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In the first quarter
of the 21st Century gvnet.com/humantrafficking/ CAUTION:
There is always a risk in posting links to external websites. Some of the following links may possibly
lead to websites that present information that is unsubstantiated or even
false. Their authenticity has not been
verified and their content has not been validated. The Economics of Human Trafficking Baylee Molloy, Institute for Faith, Work
& Economics, 12 April 2016 tifwe.org/the-economics-of-human-trafficking/ [accessed 19 November 2017] According to
International Justice Mission (IJM), There are an estimated 35.9 million
people held in slavery today. Children represent an estimated 26% of all
forced labor victims. The Asian
Philanthropy Forum published results from a recent study by Dasra, a strategic philanthropy foundation, that gives
one reason for human trafficking’s persistence: The reason why sex
trafficking persists is straightforward: immense profitability with minimal
risk. A net profit margin of over 70 percent makes sex trafficking one of the
most profitable businesses in the world. It is becoming increasingly easy and
inexpensive to procure, move and exploit vulnerable girls. This is true of all
forced labor as well: high profits, low risk. The demand for cheap labor in
order to accrue high profits keeps this economic machine running. Paired with
little risk of criminal prosecution, this makes human trafficking
a lucrative business to enter. Poverty, unemployment in Africa, major
causes of migration among youth — Catholic Nun Damian Avevor,
Modern Ghana, 9 June 2021 www.modernghana.com/news/1086907/poverty-unemployment-in-africa-major-causes-of.html [accessed 10 June 2021] On trafficking of
women from West Africa to the European countries for sexual exploitation, Sr.
Monica noted that it shows “the existence of organized crime groups from West
Africa highly networked which embrace exploiters, facilitators, trafficked
women handed over to the forced prostitution market, money launderers, and
persons involved in the forging of travel documents and Visas.” “After being
recruited in their home countries, the victims are trafficked to Europe and
sent to work in brothels or in the street with forged identity documents,”
she stated. According to the
OLA Sister, “traffickers use voodoo rituals, which are commonly practiced in
West Africa, as an effective means of exerting pressure on their victims, to
intimidate them, and ensure obedience.” This practice, she
pointed out enables the perpetrators to make the exploited women paying off
their debts (which can be up to 60,000 Euros) incurred as a result of their
trafficking to Europe. “Trafficked
Africans transiting through Libya face insecurity, extortion and inhumane
treatment meted out by their slave masters, she said, stating: “According to
International Organization for Migration (IOM), the trade in human beings,
mostly of West African descent, has become like every other regular business
where people are being traded in public like goods, as was the case during
the Trans-Atlantic slave trade (Modern Day Slavery).” Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2022 Crime Research Section, Research and Trend
Analysis Branch, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs, UN Office
on Drugs and Crime, January 2023 www.un-ilibrary.org/content/books/9789210023351 [accessed 14 February 2023] The 2022 UNODC
Global Report on Trafficking in Persons is the seventh of its kind mandated
by the General Assembly through the 2010 United Nations Global Plan of Action
to Combat Trafficking in Persons. This edition of the Global Report provides
a snapshot of the trafficking patterns and flows detected during the COVID-19
pandemic. It covers 141 countries and provides an overview of the response to
the trafficking in persons at global, regional and national levels, by analysing trafficking cases detected between 2018 and
2021. A major focus of this edition of the Report is on trends of detections
and convictions that show important changes compared to historical trends
since UNODC started to collect data in 2003. We Don’t Need Heroes — Narratives Around
Human Trafficking Survivors Roop Sen, India
Development Review, 2 November 2020 feminisminindia.com/2020/11/02/questioning-narratives-rescuing-human-trafficking-survivors/ [accessed 2 November 2020] In 2010, the
Ministry of Home Affairs issued directives to state governments to form AHTUs
(anti-human trafficking units)—specialised
investigation cells which could build an organised
response to the crime and focus on cases of trafficking, rather than penalising sex workers or any other group of workers. But
a 2020 report AHTU Watch by Sanjog reveals that
less than 10 percent of these AHTUs are functional. The
anti-trafficking ecosystem would be better served if activists, funders,
media, law enforcement, and survivor federations (like ILFAT) were to push
for AHTU notifications across the country, and demand performance in terms of
investigations, rescue, and prosecution. It serves survivors
best when organisations and activists play the role
of facilitator to the survivor and stimulator of the system. Community-based
rehabilitation models where we assist survivors to claim welfare, health, and
financial rights from panchayats and district administrations, where
survivors are not held in captivity and can make choices based on options,
can be more empowering. An anti-trafficking
programme should be considered a success when
survivors are able to assert their rights, claim their entitlements, and
challenge the lack of accountability in law enforcement, social welfare,
judiciary, and even nonprofits. The emerging alternative approach to the
rescue-rehabilitation paradigm is one where the survivors are
decision-makers, collaborators, and leaders of their own journeys. 3. Law enforcement
is not your job -- Understand that the job of fighting traffickers is the
police’s job. If law enforcement is not able to do this, there are systemic
reasons for it, and the best way forward for an activist or organisation is to identify systemic blocks through an organised strategy. Report to Congress: Human Trafficking in
Seafood Supply Chain Mirage.News 2020, 24 December
2020 www.miragenews.com/report-to-congress-human-trafficking-in-seafood-supply-chain/ [accessed 24 December 2020] The fishing sector
has inherently high risk for human trafficking. The work is considered
hazardous and often relies heavily on a low-skilled, migrant, easily replaced
workforce, vulnerable to trafficking. Fishing is also inherently isolating,
with vessels sometimes spending months to years at sea, which impedes
individuals’ escape from or reporting of abuse. Emotional and physical abuse,
sometimes resulting in death; excessive overtime; poor living conditions;
deceptive or coercive recruiting practices; and lack or underpayment of wages
are examples of the abuses sustained by human trafficking victims in the
fishing sector. Countries with weak legal protections for civil liberties and
workers’ rights; high levels of corruption, crime, violence, political
instability, poverty; and immigration policies that limit employment options
or movement are at an increased risk for human trafficking. Illicit recruiters,
unscrupulous vessel captains, and human traffickers exploit such conditions
to perpetrate fraud, deception, and violence. Human trafficking myths and misconceptions Caitlin Walker, Herald Times, 7 September
2020 www.theheraldtimes.com/human-trafficking-myths-and-misconceptions/rio-blanco-county/ [accessed 8 September 2020] MISCONCEPTION: HUMAN
TRAFFICKING IS ALL ABOUT SEX -- Victims trafficked for commercial sex acts
represent only 22% of the total number of trafficking victims. Labor
trafficking makes up a much larger 68%, and includes forced labor in
industries like agriculture, hotels, restaurants, traveling sales, domestic
work, events, construction, beauty services and more. The remaining 10% is
considered state-imposed trafficking, i.e. military conscription or forced
labor. Slave Trafficking Alive and Well in 21st
Century Dong-A, March 03, 2008 english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=060000&biid=2008030305108 [accessed 20 August 2011] In his contribution
to the journal Foreign Policy, Skinner wrote how rampant human trafficking
networks are around the globe, saying the world now is seeing the largest
number of humans working as slaves in history. Modern slaves are
not the metaphorical expression that laborers in difficult industries use to
refer to the toughness of their jobs. The term refers to more than 10 million
people scattered worldwide forced to work without appropriate compensation or
to repay inherited debt or at gunpoint.
