Human Trafficking
Group #1
Members: Jillian Mandell, Lea Prihoda, Bri Meyer, Kody
Gilliland, Amelia Heintzelman, Courtney Harnish
Progress Report #4
§
Human Trafficking
§
Table of Contents
§
United Nations Definition
§
Elements
o
The Act (What is done)
o
The Means (How it is done)
o
The Purpose (Why it is done)
o
Overview Video
§
The United States Tier Ranking System
o
Tier 1 (The best ranking)
o
Tier 2
o
Tier 2 Watch
o
Tier 3 (The worst ranking)
KODY’S Section
§
Forced Labor in South America
o
Where does it occur
o
Slave Labor
§
Sex Trafficking in South America
o
Recruitment Countries
o
Video
JILLIAN’S Section
§
Forced Labor in Europe
o
Immigration
o
Industries
o
What Happens?
o
Graph
§
Sex Trafficking in Europe
o
Factors
o
The start of human trafficking
o
Common Misconceptions
o
Lost Cause?
o
United States Involvement
o
Velesta
§
MSNBC News Report
o
European Solutions
LEA’S Section
§
Forced Labor in Africa
o
How?
o
Location
o
Corrupt Governments
o
Slavery Graph
o
Industries
o
Cocoa Slavery
§
Survivor’s Words
o
Lake Volta
§
Survivor’s Story
o
What is being done?
COURTNEY’S Section
§
Sex Trafficking in Africa
o
Profitable?
o
South Africa Video
o
How do people get involved?
o
Conditions
o
Why is it happening in Africa?
o
What can be done?
BRI’S Section
§
Forced Labor in United States
o
Types of Forced Labor
o
How are people chosen?
o
Examples of it actually happening here
o
What happens after?
AMELIA’S Section
§
Sex Trafficking in United States
o
Obama Speech Video
o
Georgia
o
Florida and South Carolina
o
Canadian Border
o
Metro New York
o
Trends in Human Trafficking
§
Trafficked Children
§
Trafficked Adults
§
Factors of Promotion
o
What are we doing to stop it?
§
Trafficking Victims Protection Act
§
Safe Harbor Laws
LEA
§
Local Awareness
o
Be Aware
o
October 25th Event
o
Global Human Trafficking with Dr. Korytova
JILLIAN
§
Resources for Awareness and Prevention
o
Humantrafficking.org
o
Humanity in Action
Multimedia Used:
As a group,
a majority of our media comes from videos.
These videos come from a range of sources including youtube and
MSNBC. Within the slides, some members
use graphs to demonstrate numbers and trends.
The group is hoping that with this wide range of multimedia, it makes
the point that human trafficking is a growing problem that will not end easily.
Progress Report #1
Our plan is to create an analytical comparison of
trafficking in three different regions: Africa, Eastern Europe, and the United
States. According to the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime website, human trafficking is defined as
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of
persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of
abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of
vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve
the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of
exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the
prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or
services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of
organs (unodc.org).
Based off of this definition, we will look at both sex and
labor trafficking in these three areas.
From the data we collect, we will be comparing and contrasting the
different areas as well as seeing if certain trends prevail in certain
areas. In addition to this, we will look
at the different elements of human trafficking (the act, the means, and the
purpose) and who is involved at each step, especially comparing gender
roles.
Since we have three regions and will research each type of
human trafficking, there are six sub-divisions in total and six group
members. Each member will be responsible
for researching his/her own division.
Below we provide the list of who will take what region and what type of
trafficking. During future meetings, we
will share our research with each other and educate the other members about our
specific area. From these meetings, we
will slowly start compiling a presentation.
Courtney- Africa: Sex Trafficking
Lea- Africa: Labor Trafficking
Kody- Eastern Europe: Labor Trafficking
Jillian- Eastern Europe: Sex Trafficking
Bri- United States: Labor Trafficking
Amelia- United States: Sex Trafficking
For our research, we will take advantage of human
trafficking websites such as the Polaris Project, United Nations,
HumanTrafficking.org, and the Not For Sale Campaign. We will also use maps to highlight regions of
higher human trafficking. During our
presentation, we will make the use of movies and documentaries such as Lilya 4
Ever and Taken.
