Research Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking: Based on Marxist Theory - Essay Example

Use-values serve social needs and exist within a social framework. Use-value is the immediate physical entity in which a definite economic relationship-exchange value-is expressed. Labor in itself is a natural condition of human existence, while social labor develops an exchange value. Human trafficking has clearly become a commodity with an exchange value. Whether a human can become a commodity to serve social needs is highly debatable. Marx says, "the economic structure of society is a real foundation on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness" (para. 5). In keeping with social consciousness, sacrifice of human rights can never be acceptable.

What is human trafficking It has been defined by the United Nations as "the recruitment, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force, or other forms of coercion" (Garcia, para. 4; Truong & Angeles 18). It frequently encompasses sexual exploitation or forced labor. Is there a single theory that best addresses the overall problem of human trafficking When Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, their description then of social problems can be applied today on an international level.

The first English translation was published in 1850. The Manifesto divided the population according to social rank and ultimately into two classes-bourgeoisie and proletarian. What Marx and Engels called the "modern bourgeoisie" continues today as a capitalist system mainly concerned with profit. It is into this world economy that human trafficking has evolved into big business. According to Marx and Engels, "the need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeois class over the entire surface of the globe.

It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere . . . In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of different climes and lands" (Manifesto, Sec. I, para. 16-17). If human trafficking is seen as an ideology, it becomes, according to Marx, an inextricable part of class conflict. Jo Doezema's 2002 paper on ideology in trafficking considers ideology as defined by Marx to be applicable to trafficking and discusses what she calls a "reframing of trafficking," with current ideology representing a political struggle in which discourse is substituted for truth.

She compares campaigns against white slavery in the 19th century with present-day anti-trafficking campaigns. Though a central motivator in human affairs, ideology may not always explain individual human behavior. Doezema considers the term 'white slavery' to be a false representation, especially as a forerunner to human trafficking. Because of the high number of immigrants, including prostitutes, looking for "the land of milk and honey" in the United States at the end of the 19th century, the public was given a distorted picture of white slavery as a political myth.

According to Doezema, the present efforts of anti-trafficking activists have