According to the International Labor Organization, 12.3 million people
labor under duress in the world, including an estimated 1.39 million women
who work as sex slaves. ASEAN’s human trafficking plague The ASEAN Post Team, 16 December 2019 theaseanpost.com/article/aseans-human-trafficking-plague [accessed 16 December 2019] The discovery of 28
abandoned human-trafficking camps and multiple unmarked mass graves in the
dense jungle of Wang Kelian near the Thai-Malaysia
border in May 2015 sent a shock wave through ASEAN and the rest of the world.
Almost 800 victims were suspected to have been held in squalid conditions, in
crudely built wooden cages and barbed wire that were too small for adults to
even stand in. The discovery of a pink teddy bear and other children's items,
as well as bullet casings and metal chains indicated that children were also
trafficked through the area and victims may have been tortured. The remains
of more than 150 victims were exhumed. Autopsies revealed stories of death by
starvation and disease while waiting for ransoms from victims’ families
before being smuggled into Malaysia. In East Asia,
Southeast Asia and Pacific regions, most of the approximately 2,700 victims
detected during the 2012-2014 period with determined age and sex were
females, including a significant number of girls especially in Southeast
Asia. Aside from the high number of girls trafficked, children made up almost
a third of human trafficking victims in the combined regions. More than 60
percent of human trafficking victims in these regions were trafficked for
sexual exploitation, while a third were trafficked for forced labour, especially in the fishing industry in Cambodia,
Indonesia and Thailand. Another reason for the trafficking was domestic
servitude, both within the countries of origin as well as across
international borders. For most of us, it
is hard to imagine what it takes for a human trafficker to treat another
person as nothing more than a commodity or property. However, the process of
becoming such a cruel person for some offenders usually starts as being
victims themselves. What makes it more difficult for trafficked persons to
seek help is also the fact that their victimisation
started with some level of consent although it was later trounced by fraud,
coercion, deception, threats, and abuses including the abuse of power. Case reveals trauma of male sex trafficking
victims Dave Collins, Associated Press AP, 15
November 2018 [accessed 23 December 2018] A 2016 study funded
by the U.S. Department of Justice that interviewed nearly 1,000 youths
involved in the sex trade found 36 percent were male. About 53 percent of
those victims were heterosexual, 36 percent were bisexual and 9 percent were
gay, according to the study by the Center for Court Innovation and the John
Jay College of Criminal Justice. Some reports indicate gay and transgender
men and boys are more at risk for becoming sex trafficking victims.
Advocates, however, say victims’ sexual orientation is irrelevant. The case has
illuminated what victims and advocates call the underreported scourge of male
sex trafficking. While both male and female trafficking victims suffer trauma
and other psychological scars, data suggests men and boys are less likely to
come forward and when they do they are more likely to have difficulties
finding counseling and other services, victims and advocates say. Ten Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution Prof. Janice G. Raymond, Professor Emerita
of Women’s Studies and Medical Ethics at the University of Massachusetts in
Amherst, Sisyphe, 4 May 2003 sisyphe.org/article.php3?id_article=691 [accessed 20 August 2011] by
Janice G. Raymond. As countries are
considering legalizing and decriminalizing the sex industry, this article
urges you to consider the ways in which legitimating prostitution as
"work" does not empower the women in prostitution but does
everything to strengthen the sex industry Prostitution: Reality Versus Myth Hilary Sunghee Seo, The Korea Times, 2004-11-29 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 20 August 2011] There are many
myths about prostitution _ that women become rich from prostitution; that
women prostitute themselves to support expensive habits; that it is a job
like any other; that it could even be a harmless, part time job for college
girls wanting to earn tuition; or that women do it because they like it. These myths could not be further from the
violent reality of prostitution. Child Soldiers Editor: John K. Roth, Ethics, Revised Edition, Claremont McKenna College, December 2004
-- ISBN: 978-1-58765-170-0, e-ISBN:
978-1-58765-318-6 salempress.com/Store/samples/ethics_revised/ethics_revised_child_soldiers.htm [accessed 20 August 2011] www.amazon.com/Ethics-Set-John-K-Roth/dp/158765170X [accessed 14 April 2019] In 2003, an
estimated 500,000 children under eighteen years of age served in the
government armed forces, paramilitary forces, civil militia, and armed groups
of more than eighty-five nations, and another 300,000 children were active in
armed combat in more than thirty countries. Some of the children were as young
as seven years of age Background Archives Day against human trafficking Rijksdienst Caribisch
Nederland english.rijksdienstcn.com/justice--security/day-against-human-trafficking/2020 [accessed 19 October 2020] How to recognize
the signs of human trafficking / human smuggling? - Victims of exploitation
situations often show certain characteristics. Someone might be a victim of
exploitation when: he/she has to do
dangerous and unhealthy work; he/she has to work
long hours; he/she gets paid
too little, doesn’t get paid at all or has to wait for their pay for a long
time; he/she can’t access
their own passport; he/she was brought
to the Caribbean Netherlands under false pretenses; he/she is being
abused, blackmailed, forced or threatened; he/she has to pay
off a high debt to their employer; he/she can’t access
the money in their own bank account; he/she is paid off
the books or, for example, is not insured for casualties; he/she lives on a
business premises, or is otherwise badly housed; he/she is not aware
of their residence address; he/she is being put
under pressure in other ways; he/she is forced to
have sex against their will; he/she is forced to have
paid sex, at which they have to hand over the money to someone else. Migrants And Their Vulnerability To Human
Trafficking, Modern Slavery And Forced Labour Luiz Philipe De
Oliveira, Fiona David, Katharine Bryant, and Jacqueline Joudo
Larsen, International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2019 [Long URL] [accessed 16 February 2022] WHERE ARE MIGRANTS
MOST VULNERABLE?
- Migrants are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation in situations and
places where the authority of the State and society is unable to protect
them, either through lack of capacity, applicable laws or simple neglect. For
example, migrants are highly vulnerable when fleeing situations of violence
and conflict, where the State has effectively broken down and society itself
is in crisis. Even once migrants have fled the immediate fighting, when
people are on the move, this vulnerability persists while migrants are
dislocated from community and family support structures, and are thereby
typically without access to legitimate forms of employment, legal status and
social protection. The risk is further increased when migrants move or work
through irregular channels, where their irregular status puts them entirely
at the mercy of opportunists who may seek to take advantage of their
desperate circumstances. Global Report on Trafficking in Persons,
2016 Crime Research Section, Research and Trend
Analysis Branch, Division for Policy Analysis and Public Affairs, UN Office
on Drugs and Crime, 2016 www.academia.edu/32688659/TRAFFICKING_IN_PERSONS?email_work_card=thumbnail [accessed 13 February 2022] Since the last
Global Report on Trafficking in Persons in 2014 there have been a number of
significant developments that reinforce this report’s importance, and place
it at the heart of international efforts undertaken to combat human
trafficking. Perhaps the most worrying development is that the movement of
refugees and migrants, the largest seen since World War II, has arguably intensified
since 2014. As this crisis has unfolded, and climbed up the global agenda,
there has been a corresponding recognition that, within these massive
migratory movements, are vulnerable children, women and men who can be easily
exploited by smugglers and traffickers. People trafficking: upholding rights
and understanding vulnerabilities Refugee Studies Centre in association with
the Norwegian Refugee Council, Forced Migration Review, May 2006 www.academia.edu/6139367/People_trafficking?email_work_card=thumbnail [accessed 13 February 2022] Report reveals linkages between human
trafficking and forced marriage Newsroom, Modern Diplomacy, 9 October 2020 moderndiplomacy.eu/2020/10/09/report-reveals-linkages-between-human-trafficking-and-forced-marriage/ [accessed 9 October 2020] The report states
that marriage can be linked to all phases of human trafficking, starting with
recruitment and transportation of the victim.
