With the substantial rise in global migration in recent years, human trafficking and forced labour are becoming increasingly important international and domestic legal issues. A decade since the inception of the Palermo Protocol, States continue to grapple with the legal definitions associated with human trafficking. This is particularly evident with respect to the concept of coercion, and its prevalence in the realm of forced labour. This thesis explores the meaning of coercion as it applies to human trafficking, and particularly to forced labour, in an effort to address the complexity of this concept from both an international perspective, and specifically in its application to Canadian law against human trafficking. This thesis posits that coercion is non-physical in nature and is employed through threats and penalties which target particular vulnerabilities of victims. This thesis develops a legal conceptual framework to define coercion which can inform domestic and international law in improving the criminal justice response to human trafficking and applies this framework to the current Canadian Criminal Code offence against human trafficking to demonstrate existing gaps, and to propose legislative reform which can improve the investigation and prosecution rates of forced labour cases in Canada.
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