Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking in Latin America - Essay Example

07 December Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking in Latin America It is too easy to assume that slavery ended with Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. It is too easy to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to domestic violence when it does not directly involve ourselves or a person we love. However, the fact of the matter remains that slavery is very much still in existence, just as it has been for thousands of years, and domestic violence is an everyday nightmare for people around the world. While these are both global issues, some parts of the world seem to have a greater challenge facing these two issues than other countries. “Latin America and the Caribbean have the highest rates of gender violence of any region of the world excluding fundamentalist Muslim countries, where statistics are not kept and discrimination against women is institutionalized” (“Half”). This paper will focus primarily on Latin America (namely Colombia and Ecuador) and the human trafficking and domestic violence issues these two countries face, the reasons for the prevalence of these issues in these countries, and what can be and is being done about them. According to Berry, “domestic violence” refers to “abuse by one person of another in an intimate relationship” (1). Domestic abuse is not restricted to husband-wife or boyfriend-girlfriend, but can also include sibling abuse, elder abuse, and child abuse; however, for this paper, the focus on violence against women will be discussed. Berry goes on to discuss the lack of boundaries in the issue of domestic violence; she states that “statistics have proven that abuse knows no boundaries: racial, ethnic, religious, or socioeconomic. It occurs among the very rich and the very poor, the highly educated and the illiterate, in all parts of the world” (9). Domestic abuse not only indicates foundational disintegration within a family unit, but can also be an indicator of the same sort of internal rot at a societal level. “It emerges as a serious violation of human rights that abrogates the women’s right to dignity, equality, autonomy, and physical and mental well being,” state Mehrotra and Banerjee, observing the issue at the personal level. Nodding at the societal level, Mehrotra and Banerjee go on to say that “violence is not only a manifestation of unequal, disempowering and unjust power relations, but is also a costly economic phenomenon resulting in significant looses of productive potential” (38). A country cannot move forward and hold itself back at the same time. A land cannot be both full of success and full of oppression. Colombia possesses several situational factors that add fuel to the flame of domestic violence. One such factor, arguably the worst of the factors, is the country’s prolonged combatant atmosphere. Vélez describes the following: In many conflicts, the systematic invasion of society’s private sphere through the use of gender-based violence (GBV) is one of the most common tools of war. Warring forces use GBV to bring an environment of terror and to blur the division between sites of violence and sites of peace. Furthermore, the loss of social regulations during and after conflict, augment the number of cases of GBV in the zone of conflict . . . In consequence, civilians—men and women—have become the main target of conflict and the most affected by it. (1) The internal conflicts coupled with increased stress, loss of security, loss of policing forces, and the presence of combatants created the right atmosphere for increased domestic violence. The country’s internal conflicts spanned many years, and in truth are still spanning the years. Imagine being a 40-year-old Colombian civilian and never knowing your country at peace. As Theidon states, “Colombia’s civil war is the lengthiest armed conflict in the western hemisphere” (6). Because it shares a border with Colombia, Ecuador could not remain untouched by its neighbor’s chaos. Untold numbers of uprooted Colombian civilians fled to bordering countries in hopes of some sort of security. However, as Vélez explains, “Often, neighboring countries don’t have the capacity . . . to provide uprooted population with the needed protection. The majority of the uprooted population arrive to the borderlands . . . which are frequently defined by low levels of human security and lack of rule of law” (1). To some, it would be a case of leaping from the frying pan into the fire. Continued stress by the uprooted population, added strain of immigrant population on the host country’s resources, and the lack of human security “caused many uprooted population fleeing GBV—especially women—to continue experiencing GBV in the host community—even if its manifestation had changed” (Vélez 1). Many factors of Ecuador’s problem with domestic abuse may have stemmed from Colombia’s turmoil and subsequent emigration to Ecuador, but Ecuador had its own flaws as well. Until 1989, men in Ecuador had the legal right to imprison their wives in their own home, and the women could not legally leave no matter how abusive the relationship (Mehrota and Banerjee 39). Thankfully, this horrible oversight in the law has since been reformed. Another factor that Colombia and Ecuador share with each other as well as with many other countries throughout