Interventions to address human trafficking often focus on criminal justice responses to punish traffickers and protect victim-survivors. These responses remain essential. However, they operate largely after exploitation has already occurred – treating the symptom but not the root cause. On World Day of Social Justice (20 February), it is timely to consider a more foundational policy question: is social justice itself one of the most effective tools available for preventing trafficking before harm takes place?
Structural factors affecting exploitation
Human trafficking does not arise in isolation. Research increasingly illustrates how trafficking is closely linked to structural factors including inequality, limited access to social protection, and gaps between law and lived reality, particularly for marginalised groups such as migrant workers or persons with disabilities.
In Southeast Asia, where labour mobility is high and economic disparities persist, these gaps are particularly pronounced. The International Labour Organization estimates that more than 27 million people globally are in situations of forced labour, with Asia and the Pacific accounting for the largest share. Migrant workers are shown to be particularly vulnerable, more than three times as likely to be in conditions of forced labour, seeking livelihoods within informal or poorly regulated labour markets.
Attempts to prevent trafficking in persons often focus on raising individual awareness about the risk of exploitation. However, studies reflect that individuals are powerless in the face of long-standing structural factors that mean choices for decent work are limited and risks are factored into people’s choice to migrate for work. Traffickers exploit these vulnerabilities, using deception, coercion, and abuse of vulnerability rather than overt force. In this context, trafficking is less an isolated criminal act than a predictable outcome of systems that fail to protect everyone equally.
Social justice addresses these underlying structural conditions. It seeks to understand address power imbalances that result in the vulnerabilities we see manifest in forced labour and human trafficking. In addressing human trafficking therefore, we must seek to understand and address the structural factors that make populations vulnerable, and support the affected stakeholders to engage with policymakers, with the evidence, and co-develop more informed policy.
Strengthening systems through partnerships
In developing more effective counter-trafficking initiatives, the Australian Government funded ASEAN-Australia Counter Trafficking (ASEAN-ACT) program works with ASEAN and its Member States to support greater coordination, collaboration and inclusion. This includes supporting regional and national dialogues, strengthening justice and protection mechanisms, and promoting victim and survivor-centred approaches that align with international standards and ASEAN commitments. It seeks to address broader vulnerabilities to exploitation, by working with a broad range of stakeholders and movements in Southeast Asia to address the intersecting vulnerability factors and increase resilience.
Reducing vulnerabilities faced by migrant workers
To address the specific vulnerabilities migrant workers face in Southeast Asia, ASEAN-ACT has worked with partners to ensure engagement of civil society in policy development in the region, at both regional and national levels. This has helped to inform ASEAN policy statements on the protection of migrants in crisis and migrant fishers, both vulnerable to forced labour in different ways. The advocacy has also helped us to understand the role that business can play in identifying and mitigating risks to forced labour in operations and supply chains, and how the private sector can help to inform policy responses. It is evident in the progress towards corporate human rights due diligence, such as Thailand’s draft legislation on Responsible Business Conduct, and similar progress in Indonesia. Business has a role in addressing the exploitation that exists in the private sector, and policymakers and civil society can support business to do so.
Why inclusion isn’t optional in counter-trafficking policy
By integrating a gender-equality, disability and social inclusion lens, ASEAN-ACT has supported ASEAN to listen and learn from survivors of trafficking in developing policies and systems to protect vulnerable victims, such as in implementing the non-punishment principle for victims of trafficking who were forced to commit crime in association with their trafficking, and addressing child and forced marriage. The program has also sought to develop our collective understanding of the intersection between human trafficking and incidence of people with disabilities. A study with La Trobe University has brought greater clarity and understanding of the vulnerabilities to exploitation that people with disabilities face, and the risks to disabilities that come with such exploitation. ASEAN-ACT has since worked with organisations promoting and protecting the rights of people with disabilities to inform related policy development in counter-trafficking and bridging the divide between these siloed approaches.
The imperative of social justice
It is only by viewing social justice as a core component of counter-trafficking responses that we can better address the structural factors that continue to drive exploitation and abuse. This approach underscores that while enforcement remains necessary, it is insufficient on its own. Effective prevention requires inclusive systems that recognise dignity, protect rights, and ensure access to social protection and services, including justice, long before exploitation occurs.
On this World Day of Social Justice, the question is not whether social justice matters in the fight against trafficking, but how deliberately it is integrated into policy, practice, and cooperation. Where systems are inclusive and protection is accessible, exploitation becomes harder to sustain. In this sense, social justice is not only a foundational principle – it may be one of the most practical and powerful tools available for preventing trafficking across the region.