramatically increased due to the spread of radical Islam throughout the world, particularly in South Asia. By means of active, violent persecution as well as more passive forms of aggression, daily life for Pakistani Christians is both challenging and dangerous. While there is no easy solution to this issue, it is essential to continue advocating for those facing persecution and punish the oppressors. The American church …

Hidden In Plain Sight: Exploring The Vulnerabilities Of Street-Working Boys In Se Asia, Jarrett Davis, Glenn Miles

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

The sexual exploitation of men and boys is often little understood and commonly goes ignored. Internationally, it is said that 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before reaching adulthood and in some nations the exploitation and abuse of boys far outweighs that of girls. Social and cultural norms often assume men and boys to be inherently strong and/or invulnerable to sexual exploitation; however, research in this area continues to show these assumptions to be false. Because of this lack of awareness, the efforts of the organizations and individuals who work to provide for the needs of male victims are …

Analysis Of Human Trafficking Cases In Rhode Island, 2009-2013, Donna M. Hughes, Rachel Dunham, Faith Skodmin, Lucy Tillman, Jessica Wainfor

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

This presentation is an analysis of seven state and federal cases of human trafficking, including forced labor and sex trafficking, in Rhode Island from 2009 until 2013. In 2009, Rhode Island passed a comprehensive human trafficking law. Since then there have been six cases of sex trafficking and one case of forced labor. Sources for information on the human trafficking cases were police reports, witness statements, court documents and media reports. This presentation will briefly summarize the cases and discuss the similarities and difference among the cases and discuss of some key findings from these cases, which include:
1) Victims …

The Problem Of State Intervention In Post-Abolition Slavery: A Critique Of Consensus, Anthony Talbott, David Watkins

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

Slavery is now illegal by all states and under international law. Contrary to the hopes of abolitionists, this state of affairs has transformed rather than eradicated slavery as an institution. Furthermore, responses by states to post-abolition forms of slavery have often been less than ideal. This paper begins by comparing two state responses to slavery in the early 20th century: the federal peonage trials in Montgomery, Alabama from 1903-1905, and the federal response to an alleged epidemic of “white slavery” from 1909-1910, culminating in the passage of the White Slave-Traffic Act. Taken together, these responses engender pessimism about the state …

Human Trafficking To Northern America: The Balkan Connection, Natalya Timoshkina, Naser Miftari, Antonela Arhin

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

This paper draws on the results of a large multi-method study, which examined human trafficking from the former Eastern Bloc to Northern America (Canada and the United States). The study was conducted in 2011-2013, and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The analysis is grounded in the findings from 9 countries of the Balkan region included in the study: Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. The following data sources were used: (a) national and international reports, media and academic articles, and various documents (in English and official languages …

Human Trafficking, Education And Migration At Ngos In Cambodia And Thailand, Robert Spires, Xinyi Duan

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

This presentation is based on in-progress collaborative research between researcher Dr. Bob Spires and Hong Kong-based NGO Liberty Asia. The research involves interviews and observations conducted at multiple NGOs in Cambodia and Thailand working to address human trafficking and incorporating educational components into their programs. The study uses comparative lenses to examine issues of education and migration in both the Cambodian and Thai context for human trafficking survivors and at-risk populations. The study is interdisciplinary, drawing on the work on human trafficking in several social science fields. The framework for the research is based on Frank Laczko and Elzbieta Gozdziak’s …

Bra’S For A Cause: A Service Learning Project In A Freshman Level Human Trafficking Course, Beth A. Wiersma

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

Women and Children for Sale: The Global Problem of Human Trafficking is a General Studies Portal course for college freshman at a Midwestern university. The students in the course were surveyed the first day of class about why they chose the course, what they hoped to get out of the course, what they believed to be true about human trafficking, and how they learned about human trafficking. During the semester the students planned and carried out a service learning project “Bras for a Cause”. This project involved educating others about human trafficking and collecting bras. The bras are sent overseas …

The Little India Riot: Domestic And International Law Perspectives, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

