SPOILERS. Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale is based on Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel. Seth Daire and JJ Janflone explain the context of the story, then discuss the similarities with American antebellum slavery, how the story conveys agency and oppression, and why it's an example of slavery rather than trafficking.

Sources:

https://www.hulu.com/the-handmaids-tale

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1984.

Nelson, David. Women's Issues in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2012.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/margaret-atwood-the-prophet-of-dystopia

http://narrative.ly/i-grew-up-in-a-fundamentalist-cult%e2%80%8a-like-the-one-in%e2%80%8athe-handmaids-tale/

http://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=honors_theses

http://www.glamour.com/story/the-handmaids-tale-is-more-than-fiction-its-a-dark-reminder-of-slavery

https://theestablishment.co/the-handmaids-tale-a-white-feminist-s-dystopia-80da75a40dc5

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/22/a-cunning-adaptation-of-the-handmaids-tale

https://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/structures-of-slavery-and-the-handmaids-tale/

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-handmaids-tale-flips-the-script-to-show-the-women-b-1795174196