Slavery and Human Trafficking in the 21st Century
MIT OpenCourseWare offers the full materials for this anthropology seminar on forced labor and sexual slavery in the modern world. Readings mix ethnographic studies, advocacy reports, fiction, and film and news coverage, comparing how trafficking gets represented across scholarship and popular media. Sessions work through the conditions that sustain these practices, including technology, migration, cultural norms, and the responses of governments and international organizations, while also setting current cases against historical forms of slavery. A recurring thread is methodological: how researchers verify trafficking numbers, what ethical risks come with writing about victims, and how advocacy language can distort the phenomena it describes. The course includes a syllabus, weekly readings, and assignments as posted by MIT, with no certificate offered since OCW materials are self-study. It suits students wanting a grounded, source-based introduction to a topic often covered only in headlines.