As with other forms of trafficking, only a small proportion of cases
reach the attention of the police, and there are very few convictions. Furthermore, women
and girls usually find it difficult to seek help, for fear of stigmatization.
“Marriage is
normally considered a private, family matter, which is not discussed even
when domestic violence and abuse are involved,” said Ms. Albert. “The victims
are also concerned about what would happen to their children, residence
permits or to their homes if they report the crime.” Basic Stages of Grooming for Sexual
Exploitation Mariah Long, 22 September 2014 www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/basic-stages-of-grooming-for-sexual-exploitation [accessed 21 December 2019] End Slavery Now
lists the six stages of grooming for sexual exploitation: 1. Targeting a
Victim. Traffickers target victims who have some noticeable vulnerability:
emotional neediness, low self-confidence or economic stress. 2. Gaining Trust
& Information. This can be done through casual conversations with the
victim or parents. Traffickers often mix well with other adults. 3. Filling a Need.
The information gained allows the traffickers to fill a need in the victim’s
life, making the victim dependent on them in some way: buying gifts, being a
friend, beginning a love relationship or buying soft drugs and alcohol. 4. Isolation. The
trafficker creates time to be alone with the victim, have a major role in the
victim’s life and attempts to distance the victim from friends and family. 5. Abuse Begins.
The trafficker begins claiming that a service must be repaid whether money
spent on cigarettes or drugs, car rides or mobile phones. In most cases, the
trafficker demands sex as payment for such services. 6. Maintain
Control. The trafficker maintains control of the victim through threats,
violence, fear or blackmail. Ending child labour,
forced labour and human trafficking in global
supply chains ISBN: 978-92-2-133700-3 (Print);
978-92-2-133701-0 (Web PDF) - International Labour
Organization (ILO ISBN: 978-92-9068-805-1 (Print);
978-92-9068-806-8 (eISBN) – International
Organization for Migration (IOM) International Labour
Organization (ILO), Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Organization for Migration
(IOM), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) - Geneva, 2019 www.ilo.org/ipec/Informationresources/WCMS_716930/lang--en/index.htm [accessed 12 November 2019] This report
presents the joint research findings and conclusions on child labour, forced labour and human
trafficking linked to global supply chains from the ILO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the United
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), under the aegis of Alliance 8.7. The report seeks to
inform public and business policies and practices in order to prevent child labour, forced labour and human
trafficking in global supply chains, and to protect its victims. It also
recognizes the multidimensional nature of these violations and the smart
policy mix necessary to address them. It considers not only the risk factors
and policy interventions related to addressing the vulnerability of people,
but also the unique complexity of global supply chains that can hide abuse
and the links with informality and migration. HUMAN TRAFFICKING: THE FACTS UN.GIFT - Global Initiative toFight Human Trafficking [accessed 11 August 2019] THE VICTIMS The majority of
trafficking victims are between18 and 24 years of age An estimated 1.2
million children are trafficked each year 95% of victims
experienced physical or sexual violence during trafficking (based on data
from selected European countries) 43% of victims are
used for forced commercial sexual exploitation, of whom 98 per cent are women
and girls 32% of victims are
used for forced economic exploitation, of whom 56 per cent are women and
girls Many trafficking victims
have at least middle-level education Human trafficking and slavery still happen
in Australia. This comic explains how The Conversation, 11 June 2019 [accessed 12 June 2019] In practice, modern
slavery is an umbrella term that is often used to describe human trafficking,
slavery and slavery-like practices such as servitude, forced labour and forced marriage. But slavery is
timeless. It has always been about the commodification of the body of a man,
woman or child, the theft of liberty and sometimes life. A Blight on the Nation: Slavery in Today's
America Ron Soodalter,
The Carnegie Council, April 27, 2009 www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000122 [accessed 8 January 2011] www.freetheslaves.net/a-blight-on-the-nation-slavery-in-todays-america/ [accessed 24 February 2018] Overwhelmingly,
they come on the promise of a better life, with the opportunity to work and prosper
in America. Many come in the hope of earning enough money to support or send
for their families. In order to afford the journey, they fork over their life
savings, and go into debt to people who make promises they have no intention
of keeping, and instead of opportunity, when they arrive they find bondage.
They can be found—or more accurately, not found—in all 50 states, working as
farmhands, domestics, sweatshop and factory laborers, gardeners, restaurant
and construction workers, and victims of sexual exploitation. These people do not
represent a class of poorly paid employees, working at jobs they might not
like. They exist specifically to work, they are unable to leave, and are
forced to live under the constant threat and reality of violence. By
definition, they are slaves. Today, we call it human trafficking, but make no
mistake: It is the slave trade. Modern Day Slavery Veronica Pugin.
Claremont Port Side, April 13, 2009 www.cmda.org/WCM/CMDA/ResourcesServices2/e_Newsletters1/News_and_Views/News_and_Views_Archive1/News_Views_May_14_20.aspx [accessed 20 August 2011] Beyond the abuse
involved in the commercial trafficking of women and children, human
trafficking also entails all forms of forced labor, debt bondage, coerced
domestic labor, and military conscription of children. Victims of human
trafficking do not freely choose their occupation nor do they prefer it to
their former lives; instead, they have been forced into a situation far worse
than they had ever consented to. A majority of those victimized have little
access to education, have a low rate of economic opportunity, experience a
great deal of civil and political strife, or are migrants. The people in
these situations tend to be more vulnerable to the traps of the
traffickers. In many regions of the Middle East, Africa and Asia,
certain traffickers befriend street children, trick them into believing that
they would provide guidance, and then ultimately sell them as sex slaves or
as domestic servants. Human trafficking is all too real, filmmaker
discovers The Baptist Standard, Austin, February 05,
2009 www.abpnews.com/archives/item/3826-human-trafficking-is-all-too-real-filmmaker-discovers [accessed 12 September 2014] www.baptiststandard.com/news/texas/human-trafficking-is-all-too-real-filmmaker-discovers/ [accessed 13 March 2018] Shortly after
reading the article, Dillon and his band played a small town near the Black
Sea. The crowds were raucous and energetic, treating Dillon and his bandmates
like they were the Beatles. After the show, he met one of his new fans, a
teenage girl who believed she had paid someone to make travel arrangements
for her to go to the U.S. But her
story didn’t add up. She believed she was going to the U.S. for a more
comfortable lifestyle—working in a fast-food restaurant. Remembering the
Times article, Dillon dug deeper, asking the girl to show him the paperwork
for her travel arrangements. She had none. Dillon sat her down and
explained to her that she was being swindled and most likely would become a
victim of human trafficking. He told her that she likely would be sold,
beaten and raped, never living the life she thought she was a plane ride from. The toughest part
wasn’t explaining what most likely was this girl’s fate,
Dillon said. It was watching her decide to take the chance anyway. IOM’s Busatti:
We’re fighting the ugly face of globalization Ayse Karabat,
The Ethiopian Herald, 11 May 2015 allafrica.com/stories/201505121740.html [accessed 20 August 2015] A CANDLE IN THE DARK - "Sometimes we
feel we are trying to bring to shore a boat that is at the edge of a
waterfall," Busatti says. But he adds that seeing
the smiling faces of the victims after they have been rescued keeps him and
