The degree of exploitation varies dramatically in this vast landscape of human mobility. Complicating matters further, the legality of one’s migration does not necessarily determine the likelihood of experiencing exploitation from the actors involved, and there is a great deal of overlap between regular and irregular channels. To subsume this wide-ranging set of migrant experiences under the label “modern slave trade” undermines the agency of migrant workers who willfully choose, for a diversity of reasons, to live and work outside their country of origin and manage to successfully negotiate a fair relationship with their employers. Moreover, with rhetoric that suggests that all migrants are victims, advocates like Bello run the risk of ignoring or even undermining the role migrants could play in creating local forms of sustainable economic development.
This paper seeks to bridge the wide gap between these two narratives by accepting, on the one hand, that
people are choosing to migrate and that migrants make significant financial contributions to origin
communities, and by acknowledging, on the other hand, that simply easing restrictions on human mobility
will not drive local development and job creation in communities of origin – nor will it address the abuse
of migrant workers’ rights. This paper proposes effective forms of policy intervention aimed at
maximizing the benefits of labor migration – making inclusive growth and local job creation the goals –
and minimizing the vulnerabilities it creates.