During the research process, group members will answer
questions. At the moment, the following
questions we hope to answer are:
·
What is the definition of human trafficking?
·
How do people get involved in trafficking?
·
What are the conditions these people live in?
·
Is the person forced to do a different kind of
labor than they were promised?
·
Are people forced or do family members willing
give members up?
o If
family willing gives up members, what are the reasons? Are they promised something in return or told
false rewards?
·
Is there a relation between how certain areas
treat human rights and trafficking rates?
We will build an effective campaign by heavily researching
our specific areas. We will then come
together to figure out the best way to universally connect the issue(s). Our group will find Human Trafficking
advocate groups in Bloomington. With
this knowledge, we will educate our peers on ways that they can get involved.
Once we have more research we will be able to figure out the best direction to
take our campaign.
Progress Report #2
United States Team –
Bri and Amelia
Bri (Labor Trafficking)
·
The different industries of labor
trafficking in the US include; agriculture and farms, domestic work, hostess
and strip clubs, restaurants and food service, factories, peddling and begging
rings, and also hospitality industry.
· One big way to take action is by
telling your congressperson to act on critical anti trafficking legislation.
This will really get the ball rolling in order for more regulations to be
passed.
Sources:
Baldas, Tresa. "Human Trafficking
a Growing Crime in the U.S." USATODAY.COM.
N.p., n.d. Web. 30
Sept. 2012. <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2012-01-22-us-human-trafficking_N.htm>.
"Human Trafficking Into and Within
the United States: A Review of the Literature." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/07/humantrafficking/litrev/>.
"Labor Trafficking in the
US." Polaris Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. <http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/labor-trafficking-in-the-us>.
"Trafficking Victim's Protection
Act of 2000." N.p., n.d. Web.
Amelia (Sex Trafficking)
·
83% of the women interviewed for this study
entered the sex industry before the age of 25
·
Pimps and other traffickers are often
responsible for other criminal activity including fraud, extortion, migrant
smuggling, theft, and money laundering
·
Women who are targeted by pimps and traffickers
are often in economic desperation, have a lack of reliable income, live in
poverty, have lack of family support, appear vulnerable
·
Methods of control include isolation,
controlling monetary income, threats, intimidation, drug and alcohol
dependencies, physical and sexual violence
· Although sex trafficking tends
to be stereotyped as an immigration issue equal attention must be given to
legislation against trafficking to both international and US women
·
Official definition of trafficking included in Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children: “Trafficking in
persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or
receipt of persons, by the threat or use of force, by abduction, fraud,
deception (inducement) coercion or the abuse of power, or by the giving or
receiving of payments to achieve the consent of a person having control over
another person, for the purpose of exploitation (irrespective of the consent of
the person): exploitations shall include, at a minimum, (the exploitation of
prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation) forced labor of serviced
slavery or practices similar to slavery or servitude
·
Factors promoting sex trafficking include (but
are not limited to) gender based social and economic inequality, male demand
for sexual entertainment, expansion of transnational sex industries,
globalization of capital and information technology, armed conflict
·
Approx. 50,000 women and children are trafficked
each year into the US from other regions including Latin America, Russia, and
Southeast Asia
· Legalization and regulation has
been proposed as answer to abuse
Source:
Gomez, Carol J. “Sex Trafficking of Women in the United
States; International and Domestic
Trends.” National Institute of Justice. March
2001: 7-119. Web. 30 September 2012.
European (Eastern
Europe) Team – Jillian and Kody
Kody (Labor Trafficking)
·
18% of the total of human trafficking
is labor. Although, that might be a low estimate to the amount of people
that are really in labor trafficking
·
The department's report also says slave
labor in developing countries such as Brazil, China and India was fueling part
of their huge economic growth. Other countries on the blacklist were Algeria,
Cuba, Fiji, Iran, Myanmar, Moldova, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Sudan and
Syria.
