What do we mean by ‘labour exploitation’?

Posted on: 18 June 2025 by Dr Maayan Niezna in Posts

Many stakeholders agree that ‘labour exploitation’ is central to the modern slavery framework used in the UK and elsewhere. Yet, there is no one clear definition of what they mean by ‘labour exploitation’, a broad term that means different things to different people and different actors.

In the academic literature, theories of exploitation could generally be divided into three categories: those focusing on unfairness or disparity of value (Taking unfair advantage of someone’s vulnerability to make a gain); those focusing on dignity (it is disrespectful of people’s humanity to objectify or use them in a certain way), and those focusing on coercion (Coercion left a person with no choice but to accept the unfair treatment).

In practice, stakeholders responding to labour exploitation may not neatly fit any of these theoretical approaches. The Security Industry Authority, for example, defines labour exploitation simply as “the abuse of people in the workplace for profit”. Others, such as the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), identify labour exploitation through key indicators, including working conditions, poor accommodation, restricted freedom, lack of payment, and other indicators reflected in a person’s appearance or finances. Defining labour exploitation through indicators is a common practice, also used by international and local organisations. Some use the term ‘labour exploitation’ to mean the worst forms of abuse, like trafficking and modern slavery. Others recognise exploitation as a continuum between decent work and extreme abuse.

What is it that different stakeholders mean by ‘labour exploitation’? Does the detective responding to a report mentioning labour exploitation have the same idea as the migrant worker who experienced it? Do they emphasise the same things? What about the positive aspects of work, and how they relate to experiences of exploitation? These are the questions my current research project seeks to answer.

In addition to reading policies and reports of the kind mentioned above, I also interviewed three groups of stakeholders. First, law enforcement officials – mostly detectives working on modern slavery or related issues, but also labour inspectors and lawyers handling modern slavery cases. Second, I conducted interviews with two groups of participants with lived experience of labour exploitation: migrant workers in precarious sectors (especially cleaning and hospitality), and people who were recognised under the UK National Referral Mechanism (NRM) as victims of modern slavery. The inclusion of both recognised victims and other migrant workers was important to me: I was concerned that if we only ask the people already recognised as victims of exploitation under the existing system, we’ll end up only with the accounts of exploitation already recognised. Could there be additional understandings we ignore or fail to see? My findings so far suggest this distinction is important. There are some common experiences among the groups - limited choice, discrimination, and aspirations about decent jobs where they would be treated with respect and humanity. There are, however, some important differences, for example, regarding the common types of exploitation people in different circumstances experienced, what they identified as the causes of their exploitation, and their ability to walk away. The link between exploitation and lack of dignity, recognised in the academic literature, was also important in the interviews I conducted, where people emphasised lack of respect as an important experience.

In conducting this work, I was lucky to learn from some wonderful individuals and organisations representing and supporting migrant workers and people with lived experience of exploitation, among them IWGB, Causeway, and Survivor Alliance. Such organisations teach important lessons in recognition of people’s agency, reflected in different ways even in difficult situations where choice might be limited. In naming and claiming their own narratives and experiences and how they should be framed, and coming together to form unions, organisations and support networks, learning from experiences and supporting others in similar situations.

Maayan Niezna is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice. This project was supported by a British Academy/Leverhulme small grant and by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre, under the AHRC Grant AH/T012412/1