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The Historical Roots of Human Trafficking pp 279–289Cite as

Health Care as a Right for the Human Trafficked

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Abstract

Human trafficking in the United States disproportionately impacts people of color; this has been true since race-based slavery started in the Northern Hemisphere. As in the economic construction of the nation, advances in health care have been facilitated by the use of Black bodies despite the fact that health care was not wholly available to enslaved Black people. The legacy of the devaluation of Black people lives on in pervasive race-based morbidity and mortality disparities. This chapter historically situates Black experiences of US health care in the Middle Passage, chattel slavery, and the Eugenics Movement. The chapter concludes with recommendations on ways to make health care affordable, accessible, and acceptable to people of color and trafficked persons (noting these two groups meaningfully overlap), especially by proportionately allocating healthcare resources to vulnerable and oppressed groups with more poor health outcomes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This is an abnormal communication between the bladder and the vagina.

  2. 2.

    Where the term “Hispanic” is used, rather than the non-Eurocentric and more inclusive “Latinx,” it reflects the term used by the cited source.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care at Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, AL, USA

    Rueben C. Warren

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  1. Rueben C. Warren
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Correspondence to Rueben C. Warren .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Health Equity Research, Department of Emergency Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Makini Chisolm-Straker

  2. Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Katherine Chon

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Warren, R.C. (2021). Health Care as a Right for the Human Trafficked. In: Chisolm-Straker, M., Chon, K. (eds) The Historical Roots of Human Trafficking. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70675-3_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70675-3_15

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-70675-3

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