Source:
"Sex Trade: Forced Labor Top U.N.
Human Trafficking List." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2012. <http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/16/un.trafficking/>.
Jillian (Sex Trafficking)
· Macedonia is one of the worst areas for
sex trafficking abuse
· CNN news clip of story from Velesta
(town in Macedonia)
·
So hard to stop because so many police
officers are on the payroll for the sex traffickers, traffickers/traders always
get tipped off before a raid occurs but hard to figure out who is involved/who
isn’t
· Most women have bosses or owners and
may never even know their true name
· Have sex with as many as 10-18 men per
day
· NATO soldiers are “common customers”
· In Europe alone,
officials estimate that more than 200,000 women and girls — one-quarter of all
women trafficked globally
· Smuggled out of Central
and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics each year
· The rapid rise of this
sex slave trade can be traced to the fall of the Soviet Union
· Moldova (really bad area)
· “Moldovans are a hybrid
population of Russians, Romanians, Jews, Ukrainians and Bulgarians,” Revenko
said. “That creates a special race of women that are beautiful and in demand.
They have no future. They are a good target for the traffickers.”
· “In Velesta, a town so
small that the 120 Moldovan girls working as prostitutes there make up a
sizeable part of the population, the sex slaves are rarely seen during the day.
Kept under lock and key in the back rooms of a dozen “kafane,” or café-bars
that double as brothels, they are summoned by their owners when a customer
arrives. Then the girls, most in their late teens or early 20s, are paraded in
skimpy lingerie before clients who “pick us according to their tastes,” said
Irina, a Moldovan who answered a want-ad to be a waitress in Italy, but ended
up trapped in a Balkans brothel instead of working in a restaurant in southern
Sicily.” -CNN
· Billions in profits
· Lack of laws/laws that
are not enforced
· SOURCE:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3071965/ns/us_news-only/t/infiltrating-europes-shameful-trade-human-beings/#.UGj1d81DF2k
o good video of Europe
specific stories
§ global post
Source:
The Price of Sex.
Dir. Mimi Chakarova. 2011. Price of Sex. Web. <http://priceofsex.org/>.
Africa Team – Lea and Courtney
Lea
(Labor Trafficking)
·
27
million slaves worldwide, the most at any point in human history
·
Majority
of slaves can be found in African and Asian countries
· It is possible to end slavery in 25 years if everyone takes a part
(government, businesses, organizations, everyday people)
·
Slaves
work in cocoa, coffee, cotton, fishery, mines, domestic servitude, and
prostitutes
·
Today,
a slave costs on average $90, whereas in 1850 a slave could cost about $40,000
in today’s money. This is a historical
low
·
In
Ghana, children are given up by their families to work in fisheries near Lake
Volta
·
Many
families are promised that their children are going off to a better life and
will have an education
· Must ask the community what the best solution may be since what works
in one place does not work in another
· Education is key, many centers revolve around educating the children in
basic skills like reading (especially those children that come from villages
with high illiteracy)
·
In Ghana, parents are taught job skills
before being reunited with their children so they do not fall into the trap
·
Children
as young as three can be lured into trafficking
·
Children
human trafficking is prevalent among orphans who must become the breadwinners
·
Most children endured beatings and
psychological abuse, including death threats and warnings they would never see
their parents again
·
Many
of the countries’ governments do not comply with the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act minimum standards
·
Many
are abused (little food, no schooling, long days)
·
Groups
are working toward stopping slavery
o Challenging Heights (Ghana)
o Free the Slaves (International)
Sources:
"Free the Slaves." Free
the Slaves. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2012. <https://www.freetheslaves.net/>.
Kim, Kyle. "U.S. Report: Worst
Human Trafficking in Africa, Middle East." Social Capital Review.