his colleagues going. He says sometimes he feels he cannot take any more when
he sees children and single mothers forced into prostitution, but he adds:
"We are always caught in a paradox. We feel that our help is marginal in
comparison with the size of the evils of this industry. But, of course, it
does not mean we stop assisting.” Body Shopping - Wealthy westerners are descending upon developing countries to purchase
human organs from the poor Mehru Jaffer Vienna, Hard
News, March 2008 www.hardnewsmedia.com/2008/03/2083 [accessed 20 August 2011] "We don't
really know how many people are trafficked for organs," Scheper-Hughes says, adding that a conservative estimate
of the number of trafficked kidneys was 15,000 each year. There are 'strong
cases' documenting coercion in sale of organs in Eastern Europe, Turkey,
Israel, India, and the United States. Poverty seems to be a prevailing
feature in trafficking in persons for the purposes of organ removal. Human Trafficking: The Worst Form of Labour Exploitation Signe Damkjaer, ScandAsia Thailand News, 06 February 2008 scandasia.com/4057-human-trafficking-the-worst-form-of-labour-exploitation/ [accessed 12 September 2014] LABOUR EXPLOITATION - Most migrant
workers have chosen to move in order to improve their living conditions. But
many are poor and vulnerable and some get trapped in the migration process or
at destination and end up being exploited and abused, Anders Lisborg explains. ”It becomes trafficking when middlemen
or employers take advantage of migrant’s vulnerability and sell them to a
situation where their rights are
violated. If they for example are not paid, not allowed to
leave the factory or the compound or if they are physically or
psychologically abused.” “When you boil down
the words of UN’s definition of trafficking it is basically about addressing
severe labour exploitation and lack of decent
working conditions,in
different sectors,” he says “In others words, whenever you can talk
about migrant workers being forced or tricked into severe exploitation
at the worksite or during tansportation –
then it is basically a case of trafficking.” However, this does
not mean that everybody have the same requisites and the same choices. “We
know that the world in reality is not as fair as we would like it to be.” The
important thing is that people can chose what to do
and what not to do. And have the option to say stop,” he says. Victims Of A Hidden Population - Human
Trafficking Annalise Kempen, Servamus Safety and Security Magazine, 04 March 2008 chd4615.blogspot.com/2009/03/cp.html [accessed 12 September 2014] "You refuse to
do it, but in the end you have to accept reality. You can run away, but where
do you run to? You want to talk, but who do you talk to? You are totally
confused." This was the plight of a young Nigerian girl who had been
trafficked to Italy. When she realised that she had
been lied to and that she would have to sell sex instead of working in a
restaurant, as she had been promised, she cried non-stop for 5 days. Unbearable to the human heart: Child
trafficking and action to eliminate it International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour
ILO-IPEC, Reference:92-2-113088-6[ISBN], INT/00/000/AAA[ILO_REF], 1 December
2002 www.ilo.org/ipec/Informationresources/WCMS_IPEC_PUB_768/lang--en/index.htm [accessed 13 March
2018] ROOT CAUSES OF CHILD TRAFFICKING - There are many
reasons why child trafficking occurs, but it is overwhelmingly a
demand-driven phenomenon. It occurs
first and foremost because there is a market for children in labour and in the sex trade, and this is matched by an
abundant supply of children, most often from poor families, who are easy prey
for those who seek to make a profit by exploiting their vulnerability. Complementing the
forces of supply and demand that underlie trafficking are the infrastructure
and trends associated with a rapidly globalizing world: increasingly open
borders, better transport, and increased overall migration flows. Globalization has provided impetus to both
those who wish to migrate and those who traffic the unwilling. In 2000, the
United Nations estimated that almost 13 million people, or 2 per cent of the
world population, are on the move at any given time. Human Rights Watch’s Statement to the IOM
Council Human Rights Watch (observer status),
International Organization for Migration IOM Governing Council, 27-30
November 2007 (94th Session) www.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/2007/11/29/17437_txt.htm [accessed 20 August 2011] www.hrw.org/news/2007/11/28/human-rights-watchs-statement-iom-council [accessed 14 April 2019] A RIGHTS-BASED
APPROACH TO MANAGING MIGRATION - Contrary to popular belief, human
trafficking should not be understood necessarily or exclusively as an
underground phenomenon run by criminal syndicates. Instead, trafficking often
results from inadequate or faulty government policies that place certain
groups of migrants and workers at greater risk of abuse and with little hope
for redress. Anti-trafficking efforts must target and reform these policies.
For example, poor regulation and monitoring of recruitment agents leads many
migrants to become heavily indebted or deceived about working conditions.
Sponsorship visas in the Middle East and Asia tie workers to their employers
making it difficult for them to change employment in cases of abuse. And
certain categories of work in which migrants are concentrated, such as
domestic work and agriculture, are excluded from key labor protections. Protecting the Innocent: Reducing
Vulnerability to Human Trafficking in West and Central Africa African Press Organization APO, Abidjan, 26
November 2007 [accessed 20 August 2011] INNOCENCE LOST - Human trafficking is a global problem. But
Western Africa is particularly hard hit. q Children - drugged,
coerced, and forced to carry guns almost as big as themselves - become
killers, child soldiers on the frontlines of savage conflicts (for example in
Congo, Liberia, or Sierra Leone); q Boys, with stones
tied around their ankles, are forced to dive into dangerous waters to
untangle nets (like on Lake Volta); q Girls, caught up in
conflict, are forced into sex slavery; q Children, who
should be at school, are working long hours in coco fields or in mines (even
here in Cote d’Ivoire) doing back-breaking work for almost nothing. This has an impact
far beyond the trauma suffered by these children. For how can West Africa
build a peaceful and prosperous future if its youth is being exploited,
recycled, and scarred for life? Trafficking: return of the ‘white slavery’
scare? Brendan O'Neill, Editor, Spiked, 31 January
2008 www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4389/ [accessed 20 August 2011] www.spiked-online.com/2008/01/31/trafficking-return-of-the-white-slavery-scare/ [accessed 14 April 2019] In recent years, a
motley crew of government and police forces in America and Europe, feminist
activists, fundamentalist Christian outfits and celebrity campaigners has
turned human trafficking into one of the biggest issues of our time. They
claim there is a new ‘slave trade’, that tens of
thousands of people – especially women and children – are being sold across
borders and into bondage every year. Salacious newspaper reports (in
respectable broadsheets as well as the tabloids) tell us of ‘the teenagers
traded for slave labour and sex’; of African
children that are ‘nothing but a commodity… traded for tawdry sex and living
under the fear of voodoo’; of Eastern European women moved across Europe
‘like cattle’ to service sex-hungry kerb-crawlers
in Britain, Spain, France and Germany (7). The anti-traffickers paint a
picture of uber-Dickensian global squalor, of Conradian
darkness, where women and children are bought and sold by evil gangs, and
then forced into labour and kept in their place by
threats of murder or voodoo vengeance. The evidence for
these sinister claims is murky indeed. No one doubts that illegal immigration
is a messy business. Migrants from some Eastern European countries and from
Africa are denied free movement around Europe. Thus they frequently have
little choice but to pay middlemen for fake passports, risky forms of
transportation and other favours. Those who do make
it into Britain, France or Germany have to live beneath officialdom’s radar
or risk being deported back to their country of origin: this means they can
easily be exploited, becoming beholden to dodgy employers who pay them
shockingly low wages and provide them with shoddy housing. But enslaved?