A riot involving hundreds of foreign labourers broke out in Little India, Singapore, on 8 December 2013. Only the second riot to occur in more than 40 years in fairly tranquil Singapore, the damage was extensive as rioters destroyed police and emergency vehicles and even injured dozens of police and civil defence personnel. The authorities only needed a few days to complete the investigations and shortly after, some of the alleged rioters were arrested and charged, while some of them were repatriated. The swiftness of the entire process prompted harsh criticism from international and local human rights groups, who claimed …

Invisible No More: Domestic Workers Organizing In Massachusetts And Beyond, Natalicia Tracy, Tim Sieber, Susan Moir Scd

Labor Studies Faculty Publication Series

Domestic workers across the country are making it clear that, even in a difficult political environment, it is possible to make gains for low-wage workers. For the first time in many, many decades, domestic workers are finding ways to win. They are creat
ing policy change that will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers in tangible and substantial ways. The 2014 Massachusetts Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights is the most expansive codification of rights for this long-overlooked part of the labor force ever to be enacted. In one sense, there is nothing new about domestic workers organizing …

Human Rights Infringements In Brazil’S Penitentiary System Understood Through Access To Healthcare, Sara Morris

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Brazil has a reputation of being home to some of the worst penitentiary conditions worldwide, eventually leading the United Nations to make an appeal to the Brazilian government in 2003 to analyze their systems and make necessary improvements. The poor conditions and lack of access to legal counsel, living space, and specifically healthcare, cause riots and uprisings within prisons that in the past have lead to death of prisoners and guards. Prisons serve a very specific purpose in society, and according to most social theorists that is to reform, not to torture. In Brazil there is no capital punishment, so …

To Seek And Save The Lost: Human Trafficking And Salvation Schemas Among American Evangelicals, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

American evangelicals have a history of engagement in social issues in general and anti-slavery activism in particular. The last 10 years have seen an increase in both scholarly attention to evangelicalism and evangelical focus on contemporary forms of slavery. Extant literature on this engagement often lacks the voices of evangelicals themselves. This study begins to fill this gap through a qualitative exploration of how evangelical and mainline churchgoers conceptualize both the issue of human trafficking and possible solutions. I extend Michael Young's recent work on the confessional schema motivating evangelical abolitionists in the 1830s. Through analysis of open-ended responses to …

Reconstructing A College Model For Countering Human Trafficking, Ron D. Petitte

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

Assessment is a hallmark of 21st Century academia. Accordingly, the 2013 college model for countering human trafficking² was reviewed and assessed by the author, leading to a restructuring of the model, in order to present developments that have occurred since the October 2013 Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, as well as attempting to engineer a more practical and effective model: There are two areas of research that link directly to the spectre of human trafficking. The first is economics; and, the question that is raised: “Is human trafficking, today, the result of unjust economic …

A Content Analysis Of Backpage.Com Advertisements In Louisville, Kentucky, Theresa C. Hayden

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

Backpage.com and Craigslist are replacing the street corner as a crime source for buying and selling of sex. “To reduce commercial sexual exploitation and enforce existing trafficking laws, communities must first recognize the extent of the problem within their local area (Janson, Mann, Marro, & Matvey, 2013, 99). In a population density study conducted in 15 major U. S. cities, it was found that males over 18 years of age who buy sex online ranged from 0.6% in San Francisco to 21.4% in Houston (Roe-Sepoqitz, Hickle, Gallagher, Smith, & Hedberg, 2013). Researchers in the Greater Cincinnati area found a high …

The Social And Economic Implications Of Human Trafficking In Nigeria: Naptip In Focus, Eunice I. Anuforom

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

Human trafficking is globally recognized as a modern day slavery with multifarious negative socio-economic, legal and health implications. Besides drugs trafficking and gun running, human trafficking has become a lucrative business globally and yields an estimated US$32 million annually. Traffickers trade on human lives, subject them to gory and traumatic experiences in order to make profits. Human trafficking is therefore the worst form of human rights violations and a gender based violence against female who constitute the majority of the victims in the country. Regrettably, Nigeria occupies the ignoble position of a source, transit and destination country for trafficking. In …

Getting Kids Out Of Harm's Way: The United States' Obligation To Operationalize The Best Interest Of The Child Principle For Unaccompanied Minors, Erin B. Corcoran