N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2012. <http://socialcapitalreview.org/u- s-report-worst-human-trafficking-in-africa-middle-east/>.
"West Africa: Stop Trafficking in
Child Labor." Human Rights Watch. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.hrw.org/news/2003/04/01/west-africa-stop-trafficking- child-labor>.
Courtney (Sex Trafficking)
·
United Nations
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimate that profits from human trafficking in West
Africa are exceeded only by the trade in weapons and drugs
·
Benin, Côte
d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mali, Nigeria, Togo, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger
are both suppliers and receivers of trafficked children.
·
A UNICEF
investigation in 1998 was used to identify factors that influence child
trafficking and they found that poverty, cultural values and traditional belief
systems all weaken the protection of child rights and encourage children
towards traffickers.
·
According to the
UNICEF study, some other factors that encourage and support child trafficking
include:
•
Lack of vocational
and economic opportunities for the youth in rural areas;
•
Insufficient and/or
inaccessible educational opportunities;
•
Ignorance on the
part of families and children of the risks involved in trafficking, such as
severe abuse, rape, torture, exposure to HIV & AIDS and even to
psychological risks related to separation and emotional isolation;
•
Traditional
migration of adults within the framework of economic activities;
•
High demand for
cheap and submissive labour in the informal economic sector;
•
Opportunities to
travel, provided through easy means of communication and transport;
•
The desire of young
people for liberation through migration; and
•
Institutional lapses
such as inadequate political commitment, non-existent national legislation
against child trafficking and absence of a judicial framework allowing for the
perpetrators of trafficking to be held accountable for their acts.
·
The International
Labour Organisation (ILO) estimated that in 2006, the incidence of child labour
in Nigeria for children aged between 10 and 14 amounted to roughly 12 million
·
Women run an equally
high risk of being trafficked, and while children are sometimes trafficked for
prostitution purposes, women are more likely to be trafficked into the sex
industry as sex slaves.
·
South Africa is the
primary African destination of trafficked women because it is the regional
power house, and its image as a destination of opportunities is regularly used
by traffickers to lure women and girls into trafficking traps.
·
The majority of
people trafficked to South Africa are from ten countries, namely Angola,
Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (5).
·
traffickers identify
women who are socio-economically deprived and then convince these women to
leave their circumstances and travel with them. False promises of food, other
material goods and employment convince the victims to willingly accompany the
traffickers.
·
In the case of
Mozambique, women may also be recruited at taxi stands by taxi drivers who
offer women cheap fares. They will proceed through the border without incident;
only once through border control are the women forcefully held against their
will
Sources:
Consultancy Africa Intelligence.
"Human Trafficking in Africa: A Modern Day Evil." Consultancy Africa Intelligence.
N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.consultancyafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=articl e&id=233&Itemid=156>.
Skinner, E. Benjamin. "South
Africa's New Slave Trade and the Campaign to Stop It." Time. Time, 18 Jan. 2010. Web. 01
Oct. 2012. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1952335,00.html>.
CONCLUSIONS:
Human trafficking is in every part of
the world. Most that are put into it are
told promises of a better life with education and job skills. It is usually too late before they realize
that they were lied to. Violence and
abuse is often used whether it is sex or labor trafficking. Many victims are exported to other countries
and originally bought for very little (In some places, people can be sold for
as little as $5-$10). To stop
trafficking, it takes work from everyone.
Progress Report #3
United States
Human trafficking is more often known
to occur in places such as Eastern Europe, Africa and China; however, another
major place of occurrence is here in the United States. Focusing on labor
trafficking, this issue is becoming more and more problematic. A USAtoday.com article states, “Human
trafficking has become the second fasted growing criminal industry-just behind
drug trafficking- with children accounting for roughly half of all victims. Of
the 2,515 cases under investigation in the US, more than 1,000 involved
children.” Although that number may not sound as outrageous as the problem
really is, this statistic is from two years ago, only documenting accounts that
were being investigated. This statistic
does not include the cases that go unnoticed or the fact that this problem is
continuing to rise.