Victims of voodoo? Little more than ‘cattle’ or ‘commodities’ driven and
shipped around Europe like animals? Such claims seem to spring from the
anti-traffickers’ fevered and borderline-xenophobic mindset, rather than
being based in reality. Literary Happenings: Book details human
trafficking in world Jo Ellen Heil,
Ventura County Star, November 18, 2007 www.humantrafficking.org/publications/618 [accessed 20 August 2011] "Not for Sale: The Return of the Global
Slave Trade — and How We Can Fight It" by award-winning journalist
David Batstone (HarperCollins; $15). Filled with
victims' stories, reformers' struggles, political trends and opportunities
for individual involvement, "Not for Sale" is a literary spark
capable of igniting real change in the fight against human trafficking.
Fascinating, well-written and readable, the book also includes an extensive
list of Web sites, resources and organizations that are making a difference. MODERN-DAY SLAVERY - Important Information
About Trafficking in Persons [PDF] Vital Voices Global Partnership, Washington
DC, 2003 www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/irr/enterprise/tip/resources/vital_voices_toolkit.authcheckdam.pdf [accessed 3 March 2015] ABSTRACT: What is
trafficking in persons? Trafficking in persons is the illegal trade in human
beings, through abduction, the use or threat of force, deception, fraud or “sale”
for the purposes of sexual exploitation or forced labor. This horrific human
rights violation is modern-day slavery. 800,000 to 900,000 people are
trafficked every year. 20,000 end up in slavery right here in the United
States. Most are women and children. Trafficking victims have been found in
cities and rural areas all across America. People are lured from countries
with high rates of poverty and violence in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and
Latin America and tricked into believing better opportunities await them in
the U.S. and other destination countries. Once there, instead of finding
opportunity they are held in slavery-like conditions, imprisoned, raped,
beaten, starved, and forced into prostitution, domestic service and forced
labor. Much like drug trafficking, trafficking in persons is a multinational,
organized criminal industry that generates billions of dollars a year. A
person who has been trafficked is considered a victim of a serious crime
under U.S. law and has the right to protection and assistance under the
Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. This law provides
for the protection of victims in the U.S., including medical care and shelter
services. (excerpt) Who's afraid of ... human trafficking? Nathalie Rothschild, commissioning editor,
Spiked, 10 July 2007 www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3580 [accessed 20 August 2011] www.spiked-online.com/2007/07/10/human-trafficking/ [accessed 14 April 2019] Nathalie Rothschild
says the promiscuous use of the term ‘trafficking’ to describe migration
across borders is leading to new and stringent restrictions on free movement
around the world. Task Force Battles Human Trafficking The Point Newspaper, 24th August 2005 --
Compiled by Ebrima Sawaneh
With the Courtesy of the American Embassy in Banjul archive.thepoint.gm/For%20the%20records1.htm [accessed 20 August 2011] [accessed 14 April 2019] It's important to
establish the difference between human smuggling and human trafficking.
Smuggling is when people pay to be taken across the border illegally.
Trafficking, on the other hand, goes a lot further. In many cases,
victims of human trafficking are detained against their will and forced into
slave labor. "Once the
victims arrive in the United States, the traffickers then tell them, 'You
know what? You're not free to leave. You owe me five, ten... In some cases
we've heard 20-thousand dollars for taking care of your travel to the United
States. Now you're going to work it off.' " Paul
Pinon heads the El Paso Police Department's Human Trafficking Task Force. The New Global Slave Trade Ethan B. Kapstein,
Foreign Affairs, The Council on Foreign Relations, November/December 2006 www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62094/ethan-b-kapstein/the-new-global-slave-trade [accessed 20 August 2011] [scroll down] Most people think
of slavery as a purely historical phenomenon. In fact, the practice thrives
around the world today. The same factors that contribute to economic
globalization have given rise to a booming international traffic in human
beings, often with the connivance of national governments. Fighting this
scourge successfully will take more than another UN treaty: Western nations
must use their military might. Global solution needed to eradicate human
trafficking, says expert Micheline R. Millar, Pinoy
Press, Manila, 9 July 2007 www.pinoypress.net/2007/07/09/global-solution-needed-to-eradicate-human-trafficking-says-expert/ [accessed 20 August 2011] www.kuna.net.kw/ArticlePrintPage.aspx?id=1761071&language=en [accessed 13 March 2018] Heyzer traced the
dramatic growth in migration and trafficking flows to so-called “push and
pull” factors. Push factors would include uneven economic growth, war and
armed conflict, natural disasters, high levels of gender inequality, and
family violence. Prosperity and stability in medium and high growth countries
and regions act as pull factors creating increased demand for imported labor
in what Heyzer termed as the “global workplace.” Migrant workers are
cast under two categories: highly skilled professionals demanded by the new
global economy and technologies; and the much larger group composed of
semi-skilled and unskilled workers willing to take low wages, insecurity and
dangerous work, said Heyzer. ILO estimates 218m child labourers in world Daily Times, Peshawar, June 12, 2007 [accessed 12 September 2014] “Unfortunately,
most of the national actors where the problem of bonded labour
prevails have neither the technical capacity nor the political will to
effectively address a problem of such a magnitude. Governments must focus on
children in bondage,” stated SPARC National Manager-Promotion Fazila Gulrez. She said there were
three types of bonded labourers, adding, “The first is when a child inherits a debt carried by
his/her parents. Another form of bonded labour
occurs when a child is used as collateral for a loan. Finally, a child worker
may enter into bondage when the parents request an advance on future wages
they expect to earn.” A Report on Debt Bondage, Carpet-Making,
and Child Slavery Swathi Mehta, Tufts
University, iabolish.org - The American Anti-Slavery Group [accessed 20 August 2011] OVERVIEW - In Disposable People: New Slavery in
the Global Economy, Dr. Kevin Bales estimates that there are at
least 27 million slaves in the world today – more than at any other time in
human history. Slavery is on the rise around the world for the simple reason
that unpaid, forced labor constitutes an excellent (though brutal) means to
economic profit. For callous businessmen, slaves are disposable people who toil
to meet the global market’s demand for goods. The lower a good’s production
costs, the more competitive it will be on the global market. Sex Trafficking Victims: Disposable or
Human Janice Shaw Crouse, Townhall.com, 7/11/2007 townhall.com/columnists/janiceshawcrouse/2007/07/11/sex_trafficking_victims_disposable_or_human [accessed 20 August 2011] There are those who
would argue that human trafficking is the inevitable outcome of poverty and
that some poverty-stricken people choose willingly to be involved. But, as
Ambassador Lagon pointed out, “There is a growing
refusal to accept enslavement as an inevitable product of poverty or human
viciousness. Corruption is typically poverty’s handmaiden in cases of human
trafficking.”