the world is the fact that they are patriarchal societies. Studies have shown that the more a woman has to rely on her husband for financial support, the more likely she is to be trapped in an abusive relationship. “Latin America ... the part of the world with the least equitable distribution of wealth, is also one of the areas with the highest rates of violence in the home” (qtd. in “Rights-Latam”). Unfortunately, young children who have been spared from being raised during Latin America’s civil warfare are being exposed to domestic violence nonetheless from the people who have survived the war; children raised in an abusive household are likely to continue the trend. “Children hear screams, see injuries, live in at atmosphere of terror and tension. And they learn that this is what home is like. That humiliation, disrespect, and beating are normal in a home. That violence is the appropriate way to solve problems” (Berry 104). Frustration with unemployment is another factor that can cause an increase in domestic violence. For Ecuador, this could be the result of immigrating Colombians; for Colombians, unemployment could be the result of extreme instability within the social structure. In her article, Theidon interviews a former combatant in Colombia who “had completed his obligatory year of military service and found himself discharged to join the swelling population of the unemployed” (14). With unemployment at twenty per cent and the country being patriarchal, it is unlikely that Colombian women are able to find work to support themselves. Therefore, they are left to rely on husbands, which as stated earlier, increases the likelihood of entrapment in an abusive relationship. Until they are broken, cycles will continue. That is why organizations are working to put an end to the prevalence of domestic violence in countries like Ecuador and Colombia. When a mere two decades ago a man could legally imprison and abuse his wife, it is promising that nowadays governments in Latin America are beginning to step up to the plate. They have “agreed to adopt and implement national legislation to end violence against women and to work actively to ratify all international agreements that relate to such violence” (Mehrotra and Banerjee 39). For the women and children living these daily nightmares, changes cannot come quickly enough. Unfortunately, some will not live to see change. And it might take generations for the newfound awareness of domestic violence in Latin America to begin to manifest itself in the form of a man stepping outside to “cool off” rather than react with his fists and for women to have the opportunity to support themselves. It can only be hoped that as these changes begin, a snowball effect will be created, especially in the new generation of children and what they learn to be a “normal” home. Domestic violence is dehumanizing, and a global issue that takes dehumanization to extreme levels is human trafficking. Two centuries after the abolishment of slavery, the practice still continues to this day in the United States and all around the world. Human trafficking covers a broad area, ranging from (by some definitions) smuggling willing immigrants across borders to full-blown slavery for labor or sexual services. The scope of this paper will discuss the unwilling victims of human trafficking. A person might be surprised at the number of trafficked persons estimated to be in the United States alone. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 suggests "that approximately 50,000 individuals are trafficked into the United States each year" (Clawson, Layne, and Small 2). While there is some debate as to the exact number, it is a fact that the global numbers of trafficked individuals is staggering. Global trafficked victims are estimated near one million. Clawson, Layne, and Small give reasons as to the inability to obtain accurate information on this issue: Due to the covert nature of the crime, accurate statistics on the nature, prevalence, and geography of human trafficking are difficult to estimate. Trafficking victims are closely guarded by their captors, many victims lack accurate immigration documentation, trafficked domestic servants remain "invisible" in private homes, and private businesses often act as a "front" for a back-end trafficking operation, which make human trafficking a particularly difficult crime to identify and count. (2) Some areas of the globe where human trafficking is at its worst is in parts of Asia and Latin America. Again, for the purposes of this paper, the focus will be on the issue in Latin America, namely Colombia and Ecuador, where many of the same factors that increase the risk of domestic violence also increase the risk of human trafficking. As far as causes for human trafficking goes, it is a long and unclear path whose beginning is prehistoric. It has been said that prostitution is the worlds oldest profession. Slavery is likely just as old. There are records of Sumerian slaves, Greek, Roman, Egyptian—all dating back to centuries BCE. While at one time slavery was socially acceptable, the globe has made efforts to eliminate the practice. Unfortunately, slavery still exists. Like many goods that are made illegal, the world of human trafficking is full of big bucks and bigger danger. And continued demand encourages continued supply. Victims of human trafficking tend to fall into two categories: