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Human Trafficking and Forced Labor: Challenges and Opportunities in Combatting a Global Phenomenon

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Ford Hall Forum With support from: Lowell Institute
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Date and time
Thursday, September 21, 2023
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Human trafficking is widely regarded as one of the most urgent moral and political dilemmas in today's global economy. In her talk, Professor Shamir will call for a shift away from the prevailing anti-trafficking strategies focused on criminal law, border control, and minimal human rights safeguards for recognized victims. Instead, she will advocate for an innovative labor-centered approach, aiming to dismantle the labor market structures conducive to grave exploitative practices. The alternative, labor-focused approach stresses the necessity of solutions tailored to the contextual variability of factors contributing to worker vulnerability. Certain existing tools—operating in the international, national, municipal, and workplace arenas—show initial promise in reshaping the power dynamics among actors within sectors predisposed to severe labor market abuses.

Following her talk, Shamir will be joined by Renée M. Landers, Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Health and Biomedical Law concentration at Suffolk University.

The event is free and open to the public.
The talk starts at 12:20 pm

Hila Shamir
Hila Shamir is a Professor at Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law. She is an expert in the fields of Employment, Labor, Immigration, and Welfare Law with a focus on issues of workers in global value chains, human trafficking, and gender equality. Shamir has taught at Toronto Faculty of Law, Georgetown Law School, Cornell Law School, UC Berkeley, and Harvard University. She served as Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs at TAU Law (2017-2018). Shamir received a European Research Council (ERC) grant to pursue research on a Labor Approach to Human Trafficking, and established TraffLab – Labor Perspective to Human Trafficking research project (2018-2023). She then received a second ERC grant to explore “A New Labor Law for Supply Chain Capitalism (Sept 2024- Sept. 2029).
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**Renée M. Landers** is Professor of Law at Suffolk University Law School and is the Faculty Director of the school’s Health and Biomedical Law Concentration. President of the Boston Bar Association in 2003-2004, she was the first woman of color and the first law professor to serve in that position. She has worked in private practice and served as Deputy General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton Administration. Professor Landers recently concluded a one-year term as Chair of the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice of the American Bar Association and is currently Chair of the Section’s Nominating Committee. She is a Trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital and is a former trustee of the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary. She also has served as a member of the board of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and continues to serve on that board’s governance and risk management committees. She was a member of the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct and served as Vice Chair of the Commission from 2009 to 2010. She served on the task force that drafted the revised Massachusetts Code of Judicial Conduct effective in 2016 and currently is a member of the Committee on Judicial Ethics which advises judges on compliance with the Code. Previously, she was a member of the Supreme Judicial Court’s committees studying gender bias and racial and ethnic bias in the courts. An elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance since 2008, she currently serves as Vice President of the NASI Board of Directors. Landers was a member of NASI’s study panels on Strengthening Medicare’s Role in Reducing Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities and on Health Insurance Exchanges, and co-chaired the 21st NASI Conference on ''Social Insurance, Fiscal Responsibility, and Economic Growth''. She is the author of articles on the potential for Massachusetts health care reform initiatives to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care and aspects of the Affordable Care Act. In addition to health care, Landers has written on diversity in the legal profession and privacy and is a regular commentator on legal developments in constitutional law, health law, and administrative law for media organizations. Professor Landers has served as the president of the boards of Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, the Shady Hill School, the Harvard Board of Overseers, and has also served on the board of WGBH and the Board of Overseers of Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. She has received awards from Radcliffe College, Boston College Law School, Harvard College, the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, the Boston Bar Association, the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Women’s Network. In November 2018 she will be recognized as a Fellow of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice.
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Ford Hall Forum With support from: Lowell Institute

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