Genealogies of human trafficking and slavery

Human trafficking and slavery are often conflated; these terms are often used synonymously, but also as umbrella terms meant to capture various types of human exploitation. This chapter considers the genealogy of both human trafficking and slavery to demonstrate how two very distinct histories were brought together by a century-long pursuit to criminal-ise human exploitation. It provides both an understanding of the end of one element of the greater African Slave Trade, the Atlantic Slave Trade, and the origins of the White Slave Traffic; and how, over the twentieth century, the subject-matter of human trafficking grew beyond prostitution to its logical conclusion: to address any and all types of human exploitation. To speak of the African Slave Trade is what in French is termed the 'Black Slave Trade'. There remains much conflation between human trafficking and slavery. The usable past which emerges from a consideration of their genealogies demonstrates that they are very much two distinct concepts.