Human Trafficking - Assignment Example

HUMAN TRAFFICKING Introduction In the modern society, human trafficking is considered to be a major worldwide problem. Although it is a distinctive problem from migration and smuggling of persons, confusion still lies as to how the three terms relate. Human trafficking refers to recruitment, transfer, harboring, and receipting of persons through threat, force, coercion, abduction, or even use of deception in order to achieve economic benefit or gain1. On the other hand, migration is the movement of persons from one region to another, while smuggling refers to movement of persons across borders illegally. Both migration and smuggling of persons occur without the use of force onto the victims. The main goal of all participants in human trafficking is exploitation. Human exploitation may include; sexual exploitations, slavery, forced labor and removal of some of the human organs. Human trafficking is compared with the modern day slavery due to its exploitative motive2. It is now regarded as a worldwide problem as it does not discriminate as it cuts across race, age, nationality, sex or even socioeconomic status of the exploited victims. Human Trafficking is abroad topic but to limit the scope of this study, an attempt is made in trying to understand the origin, causes and effects, and how to curb this uninviting inhuman activity. Michigan commission on human trafficking report of 2013 estimated that about 20-9 million persons are trafficked internationally either for sex or forced labor. One emerging fact is that out of the total number of victims trafficked, the majority are women (75%) and children (22%) . They are brought from undeveloped countries worldwide, and are trafficked to more developed regions like; Europe, Asia, North America, and Middle East. The Michigan commission report further indicated that it is a criminal lucrative venture generating over 32 billion dollars annually making it the largest criminality trade after drug trafficking in the world3. The history of human trafficking can be traced to the days of colonial slavery of the 19th century in Africa, Europe, South America and Asia. During this historic period, children, adults and women were abducted and were taken by force to other foreign countries to work as slaves. The individuals who were engaged in slave trade exploited the slaves by exchanging them for other economic commodities. Despite changes in policies, rules and regulations against slave trade in 20th and 21st century which resulted to decline of slavery, a new type of slavery was born and that is human trafficking. Human trafficking emerged in different ways; through coercion to better life, underground abductions, and force servant-hood4. The two major types of human trafficking facing the world today is trafficking for sexual exploitations and trafficking to provide forced labor. Forms of human trafficking Data internationally indicate that other forms of human trafficking are ignored or not taken into consideration. In United States for example, the law is discriminative because it only covers two types of human trafficking: sex and forced labor trafficking. The law provides a mutual relationship between trafficked victims in exchange for their assistance to prosecute offenders. Studies indicate that these two types of human trafficking are uneven; about 70% cases investigated by agencies showed that 34% involved only labor trafficking while 36% was only sex trafficking5. Lack of all types of human trafficking data is another problem that makes non availability of data for policy makers to investigate and make reliable human trafficking management policies. Marti and Lobti (2013) estimate that about 70% to 90% of human trafficking of women and children are linked to sexual exploitation industries like prostitution and pornography6. The origin of sex trafficking began in the 19th century where the males were taken to towns and cities. This increased one sex population in such towns thus creating a demand for sex. In a bid to counter the demand of sex, women were then abducted and forced to these cities and towns where they formed brothels and sex dens. This type of sex exploitation led to prostitution that is a current problem to the world of today. Since then women have been moving voluntarily and involuntarily to prostitutions to major towns and cities in developed regions, and human traffickers have since joined the trade. One distinctive problem facing scholars and researchers in this field is failure to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary prostitution since most of the women consent to movement or trafficking. It is established that a sizeable number of women are taken to prostitution without force but through other attractive ways . There are two types of sex trafficking, one that involves adults and the other involving children. Both types are exploitative as they involve victims engaging in forced, coerced and fraud commercial activity, where they participate in acts like exotic dancing, prostitution and pornography7. Internationally countries may treat prostitution as illegal or legal, and they treat sex trafficking as illegal. But one need to know that prostitution and sex trafficking are inextricably linked such that if you eliminate one you have eliminated the other, and if you legalize one you have also legalized the other. In some cases the line between prostitution and sex trafficking is blurred. For example, in South East Asia daughters are encouraged to enter the sex industry as a way of providing for their families. The argument is that; is prostitution forced by condition of poverty an example of sex trafficking as the case of South East Asia8. Sex trafficking involves cases where families are selling their daughters into sex slavery. In other cases, human traffickers could lure girls from areas that have low economic status with promises of employment in foreign countries. Once