Weekly Briefing · September 18, 2026
The carousel, Kru Nam and a UK visa rule
A carousel is moving fast on Instagram right now: illegal mining, logging, and the forced labor running underneath both. It’s the same story we’ve been documenting on the ground for years, just reaching people in a new format. Below, we follow it up with two more pieces on where this shows up in the real world, from Thailand to the UK.
Instagram carousel · Ecocide
The People Destroying the Planet Are Not Who You Think (opens in a new tab)
The people doing the digging are not always the people making the decisions. Across mining, logging, and other extractive industries, workers get pushed into some of the most damaged land on Earth while having almost no say in what happens to it, or to the money it makes.
In some places, that turns into debt bondage, coercion, and conditions people can’t walk away from. The forest, the river, and the worker go down together. This is what that looks like, in ten slides.
Human Trafficking · September 11, 2026
Recognition, Years in the Making
By Katie Wilde · Contributing Writer
Kru Nam has run Not For Sale Thailand since 2007, giving trafficking survivors in the north a place to land and rebuild. Her work just earned recognition most people never see happen, for the kind of showing-up that doesn’t make headlines on its own.
Human Trafficking · September 10, 2026
A Rule Change on Paper, a Door Left Open on the Ground
By Katie Wilde · Contributing Writer
Changes to the UK’s skilled worker visa are opening a door that traffickers already know how to walk through. Here’s what changed, and why the workers most exposed to exploitation are the ones least protected by the new rules.