Human trafficking is the action or practice of illegally transporting people from one country or area to another, typically for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. This may include providing a spouse for non-consensual marriage, or even organ theft. Human trafficking can happen anywhere on the globe. Human trafficking is a crime against the victim because they are essentially being kidnapped and traded, or used as tools for people to make money.
According to the ILO, or the International Labor Organization, forced labor alone generates around 150 billion USD annually, as of 2014. The ILO also estimated that 21 million victims were being traded like property in 2012. Of the 21 million, there were many used for labor, and many for sexual exploitation. Human trafficking is growing very rapidly, and is used as a tool for transnational criminal organizations to make money. Human trafficking is a violation of human rights by international conventions, since victims are almost never given their basic human rights. Also, human trafficking is subject to a protocol recognized by the UN called, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.
Although human trafficking can occur locally, globally it is recognized by the United Nations in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, an agreement under the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime which entered into force on 25 December 2003. This specific trafficking protocol is the first international, legally binding weapon against human traffickers in over 50 years, and the only protocol with an agreed-upon definition of trafficking of people. This protocol can be used for nations to work together to hunt down human traffickers and shut them down.
While often confused, human trafficking is quite different from people smuggling, or illegal immigration, which involves a person choosing to be transported into another country often seeking a better life. Though people smuggling is still illegal, there is no coercion involved and victims usually maintain their rights. After entry into the country, the smuggled person is usually free to go into the smuggling destination and do what they please with themselves, often seeking a job. According to the definition of people smuggling and human trafficking, people smuggling is a violation of immigration laws, and does not mean violations of the rights of the smuggled person. Human trafficking, though, is different because it is a crime with a victim, because the victim is losing their rights. Unlike most cases of people smuggling, victims of human trafficking are not given freedom, until they are helped by the law.
While smuggling requires travel, trafficking does not necessarily need movement. Trafficked people are taken hostage, against their will, and forced to do work or provide something to their capturer. The work may include anything from forced labor to sexual exploitation.
Forced labor means the victims are forced to work against their will, under the threat of violence or some other form of punishment; wildy similar to slavery. Men are at risk of being trafficked for unskilled labor, which across the world, makes about 31 billion USD, according to the ILO. Forms of forced labor include but are not limited to, agricultural labor, janitorial and food services, and even begging. The International Organization for Migration, the single largest global provider of services to victims of trafficking, reports receiving an increasing number of cases in which victims were subjected to forced labor.
Child labor is work that can be extremely dangerous to underage or developing children. According to the ILO, the number of children working in child labor has declined over the past 12 years. It has declined by one third, from about 246 million child-workers in 2000 to about 168 million child-workers in 2012. Africa is the continent with the most child-workers, while the most child-workers are found in Asia and near the Pacific Ocean. Public service announcements, or PSA’s have also proved their worth for groups of people making an effort to combat the rise of human trafficking. Also, UNODC, or the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, works to spread the messages these announcements are giving by broadcasting them on television and radio everywhere. By providing access to information regarding human-trafficking, individuals can educate themselves on how to prevent becoming a victim, how to help victims, and how to fight human traffickers.
The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking was created to advertise the global fight on human trafficking and human traffickers. UNGIFT was launched in March 2007 by UNODC with a generous grant sent from the United Arab Emirates. Within UNGIFT, UNODC established a research project to focus important data on worldwide trafficking of people. The project ended up with the publication of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, published in February 2009. This report has official data for 155 countries in the areas of legal framework, victim assistance services and criminal justice response.
UNODC’s attempts to spark action started the Blue Heart Campaign Against Human Trafficking, which took place on 6 March 2009. This is also when Mexico started its own national version of this campaign in April 2010. This campaign wants people to express their support for human trafficking victims by wearing the blue heart, similar to the pink ribbon associated with breast cancer. In November of 2010, a trust fund for victims of trafficking was started to provide aid to victims of trafficking with the goal of raising the number of the people who have been helped.
In December of 2012, UNODC produced a brand new version of the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons. This new revised report revealed that 27% of all victims of trafficking found across the world between 2007 and 2010 are children, raised almost 7% from the period of 2003 to 2006. This same report also recorded victims from 136 separate countries found that in 118 countries between 2007 and 2010, 460 different flows of people were discovered. Around 50% of the trafficking occured in the same region with 27% of trafficking occurring inside countries borders. One of the few exceptions is in the Middle East, where most discovered victims are from East or South Asia. Trafficking victims discovered from the Eastern Asia area have been found in more than 60 independent countries, which makes them the most geographically spread group of people in the entire world. There are definitely significant regional differences in the ways traffickers exploit their victims. Countries in Africa and in Asia generally find more cases of forced labor, and fewer sexual exploitation cases, but sexual exploitation situations are found somewhat more frequently in the Americas and in Europe. Additionally, human trafficking for the purpose of organ theft was detected in only 16 countries of the hundreds of countries around the world. The report surfaces issues about miniscule conviction rates. 16% of the responding countries didn’t record any convictions for trafficking in people in years between 2007 and 2010. As of February of 2018, 173 of the countries have agreed to the UNTPP, or United Nations Trafficking in Persons Protocol, which UNODC is the overseer.
Overall, human trafficking is a terrible threat to people, the environment, and our society. So much so that a group has been formed under the UN to find and prosecute offenders of this terrible offense. Human trafficking victims are often exploited for sex work and labor and are rarely given their rights. Human trafficking is a big issue that is being addressed, but there is still a long time to go until trafficking goes away, but until then, we need to support victims and go after the malicious people taking part in this offense.