Human Trafficking as A Brand Within the Framework of Human Rights: Case Studies in the U.S

Recent concern in the United States about human trafficking has been directed
primarily on the foreign victims that are brought into the United States rather than on U.S.
citizenship who become involved. However, the topic has broadened and has significant
impact on the daily lives of U.S citizens. Taking a human rights perspective, this
dissertation explores how human trafficking has been used as a “brand” to achieve
political and/or economic objectives. Human trafficking has taken away the human rights
for individuals and threatens their security. This dissertation is grounded in Critical Theory
and uses narrative analysis as a methodological framework. Using 99 public documents
from Global Report on Trafficking in Persons by the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime, International Labor Organization, and Office for Victims of Crime and other
Departments of the U.S working on human trafficking issues, with the support of Nvivo
software, the dissertation insists that human trafficking violates human rights, has no
capacity to support human emancipation, and causes human beings to be treated as animals or objects or commodified a brand. Even though a brand is a mark and logo in economic
development and refers to objects, not human beings. Human development is the objective
that everyone wants to achieve. Regardless of development, the welfare of all human
beings must be the chief concern; every effort to halt all human emancipation must be
initiated immediately.