they reach foreign countries instead of getting jobs they are lured into prostitution. Some of the challenges that these girls face once in a foreign county include rape, battering, and being introduced to drugs9. Both human traffickers who engage in trafficking will profit from the exploitation and slavery of these women and children. This explains why this illegal trade is not ending soon. Concerning exploitation of children, anyone who is engaged with a minor whether voluntary or involuntary or in sex trafficking is illegal. The appealing factor in sex trafficking is the economic benefits of the industry which is characterized with high profits and lower operational costs. The risk of prosecution on human trafficking is low compared to those participating in drug trafficking crime as one could get more sentence if engages in drug trafficking compared to someone engaging in a case of forced servitude. Labor trafficking is one of appalling crime that entails the use of fraud, force and coercion to provide labor services through exploitation. The victims who are sourced for labor trafficking are expected to work in highly labor intensive professions e.g. industrial factories, agricultural farms, and domestic servitude10. The working conditions are unsafe and have poor compensation measures. Understanding labor exploitation and slavery leads to a better understanding of forced labor trafficking. Labor trafficking refers to payment of works at a rate that is below the market value, while slavery refers to property relationship between the worker and the employer. Forced labor is not slavery because it does not involve ownership relation but it is based on exploitations10. Labor trafficking is equated with slavery as most victims offer free labor with the most vulnerable being women and children. Internationally, many acts on human trafficking have been formulated to discourage and prohibit any cases of recruiting, transporting and obtaining humans for the purpose of provision of labor against his/her will or due to debt bondage11. According to current studies and research, it is difficult to distinguish between white slavery and labor trafficking because there is a thin line between them. In developed countries like United States, human trafficking is labor based and occurs in domestic and confined places that are difficult to identify12. Effects of human trafficking The effects of human trafficking may range from psychological to physical damage. Victims who are trafficked in most cases exhibit physical signs of serious abuse on their body. The victims manifest signs of bruises, burns, broken body parts and hearing impairments. Other notable bodily harm includes respiratory and reproductive infections such as sexually transmitted diseases, untreated chronic diseases. These physical injuries are as a result of poor working conditions, assaults from employers and labor intensive work. Other trafficked victims suffer from mental related disorders or symptoms mainly associated with psychological effects of trauma. The observations, events and happenings make most of human trafficked victims to feel helpless, fear and be horrified. Some of the trafficked victims have been reported to have nightmares after recalling their past disturbing experiences they had been subjected to. In the long run these victims create an intense psychological distress that makes them to be completely non-functional or paralyzed mentally13. The human traffic trauma victims are most likely to demonstrate resistance to certain stimuli associated with past events especially thoughts, travelling or conversations with certain people. They totally manifest withdrawal syndromes, no interest or non participation to daily human activities. The effects of human trafficking are not only tied to the victims, it directly influences the country’s economic stability, rule of law and national security. Countries losing its citizens through brain drain suffer an economic financial drain. Firstly, it loses active part of the population that could have remained and developed the country. Secondly, the country will spend a substantial amount of resources devoted to preventing, and supporting victims, and even using its resources in arresting, apprehending and prosecuting offenders. More so, it reduces its tax revenue as all the process is done illegally, but creates a stable income to the criminals involved in the trade. Nevertheless, human trafficking threatens a country’s national security14. As already stated, human trafficking is a criminal activity as it involves illegal trade .Unauthorized persons entering other countries may pose security risks to the countries citizens. Human trafficking is identified as part of organized crime duly funded by some of the terrorist groups which endangers national and international security. Countries or states nationally and internationally are ruled by laws. Human trafficking being an international problem violates the rule of law. It may lead to strenuous relations between countries involved. The human trafficking law needs to be applied effectively and impartially to have a democratic and sustainable society. However, organized crimes, corruption and other ancillary illegal impediments associated with human trafficking impair the law enforcement efforts in curbing this menace. Consequently, this leads to mistrust, slow economic growth among countries. Factors promoting human trafficking With the exponential rise in cases of human trafficking both locally and internationally, there is need to curb its operations. Citizens of different countries and states view human trafficking business as a crime that occurs in other countries and not theirs. Investigations on human trafficking indicate that it has become difficult to detect operations of human traffickers because most of the cases or incidents occur in private residents15. This makes offenders to have suitable hiding locations to conceal their