Under the umbrella of labor
trafficking, there are many different types of human trafficking. For example, there is agriculture and farms,
domestic work, hostess and strip clubs, restaurants and food service,
factories, peddling and begging rings, hospitality industry and many other
industries. One of the biggest issues with ending human trafficking is the lack
of knowledge about it and people not knowing what to do when they know that
human trafficking is occurring. People need to realize that this issue is
happening every day and is not going away any time soon.
One case from Michigan is recently
described, “Over the last decade numerous human trafficking cases have been
prosecuted in Michigan...Jean Cluade Toviave, a former University of Michigan
janitor and part-time tennis instructor, is federally charged with passing off
four African immigrants as his own children, giving them fake names and birth
dates to sneak them over in 2006. Documents accuse him of abusing them for
years in his Ypsilanti home, which he got through Habitat for Humanity, and
forcing them to do housework” (US TODAY.com). This is just one instance of
innocent people being forced into a world that is not their own and forced to
perform acts that are not legal for them to be doing nor fair under their
specific conditions.
Overall,
there are a lot of trends in the United States human trafficking statistics.
For example, many of the women that are trafficked here are brought here from
other countries to be used as sex slaves. Most women are younger, under the age
of twenty-five and are susceptible to abuse and manipulation. Many of the women
also follow similar emotional patterns, such as being dependent on one figure
and struggling with self-confidence. Almost always these women are unable to
support themselves due to an economic disadvantage or poverty or are unable to
escape their pimp and are, therefore, trapped into sexual slavery.
Another
trend is within children, who become victims of sex trafficking as a result of
living on the streets, usually after running away from home. These children,
mostly girls, are first victimized between the ages of twelve and thirteen.
Girls are pressured into trafficking from either being abducted, pressure from
a pimp, or an agreement between a pimp and a parent. Most young children lack a
sense of support from their families and make emotional investments in their
pimp or trafficker while pimps tend to cause their sex slaves to become
dependent on them for emotional reasons, drugs, or alcohol dependencies.
Similar to the trends found in older women, children tend to follow similar
emotional patterns or vulnerability and emotional weaknesses while pimps tend
to prey on these weaknesses.
Both
internationally and within the United States specifically, a number of factors
subconsciously promote sex trafficking. Outside of the US, gender inequalities
assure an ample supply of women, especially within developing and new
independent states, which make it easier for traffickers to find susceptible
women to bring overseas. Also within developing regions of the world, the
inability of women to be exported for labor reasons makes them more prone to be
trafficked outside of their home countries. Within the United States, both the
demand for sex and prostitution related entertainment not only promotes
trafficking but also keeps the business thriving and developing. Also
globalization and new discoveries in technology have all allowed for the sex
trafficking industry to expand and prosper.
One way
that the United States has been able to keep sex trafficking organizations
working and thriving is by hiding them within legitimate business. Commercial
sex in the United States is still legal and readily available through strip
clubs, go-go bars, pornographic magazines and videos, telephone sex lines, the
Internet, and even secretive businesses such as massage parlors, escort
services and sex tours. Sex industries are currently an accepted and cohesive
part of American culture making it easier to hide acts of trafficking,
violence, and abuse. Some people consider legalization and decriminalization to
be the only way to decrease the illegal sector of the sex industry and stop
trafficking. However, according to a specific study on the consequences of
legalization exploitation of sex both in the Netherland and Australia showed
that it led to an increase in trafficking within both countries. In fact 80% of
the women used for prostitution within the Netherland has been trafficked from
outside the country.
Eastern Europe
In
Eastern Europe, there are three different types of labor trafficking: bonded
labor, forced labor, and child labor.
Bonded labor,
or debt bondage, is probably the least known form of labor trafficking today,
and yet, it is the most widely used method of enslaving people. Victims become bonded laborers when their
labor is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan or service in which its
terms and conditions have not been defined or in which the value of the
victims’ services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the liquidation
of the debt. The value of their work is greater than the original sum of money
“borrowed.”
