Human Trafficking is one of the most ugliest and hidden dark truth of this
rapidly advancing world. Human trafficking is an illegal trade practicing of
trading of humans for forced labor, slavery or commercial sexual exploitation
and many more for the traffickers and others. It is the solicitation,
transportation, and exploitation of humans utilizing the deception and coercion
and violence under threat of violence.
Trafficked men, women and children are
under the control of another and as slaves they are treated as property and are
stripped of their right human trafficking may encompass providing a spouse for
forced marriage or the extraction of the internal organs or tissue including the
surrogacy and ova removal. Human trafficking can occur within a country or
trans-nationally or trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the
person because of the victim's right of movement through coercion and because of
their commercial exploitation.
Most human trafficked victims are duped into this trade by the false promises
made regarding job opportunities for men and for fame or getting a chance in the
movie industry for women. And Many women from the third world countries are
lured into this trade by the bait of the false marriages. Many of the victims
are either directly with violence or indirectly with psychological blackmail
into the trade.
Once they enter other countries of trade their passports are
confiscated and with no money, no shelter, and no one to whom they can turn to
help they are left at the mercy of those who trade in human flesh. According to wikipedia human
trafficking represents an estimated value of US$ 31.6 billion international
trade per annum in 2010.
Human trafficking is thought to be one of the most
fastest-growing trade practices of transitional criminal organizations if we
start talking about figures the figures are scary. The figures are almost
6,00,000 to 8,00,000 women and children are annually trafficked almost every
year across international borders and that doesn't count as the trafficked
within their own country.
Ingredients Of Human Trafficking:
For the human trafficking to be understood completely, we must understand what
are the constituents to this crime or the elements included in committing this
crime. For the human trafficking to occur, a trafficker will:
- Commit at least one act against the other person. Such as recruiting,
transport, transfer, harbor, receive, give/receive benefit or try to control
are the first ingredient of human trafficking.
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- By using one or more of the following means such as violence, threat of
violence, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception or abuse of power or
position of vulnerability is the second ingredient.
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- To exploit the other person for financial gaining and material benefit
that can be in the form of sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery,
servitude, organ removal and forced labor or services.
Causes Of Human Trafficking:
The causes of global trafficking are varied and complex, but notably include
poverty, lack of opportunities, the economic gains to be made through the
exploitation of children, entrenched gender discrimination and discriminatory
cultural practices. Human trafficking, over 20 % of which is trafficking in
children, is believed to be a multi-billion dollar industry. Trafficked children
have many faces examples, prostitutes, mail order brides, beggars, child
soldiers & labourers in homes and in mines.
Increasingly, they are being
recruited to aid in the manufacture of drugs and weapons. Rates of trafficking
are frequently high in areas where there are limited job possibilities; where
children have minimal education and vocational skills; and where children are
living without parents or primary caregivers. Porous borders and the presence of
natural disasters/conflicts further enhance vulnerability to trafficking, as
does forced migration. Children without birth registration or identity documents
also face a heightened risk of trafficking
Factors Affecting Human Trafficking:
The contributing factors for trafficking are often divided into push and pull
factors. The push factors include: poverty, child marriage, unemployment,
domestic violence, false promises of job or marriage/ love etc as stated above
and which are described in brief as:
Poverty: Poverty is the major reason, which makes the majority of children
vulnerable.
Child Marriage: Child Marriage still exists in our country and so does dowry.
The girls are thus trafficked in the name of marriage.
Unemployment: Unemployment is still a major problem in the country. When men
are unable to find jobs, the children undergo immense pressure to fend for the
family needs.
Domestic Violence: Women have little economic emancipation especially in the
family sphere. So the woman & children are forced in such also vulnerable and as
such become experiments in the hands of traffickers.
False Promises & the Lure of Job/Marriage/Love: Many children are lured out of
their homes by false promises of love, marriage or work. They may accompany
their friend or 34 lover or acquaintance and then find themselves trapped in a
vulnerable situation.
Market Of Human Trafficking:
After understanding what is human trafficking its ingredients and causes and
factors we have to understand its market.
The human trafficking market is driven by the laws of supply and demand. Meaning
that as long as there remains a demand for pornography, strip clubs, and illegal
sex, there will remain a supply of individuals willing to profit from its sale.
Consequently, the supply will be sustained and the sex trade will continue to
abduct, buy, sell, rape, and exploit young women for the purpose of supplying
such a demand.
The human sex trafficking ring brings thousands of prostitutes to
the industry to please male fans looking to pay for sex. Forbes reports that
pimps in search of greater profits, prostituted upwards of 10,000 girls at the
2010 Super Bowl in Miami. Clemmie Greenlee, former sex trafficking victim and
Super Bowl day prostitute, reported that she was expected to sleep with anywhere
between 25 to 50 men a day. When she failed to reach the number of men dictated
to her, she was tortured as consequence.
The average slave today earns their exploiter a several hundred percent return
per year of sex trafficking. According to Joy Smith, a Canadian Member of
Parliament, Sex trafficking is a $32 billion dollar industry, greater than the
profits of Nike, Google and Starbucks combined.
