The Methods of Human Trafficking Overcoming - Essay Example

Human Trafficking s Human trafficking is one of the most popular problems in the world for the present time. The governments of different countries has still not found the ways if its total elimination. The industry of human trafficking is the most popular resource of enrichment of criminals and unlawful organizations. Financial reasons became the cause of different crimes and violations, concerning this sphere of human life. Wars, massive disorders and fights in the country is the best environment for the development of human trafficking, as in this case there is a high possibility that the crimes will remain unsolved. Consequently, the modern time of financial crises and political revolutions provokes the development of this criminal sphere. The aim of this work is to analyze the essence of human trafficking and describe the reasons of its emergence. The paper describes the main provisions, the problem deals with and reveals the methods of its overcoming. Low education rates and no help from the government allow people to get tricked into, allowing love ones to be led away, or themselves being led away by human traffickers with promises of a better life. Human trafficking is a criminal offense related to the sale of people, which presupposes their recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt under the threat of force or its application, or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power in order to achieve the consent of one person for the total control over another person, as well as other transactions in his respect. Human exploitation includes the using of people for the purpose of prostitution or other forms of sexual abuse, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. The distribution of trafficking is connected with the limited access of people to productive employment, education, social protection and other resources, as well as the spread of poverty and segregation at the labor market. One of the ways of human trafficking is the exploitation of women and children with the purpose to engage in prostitution. Among the main reasons that push women into a trafficking situation, experts have called poverty and gender discrimination as well as the barriers to education, employment and gaining confidence in future. Exploitation of people brings a lot of money to the groups, which organize this crime. According to an assessment conducted by the International Labor Organization in 2005, the number of victims of trafficking constituted approximately 2.4 million, and the profit from this trade - about 32 billion dollars. In Europe, human trafficking is one of the most lucrative underground businesses which only in the form of sexual exploitation brings the criminal groups about 3 billion dollars every year. “Human sex trafficking is one of the greatest internationally and nationally recognized travesties known to mankind since slavery” (Green, S.T., 2012). Traffickers treat people as the goods and things which can be exploited, and traded for their own profit. In Europe, the majority of convicted traffickers are male, although the proportion of women involved in this criminal activity, is also quite high compared to their involvement in other crimes, as some criminal gangs consider women more effective tool to lure victims who initially have more trust in women. “In the popular media, trafficking has been equated with “the sexual exploitation of women and girls and their victimization and degradation” (Kidane, W., 2011). Job recruiter or operator is also one of the ways of allowing women victims to avoid the trap, which prepares them for human trafficking. Organized criminal networks usually disorient their victims, forcing them into a situation, which are difficult to escape. Victims are often deprived of their passports or identity documents. In such cases when they are transported from one country to another, they cannot seek help because of the lack of experience or poor knowledge of the local language. Human trafficking affects almost all countries of the world, appearing there as a starting or transit point or the final destination. The victims of at least 127 countries have reported that they were exploited in 137 regions of the world. Although human trafficking is often classified as cross-border crime, it also has regional and domestic grounds, because its victims are transported to the neighboring countries and even other continents. The victims of this international cross-border crime became people from East Asia, who have been identified in more than 20 countries in all regions of the world, including Europe, North, Central and South America, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. “Sex trafficking has become a preponderant epidemic in today’s society. Due to its underground nature, it escaped the public eye for a long time until it emerged as one of the top industries in the black market” (Robertson, G., 2012). According to the information, provided by the national authorities, the most common form of human trafficking nowadays is trafficking for sexual exploitation. “The illegal trade of humans is often misunderstood and misrepresented as purely an international issue, often overlooking that human trafficking happens throughout the United States” (Moser, K., 2012). It is estimated that in 2006 it accounted for 79 percent of all cases in the world, and the remaining cases were related to the trafficking for forced labor or other forms of exploitation. However, it should be noted that these figures are not exact and may be distorted due to the prevalence and apparent dominance of one over the other forms of exploitation. For example, individuals who provide sexual services and who may be the victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are easier to identify than those working on farms or