Russian Mob and Human Trafficking Jim Kouri, RenewAmerica, July 18, 2005 www.renewamerica.com/columns/kouri/050719 [accessed 20 August 2011] coalitionagainsttrafficking.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/the-russian-mob-and-transnational-human-trafficking/ [accessed 13 March 2018] From Himalayan
villages to Eastern European cities, people -- especially women and girls --
are attracted by the prospect of a well-paid job as a domestic servant,
waitress or factory worker. Human traffickers recruit victims through fake
advertisements, mail-order bride catalogues and casual acquaintances. Upon
arrival at their destination, victims are placed in conditions controlled by
traffickers while they are exploited to earn illicit revenues. Many are
physically confined, their travel or identity documents are taken away and
they or their families are threatened if they do not cooperate. Women and girls
forced to work as prostitutes are blackmailed by the threat that traffickers
will tell their families. Trafficked children are dependent on their
traffickers for food, shelter and other basic necessities. Traffickers also
play on victims’ fears that authorities in a strange country will prosecute
or deport them if they ask for help. A major purveyor of these de facto
slaves is the Russian organized crime syndicate. Brutal, cunning and
ruthless, these 21st Century mobsters present a new threat to US national
security. Slavery: A Worldwide Evil - From India to
Indiana, more people are enslaved today than ever before Charles Jacobs, President, American
Anti-Slavery Group www.iabolish.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=182:slavery-a-worldwide-evil&catid=5:essays-on-slavery&Itemid=8 [accessed 20 August 2011] In 1993, Abdul Momen traveled to the town of Tungipara,
25 miles from Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, where 1,000 children, mostly
girls, were reported missing. A dozen mothers told him the same tale: Their
children had left with labor contractors who promised good jobs in the
Persian Gulf. Guarding America's First Right: Freedom
From Bondage
- The civil rights community must respond to the
disturbing rise in cases of involuntary servitude in the United States Jesse Sage, Former Associate Director,
American Anti-Slavery Group, Published by the US Commission on Civil Rights www.iabolish.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=181:guarding-americas-first-right-freedom-from-bondage&catid=5:essays-on-slavery&Itemid=8 [accessed 20 August 2011] [accessed 9 August 2020] Dawn explained that
a couple from Saudi Arabia with a young son moved in across the hall from her
mother. A Thai woman who speaks no English lived with them. "When the couple leave for work, she runs across the hall to my
mother's, crying. We can't understand her, but she appears to be the boy's
nanny - and she shows signs of physical abuse. Fighting Slavery in 2006 - The long war ahead against human trafficking Bryan Collinsworth,
Field Report, Campus Progress, July 27, 2006 campusprogress.org/articles/fighting_slavery_in_2006 [accessed 20 August 2011] genprogress.org/voices/2006/07/27/13678/fighting-slavery-in-2006/ [accessed 13 March 2018] MODERN-DAY SLAVERY - The most common
stories are of young women and girls who are lured from poverty-stricken
places with promises of work as servants or nannies, only to find themselves
turned into shut-in sex slaves in alien countries where, even if they do
escape, the authorities are often inaccessible to them. There are also men
and boys, offered well-paying labor in faraway locations, only to be told
when they arrive that they must work off the (previously unmentioned) costs
of their transportation, and that their passports, wages, and freedom will be
withheld until they do. Different forms of human slavery Barbara Kralis, RenewAmerica, July 20, 2006 www.renewamerica.com/columns/kralis/060720 [accessed 20 August 2011] www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7074 [accessed 13 March 2018] Despite centuries
of struggle, slavery has not been eradicated from our world. Slavery is
readily found on the farms of India, the heritable debt-bondage brick making
kilns of Pakistan, and the cocoa plantations of Cote d'Ivoire. Slavery thrives in
the rug loom sheds of Nepal; the sex-slavery brothels of Manila, Thailand,
Japan and the U.S.; the water-carrier chattel in Mauritania; the
charcoal-making camps of Brazil; child prostitution in Ecuador; and child
camel-jockey riding for the wealthy Sheikhs in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait and Qatar. Migrant trafficking
exists for sexual labor throughout visa-free Canadian borders and into the
U.S.A. Slavery exists in the garment manufacturing sweatshops of Los Angeles
and New York, in the numerous sex clubs of St. Paul and Minneapolis, or
domestic servitude in the wealthiest homes in Paris, London, Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C., just to name a few. 21st Century slavery Barbara Kralis, RenewAmerica, July 18, 2006 www.renewamerica.com/columns/kralis/060718 [accessed 20 August 2011] www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7072 [accessed 13 March 2018] MORE SLAVES NOW THAN
EVER -
Today, 21st century slavery has changed a little from Solzhenitsyn's 1974
portrayal. The numbers and profits have increased, as well as the clandestine
methods of human trafficking--moving victims from one location to another and
still to another. According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation
[FBI], human trafficking alone generates a staggering $9.5 billion in yearly
revenues worldwide. The International Labour Office
[ILO] estimates that figure to be $32 billion each year. Moreover, there are
more slaves today than any other time in human history. Worldwide estimates
are that 27 million men, women, and children, even babies, are in slavery
today, at any given time, a number much greater than any other period in
recorded history and exponentially growing. Our Children Used - Part 2: Enslaved and Forgotten Mark P. Denee,
The Real Truth, March 10, 2004 www.realtruth.org/articles/227-ocu.html [accessed 20 August 2011] Many believe that
the future is bright for our children. And yet, many children of this world
are enslaved, trafficked, and forgotten. Here is the tragic reality of the
loss of innocence. Vigilance Needed in Fight Against Human
Trafficking Hediana Utarti
and Kavitha Sreeharsha,
New America Media, Commentary, SAN FRANCISCO, May 29, 2006 news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=7cff91dbcbc45f06a8a6d7b69538f010 [accessed 20 August 2011] [accessed 13 March 2018] All of the media
stories depict sex trafficking. Sex trafficking, however, is only one of the
many types of human trafficking that violates a person's rights, safety, and
dignity. Human trafficking also refers to the ways people are recruited and
then forced into labor such as factory work, agricultural work, domestic
servitude, restaurant work, and servile marriage. More than 12
million are trapped in forced labor worldwide. ILO releases major new study
on forced labor International Labor Organization ILO,
Geneva, May 11, 2005 www.worldhunger.org/articles/05/global/forced_labor_ilo.htm [accessed 20 August 2011] The report is the
most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken by an intergovernmental organization
of the facts and underlying causes of contemporary forced labor. It was
prepared under the Follow Up to the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and
Rights at Work adopted by the ILO in 1998 and will be discussed at the
Organization's annual International Labor Conference in June. The new study
confirms that forced labor is a major global problem that is present in all
regions and in all types of economy. Of the overall total, some 9.5 million
forced laborers are in Asia, which is the region with the highest number; 1.3
million in Latin America and the Caribbean; 660,000 in sub-Saharan Africa;
260,000 in the Middle East and North Africa; 360,000 in industrialized
countries; and 210,000 in transition countries. Trafficking in
the Americas [PDF] Alison Phinney,
prepared for the Inter-American Commission of Women (Organization of American
States) and the Women, Health and Development Program (Pan American Health
Organization) www.paho.org/english/hdp/hdw/traffickingPaper.pdf [accessed 20 August 2011] vawnet.org/material/trafficking-women-and-children-sexual-exploitation-americas [accessed 9 August 2020] The trafficking of
women and children for sexual exploitation is a high-profit, low-risk trade
for those who organize it, but it is detrimental to the millions of women and
children exploited in slavery-like conditions in the global sex industry.
This trade, which UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called an outrage and a
worldwide plague, is conducted throughout the world with near impunity, in
many cases carrying penalties far less severe than drug trafficking. Though
people often associate it with Eastern Europe or Asia, there is mounting
evidence that the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation,
with its concomitant human rights abuses and health consequences, is a
significant problem in the Americas—one that promises to worsen unless
collective action is taken. This paper is an introduction to trafficking in
the Americas, offering a brief discussion of relevant issues. Trafficking in Persons: the New Protocol UN Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC, 2006 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 20 August 2011] Every year hundreds
of thousands of men, women and children are trafficked illegally all over the
world. Most of us assume that these people are willing participants in a
criminal transaction. We believe that they are simply looking for an escape
from poverty. Rarely do we pause to think about the specific problems they
encounter when they are being smuggled or what happens to them afterwards.
