ABSTRACT
Demand and supply are among the basic concepts of economics. In economic theory, the price of commodities is based on the relationship between demand and supply. This chapter shows how the concept of demand evolved in the anti-trafficking framework. It addresses how demand manifests itself in the context of labour exploitation and trafficking in Finland, and shows how addressing demand could enhance the efforts to prevent labour trafficking. Trafficking becomes the 'opportunistic response to the tensions between the economic necessity of migrating, and the politically motivated restrictions on doing so'. Human trafficking is linked to the tensions, disjunctures, and inequalities of globalisation and the differential freedom of movement of people in different parts of the world. The issue of demand has been included in various recent treaties. The chapter focuses on the exploitation of migrant workers in the labour market. It addresses the issue of trafficking for the purposes of forced labour through the concept of the continuum of exploitation.
