Human trafficking is always a popular news item, but the coinciding of a number of stories about it over the past fortnight has raised an interesting point that usually gets lost in the hysteria: the ambiguity of the term itself, and how it can easily be stretched or narrowed to cover or exclude certain phenomena, [...]

They leave their homes and families in less developed countries on the promise of good pay and working conditions in the West. But that promise never materialises. Instead, they find themselves held as virtual prisoners, their passports taken from them; forced to obey the orders of those who have bought their services; degraded and dehumanised. [...]