Drugs and Alcohol in human trafficking - Research Paper Example

Drugs and Alcohol in human trafficking According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, human trafficking is the crime that involves “recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means” in order to exploit him. Traffickers target a great number of men, women and children every year exploiting them for reasons like prostitution, forced labor, slavery, or organ removal. Another important aspect in this context is the use of drug and alcohol in human trafficking. This paper is an argumentative essay regarding the issue of drugs and alcohol being used in human trafficking. Human and drug trafficking are considered as “two major area of transnational organized crime” (Agenzia Fides). Both types of supplies exploit people and create devastating effects on them and their families. How drugs and alcohol is being used in human trafficking is an interesting issue. Women and children are forced to pursue pornography and for this purpose they are forced to take drugs and alcohol so that they become senseless and do not get an idea what is happening to them. Another reason why women being trafficked are drugged forcibly is that they do not try to escape from the traffickers (“Sex Slavery/Trafficking”). The basic idea is to make them enough senseless so that they becaome unconscious of the unfortunate events. Gary Lewis talks about a project he and his daughter Phoebe carried out in India regarding human trafficking in which they interviewed a young girl Ina aged 12 who talked about her experience of getting drugged and trafficked for prostitution. According to Ina, some people “took me to a café and drugged my food, they then took me to Delhi and told me that in less than a month I would be making more than Rs. 100,000.” After Ina was trafficked to a new place and was set into prostitution, she became pregnant. She states: “I was forced to take heroin, beer and other strong alcoholic drinks.” This story clearly explains how drug dealers force women to take drugs and alcohol and to get involved into prostitution. Trafficked persons are forced to carry drugs and alcohol with them to the destination country, thus combining both trades- human and drugs- in one business. Welsh and Siegel state that trafficked humans become containers of illegal substances as drugs through the induction of condoms carrying drugs into their bodies or through any other substance (230). Davenport reports Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer, who asserted the fact that “the motivation of a lot of the illegal immigrants is to enter the United States to look for work, but that drug rings press them into duty as drug mules.” She further states that most of the illegal immigrant or trafficked persons that are brought into Arizona are being supervised by big drug cartels and smuggling companies, making the victims bring in the drugs and alcohol with them, knowingly or unknowingly. People who are forced to go cross border, or who want to go cross border come to dealers to be sent for work because they are mostly needy people who will do anything to make their lives better, but unfortunately they fall prey to drug dealers who exploit these people and use them for drug and alcohol smuggling. Thus, the scenario has changed from drug smuggling alone to drug plus human trafficking. The risk here is less for the drug dealers and cartels themselves because if caught carrying drugs, the sufferers would be the persons being trafficked and not them. There are contradictory views on this issue. Davenport also quotes T.J. Bonner, who is the union president of border agents, contradicting the statement and saying that most and not all of the trafficked persons carry drugs and alcohol with them, and the number of smuggled people who do carry drugs cannot be estimated precisely because they are handed over to the prosecutors as soon as they are caught. T.J. Bonner (qtd. in Davenport) contradicts because he suggests that not many people who enter another country illegally carry drugs and alcohol because most of them are poor people who want to earn money without having to face any sort of risk or difficulty in the fulfillment of their dreams. Thus, they would not want to be involved in drug smuggling because penalties for illegal immigrants carrying drugs and alcohol are stricter than simple trafficked people. There are tunnels being burrowed from Mexico into the United States, and between United States and Canada across the Canadian border, for the passage of illegal aliens, trafficked humans and smuggled drugs (“Mexican and Canadian Drug Tunnels”). These tunnels are being widely used for the smuggling of drugs and alcohol along with the trafficked persons. This is an issue that seriously needs solution because these channels and tunnels are hard to locate and operate upon. There are a great many tunnels burrowed along the Southern border of Mexico and the Northern border of Canada being used for trafficking purposes. West African waters are also being used for the same reasons and are becoming a nucleus for human trafficking involving drug smuggling ().Bissau and the Bijagos islands are also a favorite hub for trafficking people and drugs from Latin America to Europe. These areas are most targeted by traffickers and drug cartels because these suffer from poverty, mismanagement and possess ideal geography for smuggling. Such an organized crime needs a lot of attention on part of governments and crime investigation departments. Putting it all together, drugs and alcohol are being widely used in human trafficking these days. Drug smugglers have decided to minimize the risk of getting caught and facing penalties and thus they have chosen to mix the two businesses of drug smuggling and human trafficking together. Trafficked persons might choose to get involved in carrying drugs or they might even do not know that they are carrying them at all. In both the cases, if they get caught, they have to face severe penalties. Women, who are trafficked for prostitution, are forced to take drugs for the reason that they do not know that their bodies are being used for an evil purpose. Works Cited Agenzia Fides. “Human Trafficking and Drugs Trade: Major Areas of Transnational Organised Crime”. Agenzia Fides. N.p., 2010. Web. 25 Oct 2010. . Davenport, Paul. “Associated Press.” Ariz. Governor: Most Illegal Immigrants Smuggling Drugs. msnbc.com, 2010. Web. 24 Oct 2010. . Lewis, Gary. “Human Trafficking.” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. UNODC, 2010. Web. 29 Oct 2010. < http://www.unodc.org/india/human_trafficking.html >. “Mexican and Canadian Drug Tunnels”. TerroristPlanet.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct 2010. . “Sex Slavery/Trafficking”. Soroptimist. Soroptimist International of the Americas, 2008. Web. 29 Oct 2010. < http://www.soroptimist.org/trafficking/faq.html >. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Human Trafficking. UNODC, 2010. Web. 24 Oct 2010. . Welsh, Brandon C., and Larry J. Siegel. “Human Trafficking and the Sexual Exploitation of Children.” Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, and Law. USA: Cengage Learning, 2008. Read More