The Trafficker Next Door

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"Award-winning sociologist Rhacel Salazar Parreñas explains the warped psychology and perfectly legal practices that allow modern-day slavery to persist."—Christine L. Williams, author of Gaslighted and former president of the American Sociological Association A renowned sociologist examines the pernicious societal forces that lead employers to exploit vulnerable domestic workers. "Kaya mo ba?" Can you take it? An instructor asks this of a group of migrant workers in the Philippines, as they prepare for domestic work in wealthier countries. Can you take the grueling work? "Kaya," the women say. "We can." The phrase "human trafficking" often conjures nightmarish images of sexual exploitation, but Rhacel Salazar Parreñas reveals that the vast majority of trafficking victims are domestic workers who suffer abuse not at the hands of shadowy crime lords but rather "ordinary" family employers. Drawing on twenty years of