forced prostitution and forced laborers, with the tendency for women and children to be sex slaves and men more likely to be laborers. One factor that puts men, women, and children of Ecuador and Colombia at risk of being trafficked is the significant increase of Latin American migration. According to Cerrutti, "A conservative estimate indicates that in the year 2000 about 4.1 percent of Latin American . . . population live in a different country than their country of birth" (1). One of the ways a trafficker gains control of the victim is by deceit, usually by offering employment in a foreign country, where the victim is usually deprived of identification papers, money, passports—anything that would give them the ability to care for themselves. A language barrier between the victims mother country and the new country further complicates the situation for that person. In a society where so many people are looking to leave their homes in hopes of a better future elsewhere, traffickers have ample opportunity to take advantage. Another situation that puts Latin Americans at risk of exploitation is the instability of some of the governments. However, the at-risk countries have slowly stabilized to a degree, and change for the better is more obtainable that it has been for decades. Brysk states that "Colombia possesses all of the ingredients for change predicted by comparative study of human rights reform. Colombia is a democratic regime, relatively visible to international media, sufficiently developed to generate a stable civil society, and possesses the potential leverage point of U.S. aid" (38). Brysk goes on to say that, unfortunately, "The struggle for human rights in Colombia appears to have reached a glass ceiling; after a phase of initial recognition and pressured reforms, ongoing violations are only sporadically discussed and have been normalized in the international consciousness" (41). While that is disheartening, it would do well to remember that at least there have been some positive changes, and that sometimes this is what is needed to begin the snowball effect. With Colombia and Ecuador being democratic nations, and with an increasing number of the population being aware that life does not need to continue in the vein it has done for so many years, the people might finally begin to solidify and resist those who would exploit them. International pressure has also continued: "The 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, created international guidelines for the identification and prosecution of human trafficking under the auspices of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime" (Rothenburg). External pressure from the U.S. has also had an effect on Colombias court systems, changing them in "2005 into an adversarial system emphasizing plea bargains and efficiency, adopted under pressure from the US" (Rothenburg). Domestic violence and human trafficking both undermine the right of humans to live their daily lives with at least some measure of peace and security. Both issues dehumanize the victims as they are treated as punching bags, pieces of meat, or free labor. And both are global issues that can only be tackled with informing and empowering the victims and potential victims, prosecuting the abusers and traffickers (and the customers who seek services from modern-day slaves), and following through to be sure the changes that begin do not strike a glass ceiling. Works Cited Berry, Dawn Bradley. Domestic Violence Sourcebook. Los Angeles: Lowell House, 1995. Print. Brysk, Alison. "Communicative Action and Human Rights in Colombia: When Words Fail." Colombia Internacional 69 (2009): 36-49. Web. 1 Dec. 2010. Cerrutti, Marcela. "Gender and Intra-Regional Migration in South America." United Nations Development Programme (2009): 1-63. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. Clawson, Heather J., Mary Layne, and Kevonne Small. Estimating Human Trafficking into the United States: Development of a Methodology. U.S. Department of Justice. Sept. 2006. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. “Half of Latin American, Caribbean Women Are Victims of Violence.” EFE World New Service 2 June 2001. Web. 30 Nov. 2010. Mehrotra, Aparna and Rini Banerjee. “Where Battery Begins at Home.” UN Chronicles 35.4 (1998): 28-29. Web. 30 Nov. 2010. Nieuwenhuys, Céline and Antoine Pécoud. "Human Trafficking, Information Campaigns, and Strategies of Migration Control." American Behavioral Scientist 50.12 (2007): 1674- 1695. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. “Rights-Latam: Domestic Violence Grows with Social Inequality.” Inter Press Service 4 Dec. 1998. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. Rothenberg, Janell. "Kay Warren on Gender, Class, and the Unwilling Victims of Human Trafficking Law." UCLA Center for the Study of Women. 1 June 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2010. Theidon, Kimberly. “Reconstructing Masculinities: The Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration of Former Combatants in Colombia.” Human Rights Quarterly 31.1 (2009): 1-34. Web. 1 Dec. 2010. Vélez, Ana Cristina Andreetti. Gender-Based Violence Towards Colombian Uprooted Women in the Northern Borderland of Ecuador: A Case of Human Security and Securitization. Diss. Graduate Institute of International and Developmental Studies, 2009. Geneva: 2009. Web. 1 Dec. 2010. Read More