Forced labor
is a situation in which victims are forced to work against their own will,
under the threat of violence or some other form of punishment, their freedom is
restricted and a degree of ownership is exerted. Forms of forced labor can
include domestic servitude, agricultural labor, sweatshop factory labor, janitorial,
food service and other service industry labor, and begging.
Child labor is a form of work that is likely to be hazardous to the
health and/or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development of
children and can interfere with their education. The International Labor
Organization estimates worldwide that there are 246 million exploited children
aged between 5 and 17 involved in debt bondage, forced recruitment for armed
conflict, prostitution, pornography, the illegal drug trade, the illegal arms
trade and other illicit activities around the world. Many of these types of labor trafficking
victims can be hard to identify because many of them are illegal aliens who
were unwillingly taken from their country of origin and brought to another
country.
There is a prevalent problem of these labor trafficking
victims being taken into the Middle East with “64 percent of the more than one
million Filipino workers that went abroad went to the Middle East. Most of
these workers were women and the biggest occupational category was household
service workers or maids…A recruiter from a Gulf state contacts his man in the
Philippines. The Filipino contact goes to the remote provinces to recruit a
young woman promising a wage of $400 a month, which is the minimum amount set
by the Philippine government. When she departs, the recruitment agency gives
her another contract at the airport, one that is often written in Arabic,
saying she will be paid only half or less that amount. On arrival at the
destination, she receives from the Gulf recruiter a temporary residence permit
or iqama, but this is taken from her along with her passport by the recruiter
or by her employer.
The migrant worker
is then turned over to a family where she labors under slave-like conditions
for 18 to 20 hours a day.”
(
http://allafrica.com/stories/201205170776.html)
A sad but true fact is that sex trafficking is extremely prevalent
in today’s day and age in Eastern Europe. Ever since the fall of Communism, the
numbers have been substantial in terms of women who are taken by men and harmed
through
recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through
a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them
sexually. Many people lost their jobs and were left with what little income
they had started with when communism was terminated. The country did not have a
set structure or concrete enough plan to help the poor. Many women had starving
children and would take any job that was offered, even if it meant leaving
their home. This was when the spike of trafficking occurred and it has not
seemed to change much since then. Even today, many women are deceived and told
there will be a job waiting for them in some disclosed or false location. Once
they arrive, they are forced into horrible slave-like conditions and must
either work unfeasible goals or are simply kept there until they can escape or
reach death. Although, in some cases,
unsuspecting and more vulnerable tourists are also captured; however, it is
much more common that they are women from the area trying to support their
family.
Another aspect of Eastern European sex trafficking, which is much more
specific to that region than trafficking in the United States, is the
corruption within the police force. In many instances, officers will receive a
stipend from head traffickers to keep them hidden and out of trouble. Many
times police will try to raid a suspected location and find it already cleared
out and empty of any women or traffickers due to the fact that the traffickers
had previously been tipped off. These things may occur in other areas, but it is
extremely common and hard to stop in Eastern Europe.
The biggest issue right now is figuring out a plan of attack and the
best way to stop such a large phenomenon. Right now it seems that sex
trafficking is too accepted by society. It is so out in the open that it
happens and too little is being done to fight against it, especially in
impoverished areas. The root of this lies in education. More people need to
open their eyes to the reality of what is going on and do something to stop it
instead of sitting back and accepting it as a cultural aspect. Women must be
taught to be less trusting (as unfortunate as that is) and more outside help, possibly
from the UN or wealthier parts of the country, should also help raise
awareness. Perhaps if there were less economic turmoil, some of this would
cease to exist. For others, the government needs to pursue these issues harder.
There is not one set way to take down all of the separate businesses throughout
Europe, but by informing simply one person, everyone can work harder to combine
forces and make a larger difference. Awareness is key.
Africa
In
Africa, human trafficking is a huge problem.