Law Faculty Scholarship

The government estimates by the end of the fiscal year over 90,000 children will enter the United States. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 58% of these children were forcibly displaced and are potentially in need of international protection. However, in U.S. immigration law unaccompanied children are often seen as illegal migrants and law enforcement prioritizes their “alien” status over their status as children. As the crisis escalates, many of these children are being housed at emergency shelters in icebox-cold cells – nicknamed hierleras, Spanish for freezers, with no access to food or medical care, while DHS …

A Content Analysis Of Backpage.Com Advertisements In Louisville, Kentucky, Theresa C. Hayden

Faculty Scholarship

Backpage.com and Craigslist are replacing the street corner as a crime source for buying and selling of sex. “To reduce commercial sexual exploitation and enforce existing trafficking laws, communities must first recognize the extent of the problem within their local area (Janson, Mann, Marro, & Matvey, 2013, 99). In a population density study conducted in 15 major U. S. cities, it was found that males over 18 years of age who buy sex online ranged from 0.6% in San Francisco to 21.4% in Houston (Roe-Sepoqitz, Hickle, Gallagher, Smith, & Hedberg, 2013). Researchers in the Greater Cincinnati area found a high …

Managing Democracy In Social Movement Organizations, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

Leaders are crucial to social movement mobilization and maintenance. They often experience conflict between a value for inclusive engagement and a sense that they are moving efficiently toward their organizations' goals. This study draws on a multisite ethnography to suggest two mechanisms through which leaders may resolve this conflict: staging (manipulating organizational procedures) and scripting (using language to reinforce these procedures). Resolving tension in this way often leaves the leader in control of organizational processes and outcomes, and has the unintended effect of stifling the actual process of democratic participation. This study emphasizes the culturally embedded inertia of the democratic …

Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault In The United States: A Human Rights Based Approach & Practice Guide, Women's Rights Project, Human Rights Institute, Human Rights Clinic

Human Rights Institute

This Guide provides an overview of human rights law’s approach to addressing gender-based violence. Section I distills the core human rights principles related to gender-based violence, focusing on the “due diligence” standard: a comprehensive framework to address human rights violations in a systemic and proactive manner, whether committed by private or governmental actors. Section II discusses the value added of human rights principles in the U.S. context, and identifies concrete ways to integrate core human rights principles into domestic policy. Section III describes seminal international law cases related to gender-based violence. Section IV concludes by offering several resources on human …

Singapore's New Discretionary Death Penalty For Drug Couriers: Public Prosecutor V Chum Tat Suan, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The article offers information on the history, evolution and significance of the new discretionary death penalty legislation for drug couriers in Singapore under the application of the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA). It discusses the judicial decision of the Singaporean High Court in the case of Public Prosecutor v. Chum Tat Suan in which the Court convicted the accused with chareges of importing of more than 94.96g of diamorphine into Singapore that was punishable under section 33 of the MDA.

Global Rules For Global Health: Why We Need An Independent, Impartial Who, Devi Sridhar, Julio Frenk, Lawrence O. Gostin, Suerie Moon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Over the past few years the World Health Organization (WHO) has been undergoing a significant reform process. The immediate trigger was a budget crisis in 2010 that spurred massive lay-offs at the global agency. But at a more fundamental level, deeper systematic changes in global health governance have made reform imperative. While WHO reform draws relatively little attention outside diplomatic circles in Geneva, at stake are critical issues that will impact public health everywhere. This article’s key messages are:

• Recent outbreaks of MERS highlight the need for a global response to infectious disease
• The WHO has had a crucial role …

Migrant Workers' Access To Justice At Home: Nepal, Sarah Paoletti, Eleanor Taylor-Nicholson, Bandita Sijapati, Bassina Farbenblum

All Faculty Scholarship

Nepal’s citizens engage in foreign employment at the highest per capita rate of any other country in Asia, and their remittances account for 25 percent of the country’s GDP. The Middle East is now the most popular destination for Nepalis--nearly 700,000 were working in the Middle East in 2011 on temporary labor contracts. For some Nepalis, working abroad provides much-needed household wealth. For others, their contributions to Nepal come at great personal cost. Migrant workers in the Gulf, for example, routinely report wage theft, lack of time off and unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Some migrant workers report psychological and …

