FORCED LABOR – THE ESSENCE OF THE PHENOMENON AND THE MECHANISMS OF DEPENDENCE

Forced labor is a social phenomenon, which is difficult to understand, accept and, most importantly, prosecute. Taking into account the unsuccessful attempts to deal with this problem in Poland, and similar experiences in other countries, we need to look for an answer to the question why this is so? The answer seems obvious: because forced labor is invisible. Perhaps this is because we have a problem with understanding of the phenomenon itself? That is why I propose a departure from the legal and criminal perspective and look at forced labor as a social phenomenon, in the spirit of the humanistic coefficient, close to the concepts of social pragmatism and symbolic interactionism. The key concept is the meaning given to labor in the process of social communication, and not labor as such. My considerations focus on the dilemma: if labor is a noble phenomenon and in some sense ostentatious, how is it that forced labor is so little visible to people, but also to law enforcement agencies? Perhaps it is burdened with some cultural taboo and is hiding behind a facade of noble toil? In order to identify these mechanisms, I analyze in depth two typical cases of forced labor. This is the first of two articles. In this one I made an attempt at a preliminary diagnosis of the problem, in the second I will propose a new definition.