Defining human trafficking in the context of Indigenous labour migration in Peru

As a result of the growing interest of many governments and NGOs around the world towards the problem of trafficking in persons, its definition has been constantly expanded to include more victims and more forms of abuse. Originally associated exclusively with sex slavery, now human trafficking is understood within the broader framework of labour migration. This expanded definition, which enables different cultural practices and survival strategies of the extreme poor to be labelled as trafficking, is strongly advocated by certain Peruvian NGOs. Mobilizing interviews conducted in 2013 and the essential literature on internal migration, this thesis examines the effectiveness of the widely formulated definition of trafficking in the context of Indigenous labour migration in Peru. I argue that cultural and social factors such as racial hierarchies stand in the way of seeing dark-skinned Indigenous labour migrants as victims of trafficking by the whiter population of urban dwellers. Thus, the expanded definition of trafficking may not be useful in this context.