It takes place throughout the continent and has several major cities
where people are transported not only into Africa but also out to other
countries around the world. It is well
known that these acts take place. To
make transporting as effortless as possible, traffickers will pay off border
patrol officers and have fake papers for victims when crossing borders. In addition to this, many of the countries’
governments do not comply with the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act minimum standards. A lot
of these countries are on the watch list for human trafficking.
A sad
aspect of human trafficking is where the victims end up. Most end up in slavery of some kind, either
as sex slaves or in forced labor. While
many associate slavery with the slave trade, it is still going on today and is
at the highest point in history. On
average, people will be bought for $90.
This is much lower than the $40,000 (in today’s money) it cost to buy a
slave during the Atlantic slave trade.
In Africa, forced labor affects all age groups, usually families in
poverty. People are used to work in
cocoa, coffee, cotton, fishery, mines, and domestic servitude.
One of
the most shocking aspects of human trafficking and forced labor is how young
these victims can be. In certain areas,
children, some as young as three, are recruited and put to work. If they die while working, traffickers can
easily find another child to replace them.
Child trafficking is especially prevalent among orphans, who must become
the breadwinners for the family.
However, these children are rarely paid, if they get paid at all.
For
those children that are fortunate enough to have their parents will find
themselves sent away to work. One may
ask how this is possible. How can a
parent send his/her child off to work in hellish conditions? The simple answer to this is that many
parents do not know what happens to their children. Traffickers will tell parents everything they
want to hear such as their child will be getting an education and learning job
skills for the future. These parents
have no idea what really happens. Their
children do not receive an education, living with limited meals a day, and
working long hours usually in the 17 or 18 hours range.
Based
on such horrible conditions, one may ask why the children do not just run
away. Unfortunately, escape is not easy
for them. If they are caught escaping,
they are severely physically punished.
In addition to this threat of punishment, the children are often beaten
and psychologically abused with death threats and warnings that they will never
see their parents again. However, this
does not mean that escape attempts are not impossible. James Kofi Annan, a child slave on Lake Volta
in Ghana, escaped at the age of 14. Now,
after getting an education and rising from the chains of illiteracy, he has
opened a center to help those children, who were once in slavery, get an
education and have a chance at a better life.
This center, known as Challenging Heights, also works with the parents
so that they do not fall into the same traps again.
Another
group working hard to end slavery worldwide is Free the Slaves. To end slavery, they look to those
communities most affected by it. They
ask the people who live in the communities for the best solution. Since one solution might not work for another
area, it is important to personalize them.
Education is also put to use here and appears to be key in stopping
human trafficking and slavery.
While sex trafficking has been
found in every country around the world, the rate at which it occurs in Africa
is very high. The UNICEF estimates that a large profit in Africa comes from
human sex trafficking and is only exceeded by weapon and drug trade. UNICEF
also conducted an investigation in 1998 that identified factors that influenced
child trafficking. Results showed that poverty, cultural values, and
traditional belief systems all weakened the protection of human/child rights
and encouraged children toward the trafficking business.
While poverty, cultural values,
and traditional beliefs are all controllable concepts, the protection of human
rights solely falls back on the country and the government. Human rights should
be internationally known and carried out through each country to make sure each
person has the right entitlement to life. While this may be a Western
influenced idea, the only solution to fixing human trafficking would be to fix
poverty and help influence more beneficial cultural values and traditional
beliefs. These may be hard to change; however, intervention from developed
nations might be the only solution to help show other ways of operating and
providing new options.
A new
outlook on life may be the best solution for the victims of this crime because
they see that there is no other option, when there are plenty. Other than
children, women are highly victimized in Africa. South Africa, known as a regional
powerhouse, is the primary African destination of trafficked women, and
traffickers regularly use its image as a destination of opportunities to lure
women and girls into trafficking traps. As listed in progress report #2, there are
more factors that influence human trafficking. From ignorance to lack of
economical opportunities, human trafficking can and will be prevented as long
as intervention becomes a necessity.