activities. In addition, some of the human traffickers employ hide and seek tactics harboring and moving out victims making it difficult to apply policing measures. The use of social media and online operations has proved to be a serious impediment as it has complicated detection of human traffickers. Online classified adverts and social networking sites are currently used for sourcing, and recruiting human trafficked victims. This makes it more difficult in tracking offenders or any illegal activity16. Another challenge is the failure by most individuals and professionals to identify the indicators of human trafficking. Identification of human trafficking is the first step in tackling or solving human trafficking problem. Citizens and professionals are affected daily or come directly in contact with human trafficking incidents or victims, but most of them do not respond or address the problem with the urgency it deserves. Lack of proper training of professionals and interested parties on the indicators of human trafficking is one of the contributing factors leading to lack of response to cases of human trafficking17. Countries and states are not doing enough in helping or providing services to human trafficked victims. The psychological and physical damage suffered or faced by victims prompt for specialized remedial services. The Government and social services providers are expected to provide a range of services which include; shelter, food and counseling services to the victims. Currently, the compassionate providers are only centered on providing for cases of domestic sexual assault and other physical assaults. One challenge regarding policy and human trafficking management is that there is no professional standardized evaluation and assessment tools that could help detect who are the human trafficked victims18. Lack of such evaluation and assessment tools leads to only a few human trafficked victims being identified and reported. This doesn’t provide the correct position on the adversity of the menace as the numbers of trafficked victims are more than those that have been identified. Lack of adequate data on human trafficking has made it difficult to come up with proper legislations and policies to manage and address the problem. Due to unavailability of accurate data, policy makers are finding it difficult to evaluate better programs to manage human trafficking. Moreover, there are no equipped tools and techniques available to identify human trafficking trends and patterns. Penultimate, there are no well developed anti-trafficking policing, and lack of support funding by service providers and governments19. Human trafficking and the law According to United States and other states related laws, any person is said to have committed a felony and is liable to prosecution if that person knowingly recruits, transports, obtains or entices an individual to forced labor, sexual servitude or even trafficking a minor. The penalties for such an offence would vary with government punishment and grading range. Compelling an adult to commercial sexual act or maintaining a minor for purposes of engaging in sexual activity as sexual servitude is also punishable by the state law. The law also treats the case of patronizing a minor or a victim of sexual servitude, either by giving an item of value to a known victim of sexual servitude as a punishable felony20. No business entity is allowed to engage in any human trafficking related activities. Anyone found to have engaged in such activities would be prosecuted and fined huge sums of money. In cases where the offender caused any injuries or bodily harm to the victims, restitution can take place. The offender will pay restitution to the victim of all the expenses incurred including litigation charges. If the court finds the offender guilty, the court can decide that the offender forfeit some of the assets acquired through human trafficking acts or even properties that were used to commit the offence. Recommendations and measures on how to curb human trafficking In addressing the challenges and obstacles inherent in human trafficking, notable prevention measures and recommendations can be made for strategy development and prevention efforts. Lack of adequate and reliable data on human trafficking can only be solved by implementing a unified, comprehensive system of identifying, capturing and storing of human trafficking data. More data could be collected from hospitals and law enforcing institutions, integrative measures with other states or countries21. The collection and compilation of data will help in monitoring trends, and coping up with an effective human trafficking management policy. International states should encourage and support research on human trafficking to be done. This will help in getting enough information as well as increasing interest and awareness on the issue. In addition, nations need to develop a uniform and universal assessment tool for identification of all victims. Also, member nations need to establish a more dedicated accommodation facility for human trafficking victims. Most of the victims are faced with psychological effects it is therefore suitable for all nations to develop a well informed specialized victims centers used to address trauma and other mental related disorders. It is necessary for all human trafficking victims to be accurately assessed before their needs are addressed; the reason behind this is that victims of human trafficking are key in providing adequate victim data and information. Social support groups and mental health clinics are important organs in providing assistance for human trafficked victims who feel helplessness, unappreciated and humiliated22. Human trafficking cannot be eradicated only through criminal justice professionals, but a collaboration of survivors, academics, activists, and policy makers is needed in uprooting this vice. The unified integrative collaborations can result into