factories. Also, the society provides a misconception that men cannot be the victims of human trafficking. The last statistic data indicate a significant increase in cases of trafficking for forced labor and other forms of exploitation. Often a child becomes the victim of trafficking, although such situations take place mostly in the poor regions such as Africa and the Mekong River basin. Innocent children are exploited for forced begging, and their bodies are used for child pornography or sexual services. With regard to the forced labor, the children are sometimes preferred because it is believed that their small hands are better suited for untangling fishing nets, sewing luxury goods or harvesting cocoa. In addition, children are forced to become child soldiers in combat zones. “While the majority of experts on human trafficking assert that the greatest number of victims of trafficking are women and children, there is little systematic and reliable data on the scale of the phenomenon” (Gozdziak, E. M., 2008). Women constitute two-thirds of the victims of human trafficking world. The vast majority of the victims are young women who are raped, locked up, or threatened with violence by means of placing them into debt, taking away their passports, blackmailing or cheating them, promising a job. The existence of many different kinds of trafficking means that there is no single portrait of the victims. Cases occurring in different parts of the world suggest that trafficking sex, age or origin does not play any role in the identification of the general type of violence. Children, for example, can be sold from Eastern to Western Europe for the purpose of begging or pick pocketing. Girls from Africa can be attracted to the West by false suggestions of work as models or au pair, but in reality they are trapped in sexual exploitation and pornography. Women from Asia are cheated by the false prospect of legitimate work as domestic servants, which actually leads to their imprisonment and violence. Both men and women can be exported from South America to North America, and forced to work in grueling conditions on farms in the vain expectation of a better life. “Using definitions of the United Nations and U.S. federal law, trafficking is, for practical purposes, often interchangeable with prostitution, since most pimps use “force, fraud or coercion,” and minors cannot legally consent” (Hunt, S., 2013). The problem of human trafficking involved various national and international measures. In 2000, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Protocol, which is aimed to prevent, suppress and punish human trafficking, especially the cases, which concern women and children. The Protocol entered into force in 2003. As the only international legal instrument which acknowledges trafficking as a crime, the Protocol is the first tool in the world, aimed to provide protection and assistance to the victims and to promote cooperation between countries to prevent this problem. Currently, the Protocol is accepted by 148 countries. However, despite the high level of political commitment, the implementation of the Protocol remains under consideration. At the national level, countries continue to implement the Protocol, and work together on the integration of the new provisions into their national legislation, which may help to overcome human trafficking. Public authorities bear the exceptional responsibility for the total control over this issue. Concluding this article, it is necessary to state that nowadays, the governments of different countries do their best in order to reduce the rate of victims of human trafficking. “Since 2000, the U.S. government has made commendable efforts to address the problem of human trafficking through its policy responses. Most states, including Illinois, have made substantial efforts to tackle this social problem inside their borders” (Hounmenou, C., 2012). Consequently, the authorities pay special attention to the prevention of this type of crime on the world level. However, people should also contribute to the elimination of this problem, which requires from them to be attentive and informed about the cases of human trafficking in order not to become a victim of this trouble. References Gozdziak, E. M., 2008. Data and Research on Human Trafficking: Bibliography of Research-Based Literature. Institute for the Study of International Migration. Retrieved from: https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/551495/Data_research_trafficking.pdf?sequence=1 Green, S.T., 2012. Protection for Victims of Child Sex Trafficking in the United States: Forging the Gap between U.S. Immigration Laws and Human Trafficking Laws. Retrieved from: http://jjlp.law.ucdavis.edu/archives/vol-12-no-2/06_article-green.pdf Hounmenou, C., 2012. Human Services Professionals Awareness of Human Trafficking. Journal of policy practice. Retrieved from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15588742.2012.655208#.VGniUfmsXuI Hunt, S., 2013. Deconstructing Demand: The Driving Force of Sex Trafficking. The Brown journal of world affairs. Retrieved from: http://www.demandabolition.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/brown_journal_6_2013.pdf Kidane, W., 2011. Introduction: Understanding Human Trafficking and its Victims. Seattle Journal for social science. Retrieved from: http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=sjsj Moser, K., 2012. Prevention, Prosecution, and Protection: A Look at the United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act. International Journal of Business and Social Science. Retrieved from: http://ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_6_Special_Issue_March_2012/28.pdf Robertson, G., 2012. The Injustice of Sex Trafficking and the Efficacy of Legislation. Global tides. Retrieved from: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=globaltides Read More