The reality reflects a very different picture Draft United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime UN Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC, Press
Kit Fact Sheets No1, DPI/2088/D, March 2000 www.un.org/events/10thcongress/draft.htm [accessed 20 August 2011] Click [here]
to access the article. Its URL is not
displayed because of its length [accessed 13 March 2018] DRAFT PROTOCOL
AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN - As trafficking in persons, especially
women and children for forced labour or "sex
slavery", becomes increasingly linked to transnational organized crime,
Governments have decided that a separate legal instrument -a Protocol against
Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children- is needed to fight it. U.N. anti-trafficking drive hits culture
barriers humantrafficking.org, May 17, 2007 --
Adapted from: Mark Heinrich, "U.N. Anti-Trafficking Drive Hits Culture
Barriers", Reuters, 23 April 2007 www.humantrafficking.org/updates/639 [accessed 20 August 2011] uk.reuters.com/article/uk-un-crime/u-n-anti-trafficking-drive-hits-culture-barriers-idUKL2329841320070423 [accessed 13 March 2018] Global efforts to
crack down on human trafficking are handicapped by lack of information from
countries whose cultures have not deemed some forms of slavery to be a crime,
U.N. officials said on Monday. The
United Nations is trying to raise awareness that two centuries after the
transatlantic slave trade was abolished, millions of adults and children are
sold into prostitution or made to work in degrading conditions for little or
no pay. Costa told a news
briefing during a break in the meeting: "When families (in Asian
villages) sell their daughter, it's not out of poverty necessarily, it may be
cultural." A diplomat close to
the UNODC said its campaign was running up against cultural traditions in
some significant developing nations that tolerated human trafficking and
related slave labour outlawed by U.N. conventions. Trafficking In Women and Children Judge Nimfa
Cuesta Vilches, Branch 48 Regional Trial Court of
Manila www.racematters.org/traffickinginwomenchildren.htm [accessed 20 August 2011] ACTS
OF TRAFFICKING -
The following are deemed acts of trafficking committed either by a person or
an entity when done for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual
exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage:
(a) to recruit, transport, transfer, harbor, provide or receive a person on
the pretext of domestic or overseas employment, training or apprenticeship;
(b) introduce or match for a consideration any Filipino woman to a foreign
national for marriage for the purpose of trading her for prostitution; (c)
offer or contract marriage; (d) undertake or organize tours and travel plans;
(e) maintain or hire a person; and, (f) adopt or facilitate adoption. Any undue recruitment, hiring, adoption,
and movement of persons and children for removal or sale of organs or for the
children to engage in armed activities in the Philippines or abroad are also
considered acts of trafficking. The Link Between Prostitution and Sex
Trafficking
[PDF] U.S. Department of State, November 2004 digitalcommons.unl.edu/humtraffdata/38/ [accessed 20 August 2011] Prostitution and
related activities—including pimping and patronizing or maintaining
brothels—fuel the growth of modern-day slavery by providing a façade behind
which traffickers for sexual exploitation operate. Trafficking: A Threat to Women Worldwide Refugees International, 2004 www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/1374/ [Last access date unavailable] “Trafficking.” It’s
a bland euphemism for a despicable crime committed primarily against women
and children. It involves the theft and sale of human beings into lives of
bondage, sexual abuse or both. Trafficking and the Commodification of
Women and Children Prof. Richard Poulin,
Ottawa University, Sisyphe, 12 February 2004 sisyphe.org/article.php3?id_article=965 [accessed 20 August 2011] by Richard Poulin, professor, Ottawa University. This article examines industrialization of
the sex trade and the mass production of sexual goods and services structured
around a regional and international division of labor which has resulted in
the commodification of women and children Stolen Lives: Trafficking of women - The first thing they lose is their freedom. Then they're subjected to
violence to make them submit Lory Hough, Kennedy School Communications,
2005 www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/03.10/09-traffick.html [accessed 20 August 2011] news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2005/03/stolen-lives-trafficking-of-women/ [accessed 9 August 2020] Gathering for what
moderator Swanee Hunt, director of the Women and
Public Policy Program, called a "grim subject," a group of experts
met in the Kennedy School Forum to talk about the trafficking of women and
girls worldwide and what, if anything, can be done to stop it Millions 'forced into slavery' BBC News, 27 May, 2002 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2010401.stm [accessed 20 August 2011] Between 5,000 and
14,000 people are said by the group to have been abducted into forced labour in Sudan
since 1983. There are also problems of
forced labour in Mauritania where, the London-based rights group says, little has
been done to secure the release of slaves or punish those who use them
despite the abolition of slavery in 1981.
In Brazil, the report says,
more than 1,000 people were rescued from forced labour
last year, but many more remain enslaved on Amazonian estates. The report says that in Pakistan, particularly in Sindh
province, many women, children and men are forced to accept landlords' cash
advances and work all day long for no wages.
Many of those who are forcibly employed across the world are children. Human
trafficking from Iran to Gulf Shiekhdoms [PDF] Shargh daily, May 26, 2004 www.referendum-iran.org/Docs/CSRI/CSRI-Bulletin-107-June-4.pdf [accessed 12 September 2014] [scroll down to Shargh daily, May 26] A group of Iranian
boys and girls will be sold in an auction today in Fojeyreh,
United Arab Emirates. At a round table discussion on human trafficking held
yesterday (at the office of) the Young Iranian Society news agency, it was
announced that the preparations for this auction were made two weeks before
by hunters of Iranian women and girls in the course of an international
exhibition… The human hunters
were able to choose 54 Iranian girls out of the 286 that were put on show in
an Arab country's booth. They were then sent to a Persian Gulf country on May
17 to get ready for the Fojeyreh auction on May 26… Dispatches from the World of Human
Trafficking Jennifer Goodson, Jul 28th, 2005 www.jordoncooper.com/2005/07/28/the-opposite-of-free-love/ [accessed 20 August 2011] The social workers
and I climbed carefully up a narrow stairwell to a residence hall about as
wide as a balcony on a cheap hotel. Dogs that seemed drugged lay in our path.
The smell of urine choked the air. I was introduced to Cybi,
who pays 35 rupees (71 cents) a day for a bed in a small room with several
other men, women, and children. She is required to have sex with at least ten
clients a day. On festivals and holidays, the number is more likely to be
twenty. The day we arrived,
she found out that she had AIDS. Child Labor Rules Don't Ease Burden in
Bangladesh Evelyn Iritani,
The Los Angeles Times, Dhaka Bangladesh, May 04, 2003 articles.latimes.com/2003/may/04/business/fi-bangladesh4 [accessed 20 August 2011] Under the
association's program, designed in 1995 at the urging of the United States,
the apparel industry has all but wiped out child labor. What's more, garment
makers have sent nearly 10,000 children who once toiled in their factories to
school, a considerable accomplishment in a country in which 35 percent don't
make it past primary grades. But to many people here, the program doesn't
feel like much of a success How can something so sweet taste so wrong? Athena Sydney athena.gemstonedeva.com/articles.php [accessed 29 August 2014] SIMILAR LINK:: foodispower.org/human-labor-slavery/slavery-chocolate/ [accessed 14 April 2019] Forty-three percent
of the cocoa used in chocolate comes from Ivory Coast, which makes this
African country the biggest producer of cocoa worldwide. Most of the laborers
on cocoa plantations are between twelve and sixteen years old, some of them
are even younger, nine years old. These young children are treated like
slaves – they don’t receive any payment for their labor, and are beaten with
sticks when they don’t work, or try to escape. They are locked up at night,
don’t get sufficient nutrition and work eighty to one hundred hours per week.
