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How Strong Collaboration between Legal and Social Service Professionals Will Improve Outcomes for Trafficking Survivors and the Anti-Trafficking Movement
No full textThis article will discuss and demonstrate how attorneys can protect and yield better legal outcomes for their clients by collaborating with social service professionals specifically, and by reconsidering their own roles in serving trafficking survivors--not only as legal advocates, but as informal mental health advocates. This article also presents one model of comprehensive service delivery, that of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery ( CAST ), in which legal and social services complement and support each other within one agency to better serve clients
State Law Health Care Initiatives
No full textThe failure of the federal government to enact comprehensive health care reform has led to efforts by states to regulate both access to and quality of care. However, the ability of states to contribute solutions to the health care crisis has been limited by ERISA\u27s broad preemption of state law. Thus, the federal government has arguably created the worst of all possible worlds-lack of a comprehensive federal approach while hampering the ability of the states to attempt to enact meaningful reform. In many areas of the law, states have been looked to as laboratories for innovative public policy. States have been able to step in and fashion different solutions to address various social problems. This article argues states should be given more leeway to perform this function in the area of health care. It primarily assesses state law initiatives to address access to health care, although it also gives some consideration to state efforts to address quality of care. The article concludes that states should be permitted to expand their efforts in light of both the inadequacy of the federal response to the health care crisis, and the ability of states to experiment with innovative solutions to a major public policy issue. Let me be clear at the outset that I am not arguing that states alone are capable of providing quality health care coverage for all Americans. There is no question there is an important role for the federal government here. Rather, I am saying that states can make an important and essential contribution to improving access to, and quality of, health care
Wal-Martization and the Fair Share Health Care Acts
No full textIn January 2006, Maryland passed a bill mandating employer contribution to employee health insurance in very large corporations, in effect, targeting one large retailer: Wal-Mart.\u27 Around the same time, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Unions ( AFL-CIO ) and other worker advocacy groups launched a major health care campaign in approximately thirty other states, demanding that the nation\u27s largest corporations contribute to employee health care provision. The Fair Share Health Care Act ( FSHA or the Act ) was enacted by the Maryland state legislature in an effort to leverage private resources necessary to maintain government-funded health insurance.\u27 The Act requires corporations with 10,000 or more employees to spend at least 8% of their payroll on health care for their employees or pay the difference of what they do provide into a state fund to defray the costs of uncompensated medical care to the taxpayers of Maryland. This article describes and evaluates the Fair Share campaign in light of the current health care crisis. The past few decades have witnessed a significant increase in both the number of uninsured employees and the number of state citizens enrolled in state-funded health insurance and subsequent strains on the state budget. Proponents of the bill argue that corporations should pay their fair share of the current economic burden resulting from uninsured employees. Critics of the bill claim such legislation will impede competition, discourage job creation, and decrease employee wages. One of the key limitations of the bill is its narrow focus on very large corporations, in effect, targeting one single workplace in Maryland: Wal-Mart. Maryland targeted Wal-Mart in order to increase the share of the corporation in the burden of state health care expenditures. However, it leaves intact the basic structure, including the weaknesses, of employment-based health care. Section II introduces the political and legislative efforts that have led to the enactment of the Fair Share Act. The section describes a number of the factors contributing to the current health care crisis and the pressing needs for a comprehensive health care reform. Section III explains the particular focus on Wal-Mart as a controversial employer that has been the target of reform campaigns aimed to raise its employment standards. Section IV describes subsequent developments of Fair Share bills proposed in twenty-five other states, which contain different threshold requirements and may affect smaller, less profitable businesses. Section V describes the recent court challenges to FSHA by the Retail Industry Leaders Association ( RILA ), in particular the preemption claim with respect to Employee Retirement Income Security Act ( ERISA ). The Maryland Fair Share Health Act was recently struck down by a district court judge on the basis of ERISA preemption8 and was upheld by a United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The discussion below assesses the question of ERISA preemption as well as the adequacy of a strategy of a state-by-state campaign which focuses on a narrow reform initiative in light of the broader national challenges of health care. To conclude, legislation initiatives such as FSHA that target few employers and do not improve the basic limits of employer-based health care are too narrow in addressing the nationally pressing problem. This article expresses the view, however, that the national fair share campaign is an important manifestation of popular discontent with the contemporary system and the need for a government directed response to dramatic declining health care coverage. In addition, this article argues that the litigation surrounding the FSHA highlights the problematic broad reach of ERISA preemption, prohibiting state experimentation while offering little national guidance to a pressing social problem
Putting Lives Back Together: Women Helping Women the Italian Experience of Women Religious