The result? A market for human trafficking.
Human Trafficking As A System:
When we analyze this market we start understanding that this study will start
evolve from a narrow examination of its perpetrators and victims to a more
extensive understanding of human trafficking as a market system.
The market system in which Human Trafficking for sexual exploitation occurs, in
which victims are treated like commodities which are bought, sold, traded and
used, is widely stigmatized, partially criminalized and poorly regulated.
This Trafficking market is fostered-if not created-by three underlying
factors:
- The seemingly endless supply of persons available for
exploitation in the source countries.
- The endless demand for the services they provide in the destination
countries.
- Organized criminal networks which have taken control of this economic
supply and demand chain
Human Trafficking: From History To Nowadays:
Actually, if we turn back to the history, we can see that human trafficking
existed since ancient times. It's a well-known fact that during the wars of
conquest in ancient Egypt, Rome or Greece, the enslaved peoples were slaves,
their children were brought up for military service, and women were either sent
to slavery or forced to prostitute. In the Middle Ages, slavery and human
trafficking took several different forms.
Even though after the Christianization of Europe, the church tried to reduce the
practice of working, In the Islamic world, the slave trade flourished. Church
bans did not prevent Christian slavers from engaging in human trafficking from
non-Christianized countries and territories to Asian, African and Muslim
Spain. The beginning of America's colonization also contributed to the growth of
human trafficking and the intensification of the slave trade.
Slavery Today functions with the same purpose it has been historically:
maximization of profit through the minimization, or in some cases,the
elimination of the cost labour. The differences, however, lie in the increased
accessibility exploiters have to the global economy and the deceased cost of the
acquiring and transporting slaves Unfortunately, these two phenomena still
exist. If you think that slavery and human trafficking only concern non-wealthy
countries or countries in a state of war, you are wrong. In its report, the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime demonstrated that human trafficking
flourishes even in North America, Western Europe, and Australia Actually, the
trafficking in persons issues in two ways:
- Criminalizing human trafficking in all its forms: from traffickers and
recruiters to final consumers
- Engaging the private sector in fighting against human trafficking
The Assembly offers to focus on the demand that supports all forms of
exploitation and trafficking and ban the services and goods that are produced as
a result of slavery, exploitation, and trafficking.
Since human trafficking became a pandemic during the last decades and tended to
grow, a combined effort requires people to work together to overcome this
phenomenon.
Preventive Measures Strategies:
- There is an urgent need to develop comprehensive programmes and policies
concerning manifest and latent aspects of trafficking in the context of
situations and realities in each country or region , to do away with root
causes of the vulnerabilities of women and children in particular.
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- The rescued victims should be protected and rehabilitated through
appropriate mechanisms in order to prevent re-trafficking .A global
coordination and collaboration among different stakeholders in the need of
the day.
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- Low rates of the prosecution of traffickers and weak law enforcement
machinery are also responsible for the rise of the lucrative trade.
Therefore,
the law enforcing machineries and the legal system in countries like India
need a face-lift. As of now, soliciting by sex workers in India is a crime
and the recent effort to amend the relevant sections of the ITPA to stop
arrests of prostitutes has embroiled into controversy for suggesting
punishment of the clients.
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- Reintegration of a trafficked victim into her natal family/community is
a difficult task. Hence, it is very important to sensitive the rural society
in accepting the victim with due dignity. The laws Cannot be effectively
enforced unless the mindset of the society about the trafficking victims
alters.
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- Government should formulate schemes with proper financial support to
help the trafficking victims to resume a normal, healthy and fulfilling life
by arranging for their education and professional training.
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- There is no doubt about the fact the structural factors like those of
poverty, unemployment, unequal access to labour markets, lack of income
opportunities, and lack of access to opportunities thrown open by market
economy in the developing world are some of the root causes of
trafficking. Hence w need to improve the economic condition of families
living in the financial hardships through proper implementation of poverty
alleviation of programmes, rural industrialization, infrastructure
development, optimal utilization of local resources for productive purpose
to the benefit of the economically weaker sections and pursuing and
inclusive development strategy.
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- The age-old practise of child marriage and Dowry in southeast Asia
particularly should be checked more vigourously both legally and socially.
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- Lack of literacy and awareness amongst the economically weaker sections
of the society is another cause of trafficking.There is therefore, an urgent
need to strengthen capability of women and children through awareness,
better
health and awareness and compulsory education up to secondary stage.
Simultaneously sustained and vigorous complaining is necessary to sanitize
media and make people particularly the poor remain alet about the
traffickers.
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- For the prevention of the trade in women strict vigilance is required to
check the sex trade in cities and tourist destinations. It is necessary to
setup separate monitoring boards vulnerable locations and tourism zones for
this purpose.
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- Finally, registration of the name of the domestic servants by employers
should be made compulsory with the local police stations. Similarly, it must
be made mandatory for the parents in the rural areas to keep the local
administration about the place of work of their family members to ensure
safe migration.
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