Human Trafficking as an Organized Crime - Research Paper Example

Your full December 6, Human Trafficking This paper intends to discuss the global issue of human trafficking and throws light upon different issues related to human trafficking. First an introduction has been given as to what human trafficking actually is. Then, its political challenges are discussed along with a discussion on how drugs and alcohol are being used in human trafficking. What kinds of pathways are used for this crime has been taken into account. An important section of this report is about the efforts to combat human trafficking at an international level. The report is summarized in a concluding paragraph and MLA referencing style has been used properly. Introduction As we all know, human rights violation has been a popular issue in our world today. There have been numerous cases in different countries where atrocities against human beings are committed. Faces of human rights violations appear as rape, human trafficking, massacre, genocide, slavery etc. These acts are considered as a crime, knowing that a person is not a product that can be bought, enslaved or possessed in exchange for money. Worse, statistics of human trafficking has shown increase as time goes by. As a result, there are organizations that brought out that deeply care about the issue of human trafficking. Their main objective is to create advocacy against this crime by raising public’s awareness. The organizations used technology to disseminate information faster by creating websites (which is accessible online) that would educate people around the world about the negative impact of human trafficking by the click of a mouse. The thesis statement is that: Human trafficking is an organized crime that exploits people and destabilized countries’ economy. What is Human Trafficking? According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), human trafficking is a crime against humanity 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. According to UNODC, as is stated in the Persons Protocol- Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (Article 3, paragraph a), there are three elements in human trafficking; the act, the means, and the purpose. The act means what is done, that includes “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons”; the means is how the act is performed and includes “threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits to a person in control of the victim”; and, lastly the purpose means why the act is performed, and the only purpose of human trafficking is human exploitation (Gallagher). Why is it a Challenge Politically? Human trafficking becomes a hardest challenge from political scenario as the human trafficked are subjected to virtual slavery in which they are mentally and physically abused, which means a total violation of their basic right of freedom and independence. Also, human trafficking has become a large business to generate funds for organized crime globally. This income is used to organize and conduct criminal activities. Thus, the integrity and uprightness of democratic states is challenged and their social and economic infrastructure is destabilized. Human trafficking is a constant threat to the democracy of countries and their economic stability. How Drugs and Alcohol are used in Human Trafficking? Another important aspect in this context is the use of drug and alcohol in human trafficking. Human and drug trafficking are considered as two major area of global structured crime. 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. The basic idea is to make them enough senseless so that they become unconscious of the unfortunate events. Gary Lewis (UNODC) 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, in his article, 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. Tunnels and Passages for Human Trafficking 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. 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 is 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. Combating Human Trafficking at International Level It has always been difficult for nations to combat human trafficking. Even the most modern countries like USA are not free from it. Since, all the activities involved in human trafficking are organized through proper networks, and since it is all underground and undercover, it becomes even harder to detect it. There have been so many mutations of human trafficking that the policy makers and law enforcement agencies have also not been very helpful in making laws that would really end this crime. Thus, great efforts on national and international level are needed to combat such an organized crime. According to Morehouse (17): Combating human trafficking is a complex policy area. It intersects many policies that are high on the agendas of the United States and German Government, such as structuring immigration and combating prostitution. This comparative analysis examines the policy areas that converge to comprise anti-human trafficking policy in the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany. He further states that there are many policy gaps in the anti-trafficking policy frameworks of America and Germany, and also these policies have been distorted over time for certain purposes, and thus these have become the reasons why America and Germany are still not being successful in combating human trafficking. As far as international policy frameworks to combat human trafficking are concerned, those exist since 1904 and since the abolition of institutional slavery (Morehouse 26), much before the American and German national policies. The international communities combined together to make this thing on their national consensus and political agendas that human trafficking must be dealt with at international level. The United Nations began to consider this informal form of institutional slavery that is harder to detect. Formally, there have been six international treaties (Morehouse 26) that have been passed to combat human trafficking: International Agreement for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic (1904); International Convention for the suppression of White Slave Traffic (1910); International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and Children (1921); International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and Full Age (1933); The Geneva Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and Exploitation of Others (1949); and, The United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (2000). An in-depth analysis of these treaties shows that there has been enormous effort in the past regarding anti-human trafficking activities. However, it is still true that this crime has continued to exist in one form or another which is why it has been hard to detect and combat it fully. Conclusion Putting it all together, human trafficking is regarded as one of the biggest challenges for today’s world. Persons are trafficked and exploited for criminal purposes. Despite national and international efforts, this crime has not ended because it prevails in distorted forms and is carried out through hidden tunnels underground and undercover. 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. In short, human trafficking is a heinous crime that needs special consideration to save the solidarity of democratic countries. Works Cited Davenport, Paul. “Associated Press.” Ariz. Governor: Most Illegal Immigrants Smuggling Drugs. msnbc.com, 2010. Web. 24 Oct 2010. . Gallagher, Anne T. “Human Rights and Human Trafficking: Quagmire or Firm Ground? A Response to James Hathaway.” Virginia Journal of International Law Association Virginia Journal of International Law (LexisNexis) 49.789: (2009). Morehouse, Christal. Combating Human Trafficking: Policy Gaps and Hidden Political Agendas in the USA and Germany. Germany: VS Verlag, 2009. 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