Unbroken Chains: The Hidden Role of Human Trafficking in the American Economy

by Melissa Ditmore Narrated by Jenni Wilson

Overview

An urgent exposition of the pervasive human trafficking that lies just beneath the surface of the US economy-from the stories of its survivors

The years of the COVID-19 pandemic have brought to light the exploitation of workers. In this moment of heightened visibility, Unbroken Chains demands that readers examine the hidden sector of American trafficked labor and understand its prevalence across our economy.

Drawing from nearly two decades of research on US and international human trafficking, Melissa Hope Ditmore sets forth the harrowing stories of human trafficking survivors and grounds their accounts in the long history of US indentured servitude, looking to its iterations in chattel slavery, Chinese contract labor, and prison labor. In this groundbreaking investigation of American trafficking, Ditmore unveils the unnerving reality that forced labor permeates many industries beyond sex work: in almost every aspect of consumption, people who create our everyday necessities are working amid inescapable exploitation, often without pay.

Unbroken Chains tells these workers' stories: They are nannies for New York City's diplomatic elites and door-to-door magazine salespeople in the American South. A trafficked person may have harvested your produce, sewn your clothes, or cleaned your apartment lobby. Ditmore offers readers an illuminating window on the world of forced labor, which exists within our own, and a road map for participating in its destruction.

Unbroken Chains will include more than a dozen images, including detailed maps, archival pictures, and trafficking documents. Among these images are a modern map of the Sonoran Desert in the American Southwest, a bill of sale for an enslaved woman forced into sex work, letters from men in compulsory plantation labor after the Civil War, and 19th-century “white slave” panic propaganda.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

03/27/2023

This searing exposé reveals the dark underbelly of the U.S. economy. Among other damning evidence of human trafficking and labor exploitation, sociologist Ditmore (Sex Work Matters) notes that from 1988 through 1995, 72 Thai garment workers were held captive and in debt bondage in a factory in El Monte, Calif., and that 3,750 workers were identified as possible trafficking victims during the Hurricane Katrina cleanup in 2005. The latter’s exploitation was abetted, according to Ditmore, by the government’s relaxing of immigration restrictions and wage and safety standards to draw foreign workers. Usually conflated with prostitution, the author notes, human trafficking is typically prosecuted in the sex trades and overlooked in other businesses where it occurs, including factories, slaughterhouses, and industrial farms. Victims are most in need of transitional housing and job training and placement, Ditmore argues, rather than criminal prosecution or deportment, the threats of which help sustain the trafficking industry. Ditmore’s solutions include reaching out to workers in suspected trafficking situations, buying from companies that support the Fair Foods Standards Council, boycotting products made with prison labor, and donating to human rights organizations that offer direct services to workers. Knowledgable, empathetic, and impassioned, Ditmore is an expert tour guide through this harrowing landscape. Readers will be moved to take action. (May)

From the Publisher

This searing exposé reveals the dark underbelly of the US economy . . . Knowledgable, empathetic, and impassioned, Ditmore is an expert tour guide through this harrowing landscape. Readers will be moved to take action.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A stirring and compassionate book.”
—Booklist

“An extraordinary guide to the long, shameful history of human trafficking in the United States . . . Anyone concerned with human trafficking or workers’ rights will find this book invaluable.”
—Debby Applegate, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, author of Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age

“By delving into the particulars of human trafficking in its many forms, Unbroken Chains provides a much-needed antidote to the sensationalist rescue narratives that have dominated social policy discourse.”
—Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing

“A thoughtful, well-written account of the many forms of forced and fraudulent labor that operate in the United States today. It positions sex trafficking within a larger pattern of forced labor, exposing how authorities overpolice sex work while tending to ignore coercive labor outside of prostitution. . . . As important, it details a vivid set of life histories of survivors who go on to fight exploitative businesses and to demand justice.”
—Judith Walkowitz, author of City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London

“Unbroken Chains is an impassioned plea to acknowledge sex work as work and address exploitation in all types of labor. Ditmore’s blueprint for the recognition of abuse offers a new approach to assisting survivors and a much-needed infusion of hope.”
—Lizzie Borden, filmmaker, director of Born in Flames and Working Girls

“Unbroken Chains is essential reading for anyone interested in racial capitalism, fair labor, and victim self-advocacy. Melissa Ditmore’s clear-eyed analysis cuts through the sensationalistic media images of young white girls forced into prostitution to expose the truth about human trafficking. She shows us that it’s a form of extreme labor exploitation rooted in the institution of American slavery, whose unresolved legacy continues to shape our present-day labor laws, particularly in the realms of domestic and agricultural work. Ditmore convincingly argues that we must stop criminalizing victims of human trafficking and instead fight for policies that empower them.”
—Grace Cho, author of the National Book Award finalist Tastes Like War

Library Journal

04/01/2023

Human rights consultant Ditmore (Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work) has written another comprehensive book filled with case study evidence and scholarly depth about human trafficking in the United States. The book includes sections on trafficking in sales, agriculture, and domestic work, on the industry itself, and on its infrastructure. There are lucid—and often harrowing—accounts of the ways in which people have been coerced, abused, and sometimes killed as a result of human trafficking. Historical details from the 17th century to the present (Jeffrey Epstein is mentioned) consider legislative and human rights efforts to address these crimes. Perhaps more importantly, the book notes the numerous ways that businesses and politicians (e.g., J. Edgar Hoover) have taken corrupt measures to achieve their own agendas. Many similar books end when they bring the narrative up-to-date, but this book's final chapter is "What Kind of Help Is Truly Helpful?" The author asserts that community-based initiatives are more likely to succeed in helping human trafficking victims than anything involving law enforcement or immigration agents. VERDICT There's contact information for the Freedom Network USA and lists of specific actions for readers to take if or when they suspect instances of human trafficking. Libraries need this.—Ellen Gilbert

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175248174
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	05/09/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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