Contextualizing Human Trafficking in the Informal Sectors of Developing Countries: The Case of Women Domestic Workers in Malawi

Trafficking in Persons (TIP) is a global challenge that is highly complex and requires different perspectives and approaches to tackle the multiple challenges it poses. In recent years, the international discourse on TIP has progressed, leading to improved implementation frameworks and strategies. For developing countries, however, progress may not be on par with the progressed international discourse.

This can be attributable to various factors, including existence of large unregulated informal sectors and multiple developmental vulnerability factors. While factors that lead to high vulnerability to trafficking cannot be said to be fully understood, developmental elements such as poverty, inequality, discrimination, large informal markets, and human rights violations are among identified factors.

It is established that developing countries have larger percentages of informal employment than developed nations; accounting for 93% of all informal employment. Furthermore, informal systems have been linked directly with high prevalence of TIP attributable to employers' unchallenged ability to establish their own, "often exploitative, working conditions." This can create a development cycle where underdevelopment drives informal sectors, which in turn fosters modern slavery, which further slows down development further.

A 2021 report Developing Freedom found that slavery reduces growth and impedes development impacts, yet "67% of development practitioners admit to perceiving slavery not as an economic, trade or industrial policy concern, but as a social or criminal justice policy concern." Such neglect by development actors in practice necessitates proactive strategies that directly relate developmental vulnerability of certain populations to being trafficked" and prioritizes anti-trafficking measures in development programming and policies. Although existing international framework broadly conceptualizes the need for development in anti-trafficking systems, implementation through global development system has so far been narrow.

This research will seek to understand the role that development actors, including states, must take to promote human development and combat TIP in developing states' informal sectors. I propose a human development approach to anti-trafficking strategies to directly address factors that increase vulnerabilities in global south informal sectors, and as part of a solution to more sustainable development.

I rely on the definition of human development founded by UNDP, which positions humans as the ultimate goal of all development efforts. The SDGs will be adopted as the underlying framework for achieving human development, applying SDGs 8.7 and 16.2 in conjunction with other SDG targets.

To illustrate practicability of the suggested approach, a case study of women domestic workers in Malawi will be explored with a feminist lens as "women are more exposed to informal employment in most developing countries and are more often found in the most vulnerable situations. Malawi hosts a vast informal sector, with domestic work as one of the most relied-upon forms of employment.

The working conditions for these workers, however, remain 'unfavourable, with physical and psychological abuse and other human rights violations which Nayupe et al. attributed to the informal nature of domestic work in Malawi.' This study will therefore envisage an indigenous response to TIP in Malawi's vast informal sector, specifically in domestic work settings, taking into account the expanding welfare functions of the postcolonial developmental state, including reconceptualizing the labour laws from the viewpoint of the multiple challenges facing developing states such as the informal economy and extreme poverty.