innovative methods used to counter human trafficking. It is important to note that when tackling human trafficking, one must approach the fight from the economic view. The focus needs to focus on the demand for sex this is because supply will always rise to meet demand, in that if there is no demand automatically there will be no prostitution or such women hence no trafficking. Policy makers and law enforcers need to tackle the male demand in an effort to reduce or manage sex trafficking trade. If the legislation is focused on prosecuting women as the one supplying sex then it should also punish the victims23. Among the reported cases of sex human trafficked victims ,no case is bound to them in case they are caught.The law does not prosecute them as will only be treated as illegal immigrants, and directly deported back to their home countries. Laws that target male demand for sex are more effective means of eradicating the illegal industry, because it focuses on dealing with fines and education programs for offenders, and avoids punishing sex trafficked victims by subjecting them to imprisonments, traumas and deportations. In contrast, legalizing prostitution may have negative impact in combating human sex trafficking. In Australia, for example prostitution was legalized in 1984, the result of legalization showed that there was growth of organized crime, and sex trafficking cases, not forgetting increase degradation to women. The best example that international states need to model is Sweden. It was the first country that did criminalize the purchase of sex in an effort to eradicate sex slavery. Persons who were found to have purchased casual sex were sentenced or fined. The positive results of this policy saw a reduction of 200 to 400 women being trafficked to Sweden yearly24. But in tackling sex human trafficking, international efforts to combat sex trafficking will be truly effective. It has been identified that increasing significant number of human trafficked victims are children who are the most vulnerable. Nations and states need to increase protection measures and support services to reduce and discourage child trafficking incidents. One crucial step in tackling the problem is rescuing victims faced with human trafficked incidents. Trainings to identify human trafficking indicators is necessary, and important to both professionals especially law enforcers who will help increase their ability to identify, investigate and prosecute any cases of human trafficking. In creating public awareness it is necessary for states and other related institutions to establish a human traffic portal to provide necessary information for readers. In addition, more articles on human trafficking need to be developed for online and social media users for creating human trafficking awareness. Public awareness is important in helping collaboration initiatives with other key stakeholders in addressing human trafficking cases, and to facilitate a more reporting response system. Internationally, countries and states have taken their own initiatives to curb the problem of human trafficking. In United States for example the victims of trafficking and violence act was implemented in the year 2000 to address the problem of human trafficking and sex exploitations. The focus of the law was to prevent any kind of exploitation, to prosecute any offenders found, and to protect victims. It was only after the law was revised in 2013 to trafficking victim’s protection reauthorization act that it started to focus on victims supporting services. Since then, more prosecutions against human traffic offenders have been reported. In Europe, the origin of legislative of commercial exploitation of children was addressed in 1996 at a world congress against commercial exploitation of children in Sweden25. The participants in the congress deliberated that any commercial sexual exploitation of children is a major fundamental exploitation to children rights. Examples of unwanted exploitations include; any form of coercion, and violence against children. In conclusion, the crime of human trafficking affects every country in the world, and it is associated with organized crimes, criminal networks, labor violations, immigrations activities, and corruption in governments. Laws and legislations need to come in place to address the prevention of trafficking, protection, assistance of trafficked victims, and identify, prosecute and punish offenders. Sex trafficking is an example of slavery and exploitation of women and children internationally. The most effective means of eradicating sex trafficking is criminalizing the purchase of sex and making prostitution illegal by governments the world over. Bibliography Ahmad Natasha. ‘Trafficked persons or economic migrants’ Bangladesh India, 5 (2005):221- 270. Anbassador Swannee Hunt. ‘Deconstructing demand: the driving force of sex trafficking’, the brown journal of world affairs, 6 (2013) : 1-12. Anchalee Joy, Pangabutra Roberts. Human trafficking in the United States part I state of the Knowledge, Behavioral and social sciences librarian, 31 (2012): 138 -151. Grace Roberts. ‘The injustice of sex trafficking and the efficacy of legislations’, Global tides, 6 (2012): 2-19. Martti Lehti, Kauko Aromaa. ‘Trafficking for sexual exploitation’, Crime and justice, 34 (2006): 1-96 Melissa Farley, Julie Bindel. Men who buy sex: Who they buy? And what they know (London: Eaves, 2009): 12-46. Rhacel Salazar, Maria Cecillia wang. ‘What is human trafficking?’ Signs thematic issue, 4 (2014) 1015-1029. Scarpa Silvia. Trafficking in human beings: modern slavery, Oxford: Oxford University press (London: UK, 2008): 134-167. Turabian Kate, Wayne Booth, Gregory Columb, Joseph Williams. A manual for writers of research papers, thesis and dissertations, Chicago: University of Chicago press. Won Kidane. Introduction: understanding human trafficking and its victims’, Seattle journal for social justice, 9 (2011): 1-13. Read More