No full textRemarks by Sister Eugenia Bonetti, Consolata Missionary Sister and Coordinator of the Counter-Trafficking Sector, USMI National (Unione Superiori Maggiori d\u27Italia), entitled by Putting Lives Back Together: Women Helping Women the Italian Experience of Women Religious
The Dean\u27s Welcome Address
No full textRobert A. Butterworth\u27s address for the Addressing The Scourge of Human Trafficking: International and Domestic Solutions - A working Symposium for Scholars, Governmental and Non-Governmental Experts and Students on February 10, 2005
Human Trafficking in the Netherlands: The Protection of and Assistance to Victims in Light of Domestic and International Law and Policy
No full textPart I of this paper thus provides general information regarding human trafficking in the Netherlands. Descriptions of the varying aspects of trafficking, including a statistical analysis, is derived from such sources as the National Rapporteur, the Dutch legislation on human trafficking, and the B9 regulation. Part II presents a case study. This study provides insight into the activities and the role of the Regional Prostitution Control Team (RPCT). This case study also develops several problems relating to human trafficking in Dutch society. Part III of this paper discusses the Trafficking Protocol and the OSCE Action Plan and their recommendations for enforcement mechanisms. First, the Trafficking Protocol is examined by outlining its objectives, as well as recommendations for protection and assistance of human trafficking victims on a national level. Second, the objectives of the OSCE Action Plan are examined, resulting in a comprehensive comparative analysis of both the Trafficking Protocol and the OSCE Action Plan. In addition, a most recently adopted legal instrument, the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (herein after called the European Convention ), is introduced. Special attention is paid to its measures concerning the protection of and assistance to human trafficking victims. Part IV presents an analysis of the problems presently facing the protection of and assistance to human trafficking victims in the Netherlands. This analysis utilizes the frameworks of the OSCE Action Plan and the Trafficking Protocol, and the practical data gathered and presented in parts, Parts I, II, and III of this article. Finally, Part V of this paper presents the conclusions drawn from the analyses of Parts I through IV, including recommendations to the Dutch government
Front Matter
No full textFront Matter includes Masthead and Table of Contents for St. Thomas Law Review Volume 19, Issue 2, Winter 2006
Healthy and Wealthy and Dead: Health Savings Accounts
No full textHealth Savings Accounts ( HSAs ) are the newest, and probably the most controversial, vehicle for providing tax-favored health benefits. Proponents, including the Bush administration, claim that they will control costs, reduce the number of uninsured Americans, and give consumers greater control over their health care decisions. Opponents claim that they unduly benefit the wealthy, will do little or nothing to control costs or extend coverage, and provide consumers with information that is insufficient to make educated decisions
Legal Writing Programs and Professionalism: Legal Writing Professors Can Join the Academic Club
No full textSociological jurisprudence has been a major factor in legal interpretive schemes for over a century, but this has not been reflected in most legal writing programs. These programs must produce legal writers who not only are competent writers, but are also competent legal theorists who know the difference between classical rule-based reasoning and modem interpretive methods. Concomitantly, legal writing professors must produce scholarship that reflects the diversity of these more complex schemes, rather than just writing about writing. This article will first describe the current condition of legal writing programs, and then suggest changes that more thoroughly introduce students to the classical logic paradigm. Finally, this article will examine the shift to the modem logic paradigm and explain how legal writing programs and scholarship can become relevant to these constantly changing and evolving interpretive methods
Invisible Chains: Psychological Coercion of Human Trafficking Victims
No full textThe terror that grips a victim of abuse can be the same whether physical violence or psychological force is used. Rashi was a victim of modem-day slavery for over ten years. She was brought to the United States as a domestic servant and was forced to work from morning to night, was not paid, and was made to sleep on a mat on the floor. She was forced to beg for her meager portions of food and suffered from untreated tuberculosis because she was not allowed to seek medical care. Rashi had no contact with the outside world because her employer forbade her to leave the home, to use the telephone, or even to watch television. She was denigrated and verbally abused on a daily basis. Her employer frequently flew into rages, threatening to have her family killed if she tried to escape. After years of this treatment, a hard stare from her employer was enough to send her cowering into the comer. When Rashi was finally rescued, she was asked why she had not left. It is easy to comprehend slavery created with chains. Physical forms of violence and control are understandable because of their visibility. If slaves are locked inside a room, it is obvious why they do not leave. If they have bruises, the harm that has come to them is apparent. On the other hand, psychological abuse and coercion are easier to conceal and may be overlooked. Many people have difficulty understanding how psychological means can be used to manipulate other people. This paper will attempt to show how psycho-logical coercion can be as effective as physical violence in exerting control over a person. It will describe research on psychological control and manipulation, provide examples of psychological coercion used in conditions of modern-day slavery, and provide a biologically- based framework for understanding psychological coercion. The goals of this paper are to provide a means to improve recognition of victims by identifying additional means of enslavement beyond physical force, and to increase empathy toward victims who are held in captivity through psychological means