1. Colorado Agriculture Labor Force: Trafficked? Exploited?
- Author:
- Claudia Castillo
- Publication Date:
- 02-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center on Human Rights Education, University of Denver
- Abstract:
- Colorado’s need for a flexible labor force capable of surging during certain seasons without creating a significance increase in the immigrant population is the crux of the problem for the state. The realization that there may be trafficked laborers into forced labor on Colorado farms is not a novel idea but the difficulty of obtaining evidence that proves to what extent these human rights violations occur has proven to be extremely challenging. With such a huge population of undocumented agricultural laborers and the lack of oversight throughout Colorado, one can only surmise that violations of the Colorado immigration, human trafficking and forced labor laws implemented in 2006 exist. The lack of research and data of Colorado’s agricultural labor force coupled with the scarce numbers of prosecuted human trafficking and forced labor cases in the agricultural sector is not indicative that the problem does not exist; it just makes the argument for developing a research initiative to determine the extent of the problem. It is not enough to extrapolate human trafficking and forced labor data from national reports or adjacent states to try and identify Colorado’s level of trafficking and forced labor activity in the agriculture sector.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Human Rights, Labor Issues, and Labor Rights
- Political Geography:
- United States, North America, and Colorado