The children are separated from their families, since they are ‘purchased’
from their families in adjacent countries like Mali, Burkina Faso and Togo,
and they live in constant fear on the cocoa plantations. Although it is not
known how many children are enslaved in Ivory Coast, it is estimated that
approximately fifteen thousand child slaves work on cocoa, cotton and coffee
farms in this African country. Leonora, “P” and the human traffickers Voice of America VOA, 18 June, 2007 gr.voanews.com/content/a-22-2007-06-18-voa8-86629857/214676.html [accessed 20 August 2011] On the other hand,
“P”s older brother is perceived as the personification of success despite the
fact that a whole dark world is hidden behind his external dignity. He
was forced into human trafficking during his tender years and later decided to
become a trafficker himself. He returned to the village to perform a
most valuable service for his ringleaders. He is now the local recruiter
for the new victims of the human trade, those that are needed to meet the
growing demand. "Modern day slavery".
Prostitution in Thailand 2003-07-30 www.sciaga.pl/tekst/16435-17-modern_day_slavery_prostitution_in_thailand/ [accessed 20 August 2011] To every one of us
being a child means playing, laughing, eating ice cream, being surrounded
with loving and caring parents. For children in Thailand however, this is
just a mere image of the impossible. Thousands of them are tricked, drugged
and then sold or abducted into prostitution What is Human Trafficking? The Salvation Army web.salvationarmy.org/zam/www_zam.nsf/vw-sublinks/68bda6dc9c7db8768025770b0035b5e0!OpenDocument&Click= [accessed 12 September 2014] Human trafficking
(also referred to as trafficking in persons or TIP) is an umbrella term used
to describe the process by which millions of people become enslaved each
year. Each year millions
of human beings are subjected to the trafficking process and find themselves exploited in settings such as brick kilns,
sweatshops, chicken farms, cocoa plantations, mines, fisheries, rock
quarries, or for compulsory participation in public works or military
service, as well as a variety of other settings. Countless others,
predominately women and female children, but also boys, are trafficked into
the commercial sex industry where they are used in forms of commercial sexual
exploitation like prostitution, pornography, and nude dancing. Some are sold
as "brides." Trafficking in
persons is frequently referred to as modern-day slavery. Slavery is an apt
analogy that shocks and challenges us. Americans in particular are moved by
this comparison. To us, slavery is a sordid, indelible stain on our national
heritage, but nevertheless it is an evil most believe we conquered and
relegated to the history books. However, news media accounts, on-the-ground
intelligence from nongovernmental organizations, and reports from agencies
the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, create a different picture. They reveal the
inescapable truth that trafficking is one of the principle means by which
slavery survives. The size and
pervasiveness of the crime presents a formidable problem, but we fight on
despite the odds. Accordingly, the Salvation Army has established this
website to educate and equip people desiring to engage in this battle against
the exploitation and dehumanization of human beings. Human Trafficking for Forced Labor Might
Exceed Perception Jane Morse, USINFO Staff Writer, Vienna
Austria www.humantrafficking.org/updates/617 [accessed 3 March 2015] news.findlaw.com/wash/s/20070426/20070426144413.html [accessed 13 March 2018] Human trafficking
for forced labor might be a greater problem than the more widely known problem
of trafficking for sexual exploitation, says Kristiina
Kangaspunta, the chief of the Anti-Human
Trafficking Unit for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) “We don’t know that
much about forced labor issues,” she acknowledged in an April 26 interview
with USINFO. “We don’t know, but it seems that it might be that
forced labor is a bigger part of the human trafficking than human trafficking
for sexual exploitation.” She cited an enormous number of places that
could absorb the forced labor of men, women and children: restaurants,
hotels, bars, agriculture, domestic and construction work. Interpol Official Discusses Human
Trafficking, Internet Pornography Eugen Tomiuc,
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL, 14 May 2003 www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/news/2003/05/sec-030514-rfel-142137.htm [accessed 20 August 2011] Interview with
Hamish McCulloch, the assistant director of Interpol and the head of the
agency's human-trafficking sub-directorate. He also discusses the problems of
both trafficking and child pornography on the Internet Best Practices to
Address the Demand Side of Sex Trafficking
[PDF] Prof. Donna M. Hughes, University of Rhode
Island, August 2004 www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/demand_sex_trafficking.pdf [accessed 20 August 2011] www.popcenter.org/problems/trafficked_women/PDFs/Hughes_2004a.pdf [accessed 13 March 2018] This report describes
efforts to address the demand side of sex trafficking. It defines the demand
and describes its different components. It describes laws, policies, and
programs aimed at reducing the demand for prostitution in communities and
entire countries. It includes a review
of research on men’s behavior and attitudes towards prostitution and
researchers’ analyses of men’s behavior and motives to purchase sex acts US decries 'modern-day slavery' BBC News, 12 July, 2001 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1436329.stm [accessed 20 August 2011] Victims worldwide
"are subjected to threats against their person and family, violence,
horrific living conditions and dangerous workplaces," the report
says. They end up working as cheap labour, some on construction sites, others in clothing
factories and many in brothels. US Secretary of
State Colin Powell called the practice an "abomination against
humanity" and said Washington would work to put an end to it. The report lists the root causes for
trafficking as "greed, moral turpitude, economics, political instability
and transition and social factors". The Myth of the Migrant Kerry Howley,
Reason Magazine, December 26, 2007 reason.com/archives/2007/12/26/the-myth-of-the-migrant [accessed 20 August 2011] reason: What do you make
of the State Department's claim that 800,000 people are trafficked each year? Agustín: Numbers like this are
fabricated by defining trafficking in an extremely broad way to take in
enormous numbers of people. The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in
Persons is using the widest possible definition, which assumes that any
woman who sells sex could not really want to, and, if she crossed a national
border, she was forced. The numbers are
egregious partly because the research is cross-cultural. The US, calling
itself the world's moral arbiter on these issues, uses its embassies in other
countries to talk to the police and other local authorities, supposedly to
find out how many people were trafficked. There is a language issue —all the
words involved don’t translate perfectly, and there is a
confusion about what trafficking means. People don't all use it
the same way. Even leaving aside language issues, we know the data aren't
being collected using a standard methodology across countries. 800,000 is a
fantasy number. reason: Is there a
legitimate core of abuses that need to be addressed? Agustín: Some conscientious
people talk about trafficking as applicable to men, transsexuals, or anyone
you like, no matter what kind of work they do, when things go very wrong
during a migration. When migrants are charged egregious amounts of money they
can't possibly pay back, for example. However, we've reached the point in
this cultural madness where most people mean specifically women
who sell sex when they use the word "trafficking." They usually
mean women working inside brothels. reason: So there is an
attempt to conflate the terms prostitution and trafficking? Agustín: There is a
definite effort to conflate the terms in a stream of feminism I call
"fundamentalist feminism." These feminists believe there is a
single definition of Woman, and that sexual experience is key to a woman's
life, soul, self-definition. This particular group
has tried to say that prostitution is not only by definition exploitation but
is trafficking. It's bizarre but they are maintaining that. |