"I Want To Be Brave": A Baseline Study On The Vulnerabilities Of Street-Working Boys In Sihanoukville, Cambodia, Jarrett Davis, Glenn Miles, M’Lop Tapang

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

Focusing on street-working boys in Sihanoukville, this study partnered with social workers and child protection officers from M’lop Tapang (a key social service provider in Sihanoukville) to identify locations where young boys were known to be working along the beaches and within the town center. In recent years, Sihanoukville has become known as a rapidly developing commercial beach area, which has received increasing attention from foreign tourists, backpackers, and ex-patriots. Within this context, it has become a destination for migrant workers from surrounding provinces who have hopes of generating income through selling, begging, and other various means. The study conducted …

Global Health And The Law, Lawrence O. Gostin, Devi Sridhar

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The last two decades have brought revolutionary changes in global health, driven by popular concern over AIDS, novel influenzas, and maternal mortality. Given the rapid globalization that is a defining feature of today’s world, the need for a robust system of global health law has never been greater. Global health law has been defined as the legal norms, processes, and institutions designed primarily to attain the highest possible standard of physical and mental health for the world’s population. Global health law is not an organized legal system, with a unified treaty monitoring body, such as the World Trade Organization. There …

Slides: “Human Sustainability” In Natural Resources Industries: The New Frontier In Compliance, Social Responsibility, Disclosure, And Transparency, T. Markus Funk

Natural Resource Industries and the Sustainability Challenge (Martz Winter Symposium, February 27-28)

Presenter: T. Markus Funk, Partner, Perkins Coie

21 slides

Freedom Of Conscience As Religious And Moral Freedom, Michael J. Perry

Faculty Articles

In another essay being published contemporaneously with this one, I have explained that as the concept "human right" is understood both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in all the various international human rights treaties that have followed in the Universal Declaration's wake, a right is a human right if the rationale for establishing and protecting the right-for example, as a treaty-based right-is, in part, that conduct that violates the right violates the imperative, articulated in Article i of the Universal Declaration, to "act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood." Each of the human rights …

Symposium: Building The Arc Of Justice: The Life And Legal Thought Of Derrick Bell: Foreword, Matthew H. Charity

Faculty Scholarship

The four articles in this Symposium issue pay tribute to the work of Professor Derrick Bell by building on his challenges to the permanence of racial domination, to the potential limitations of good will inherent in the concept of interest convergence, and to the question of permanence not just of racism, but of other systemic biases since recognized, written on, and litigated. The articles range from the 19th century to the hegemonic war on terror, from Latin identity as a disruptive force, to recognition of subjugated identities allowing for the creation of coalitions to end oppression.

Trafficking In Child Labor In Ghana And Senegal, Steven Brandt

Sixth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking 2014

The goal of this paper is to determine the efficacy of anti-trafficking governance in Senegal and Ghana and what social, political, legal and economic factors work for or against those policies such as: - social policies for and against the growth of the NGO community - enforcement of anti-trafficking laws - economic policies for impoverished urban and rural communities - government rehabilitation policies for minors - federal, state and local corruption - border security/immigration - religious and political freedom This research comprises a comprehensive literature analysis as to the current state of trafficking of minors in Ghana and Senegal. First …

Illusion Of Justice: Human Rights Abuses In Us Terrorism Prosecutions, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

Terrorism entails horrifying acts, often resulting in terrible losses of human life. Governments have a duty under international human rights law to take reasonable measures to protect people within their jurisdictions from acts of violence. When crimes are committed, governments also have a duty to carry out impartial investigations, to identify those responsible, and to prosecute suspects before independent courts. These obligations require ensuring fairness and due process in investigations and prosecutions, as well as humane treatment of those in custody.

Finding The Pearls When The World Is Your Oyster: Case And Project Selection In Clinic Design, Sarah Paoletti

All Faculty Scholarship

Clinical legal education is distinguishable from the rest of the law school curriculum and the extracurricular activities available to law students because it places students directly into the role of a lawyer engaged in real-world practice. Clinical programs are often defined by the cases and projects—the pearls at the heart of the experiential learning experience—that comprise their dockets. Finding the right cases and projects that meet a range of goals remains a perennial challenge in clinic design. In the context of international human rights clinics, the world is your oyster, and that challenge is magni-fied. This Article identifies a set …