The Linguist is a languages magazine for professional linguists, translators, interpreters, language professionals, language teachers, trainers, students and academics with articles on translation, interpreting, business, government, technology
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ciol.org.uk/tl FEATURES Communication strategies In parts of the world where labour trafficking occurs, 3 local police forces have developed basic mechanisms for communicating with trafficked victims. Due to the difficulty of finding an official interpreter quickly for certain languages, a police force in the uk, for example, instituted a system using iPods containing pre-programmed messages in multiple languages designed to assist victims in their first contact with officers. Similarly, the uN Global Initiative to Fight human Trafficking (GIFT) helped develop an audio tool, VITA (Victim Assistance Translation), for use with any computer. It contains 35 questions and pieces of information translated into 40 languages, with special questions for children. Their website describes it as "a unique new tool using audio messages, that allows law enforcement officials to provide a basic level of assistance to victims of human trafficking." 4 The uS State Department's 2015 Trafficking in Persons report notes: U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide provided a 'Know Your Rights' pamphlet that included the national hotline number and confirmed that applicants for temporary work and exchange visitor visas received, read, and understood the pamphlet, an effort that subsequently generated 791 calls to the national hotline. Some embassies and consulates also began to play in consular waiting rooms a new 'Know Your Rights' video, available in 13 languages. 5 obstacles to accurate assessment and judgment are further amplified in a report which includes commentary on the ineffectual interpreting resources available to victims testifying in uS courts: Victim testimony is critical to the successful prosecution of labor trafficking particularly as labor trafficking cases commonly hinge on psychological coercion and fraud, information about which must be provided by victims. The challenge of proving these elements was illustrated in one domestic servitude case we reviewed in which the victim attempted to testify about the coercion she faced but felt the interpreter was not interpreting her words correctly. In the end she did not think her testimony as interpreted clearly articulated her experiences. 6 The population of foreign labour migrants in Qatar speaks more than twenty different languages. Few speak English, even fewer speak Arabic, and a portion of these migrants [are] illiterate. While the comprehensive provision of translation services is a formidable logistical and bureaucratic challenge, it is a vital juncture in the carriage of migrant justice. Domestic workers – the vast majority of whom are female – find themselves in a similar position: they work excessive hours without rest and are given few or no days off. Some are forbidden to talk on the phone, watch television or leave their employer's house on their days off. reports of physical, sexual and psychological abuse are common. host families often limit interactions with domestic workers in the host language. Live-in workers are thus not only physically and psychologically tethered to the home, they are linguistically tethered as well. This may explain the absence of any significant role for translation in these environments to assist women in the reading of their contracts or in their everyday interactions. 18 The Linguist Vol/58 No/1 2019 IMAGeS © ShuTTerSToCk