Solidarity Center News: 85 Million People Migrate for Jobs, Child Trafficking Rising

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)This week, International Migrants Day (Dec. 18) highlighted workers like Nalani Samarasinghe, 41, who has moved to Qatar three times for jobs to support her family in Sri Lanka. At her last job as a domestic worker, she was expected to work between 5 a.m. and 1 a.m. daily with no holidays. In addition, the employer charged her rent and refused to let her return home for more than two years. Samarasinghe is among the nearly 85 million people who migrate for work globally. Migrant workers often are victims of human trafficking, and a new United Nations report finds that an increasing number of children, especially girls, are being trafficked throughout the world. Read these stories and more at the Solidarity Center website. - photo by MA Pushpa Kumara