CHAPTER 43. Human Trafficking
Nancy B. Cabelus
Human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery, is a violation of human rights that imposes serious threats to the health, safety, and well-being of its victims. Research sponsored by the U.S. government estimates that approximately 800,000 persons are trafficked across national borders each year, which does not include millions of persons trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80% of the victims are women and girls, and up to half of them are children (U.S. Department of State, 2008). The Department of State estimates that nearly 20,000 persons are trafficked into the United States. According to reports of “the International Labor Organization (ILO), the United Nations agency responsible for addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues, there are an estimated 12.3 million people in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, and sexual servitude at any given time” (U.S. Department of State, 2008).
While some trafficked persons may be hidden away as domestic servants or sex slaves, others are referred to as “hiding in plain sight” (Herman, 2003 and Hughes, 2003) because they may be the persons in mainstream society who work at unskilled jobs in relatively visible venues such as farms, hotels, or street prostitution. Poor social and economic conditions often set the stage for the first encounter between the trafficker and the victim. Sheer desperation may be the cause for a vulnerable victim to get caught in the ruse of a trafficker’s promises for a good salary, education, or a better way of life. Victims sometimes leave their homes and families to voluntarily go with the trafficker only later to learn that they are caught in the trap and unable to get out for fear of the threatened consequences. Others may travel to foreign countries seeking employment opportunities as laborers, domestic servants, or nannies. According to one trafficking survivor who had responded to an advertisement for domestic help, she arrived to her destination country only to be held in captivity by her employer who would beat her and treat her cruelly. After a considerable amount of time and anguish, this survivor crafted a plan to escape and jumped from a balcony, four stories high (Fernando, 2005).
Many victims are not able to escape. According to Kevin Bales (1999), the world’s leading expert on contemporary slavery and founder of the not-for-profit organization Free the Slaves, “every case of slavery involves many crimes—fraud, kidnap, assault, rape and sometimes murder” (Bales, 1999, p. 48). Bales has stated that these crimes are deliberate and systematic and are repeated in brothels thousands of times each month.
Although poverty and inequality make some more vulnerable to being trafficked than others, the Polaris Project warns that these are not the primary causes of trafficking. Forerunners in human trafficking research, outreach, and victim identification, the Polaris Project has described human trafficking as “a criminal industry driven by 1) the ability to make large profits due to high demand, and 2) negligible-to-low risk of prosecution. As long as demand is unchecked and the risks for traffickers are low, trafficking will exist regardless of other contributing factors” (Polaris Project, 2009).
Following trafficking of narcotics, human trafficking is one of the most predominant forms of organized crime—an enterprise that grosses $9.5 billion per year (U.S. Department of State [DOS], 2006).
Awareness of Human Trafficking
Human trafficking defined
The United Nations approves the global definition of trafficking in persons as follows:
The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of a threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. (United Nations, 2008)
The United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UNGIFT) has developed a comprehensive toolkit to guide individuals, with best practices for individuals who work with trafficking victims. The toolkit offers a protocol to prevent and combat trafficking, to protect and assist its victims, and to promote international cooperation. Further, the toolkit defines trafficking as a human rights violation and clearly identifies the differences between human trafficking and smuggling.
Smuggling is different from trafficking as it is the intent of the subject to be transported from one country to another. “Smuggling of migrants shall mean the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident” (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2008). The Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center (2005) clarified that the “key components that will always distinguish trafficking from smuggling are the elements of fraud, force, or coercion.” The majority of people who are illegally assisted to enter the United States each year are smuggled rather than trafficked. A situation of smuggling may become a case of trafficking as soon as the person is deceived, forced, or coerced into circumstances he or she has not agreed to.
Trafficking Victims Protection Act
Originally signed into United States law in 2000, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) sets the global standard for antitrafficking law. The TVPA is intended to combat severe forms of trafficking through prevention, protection of victims, and prosecution of offenders. The TVPA also encourages a victim-centered response to trafficking that would include rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration into society for trafficking survivors (DOS, 2006; TVPA, 2009). Human trafficking, also called trafficking in persons, is defined by the TVPA as follows:
1. Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or
2. The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery (DOS, 2008).
Similarly, the key terms defined by the United Nations of force, fraud, and coercion are also the elements within the TVPA. Although the victims may have voluntarily sought out employment or opportunity with the trafficker, once they are captured, they are not free to leave for fear of threats of harm to their loved ones, serious injury, or death. There are also incidents of trafficking known as debt bondage when people give themselves into slavery as security against a loan or when they inherit a debt of a relative (Bales, 1999). Peonage is holding someone against his or her will to pay off a debt (Hughes, 2003). Rarely will traffickers release those enslaved, whether or not the debt is paid.
Each year in June, the State Department releases its Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. Within the report, the United States ranks countries according to compliance with the TVPA and attempts to reduce human trafficking through prevention, protection of victims, and prosecution of traffickers. The three-tier placement ranking takes the following into consideration:
1. The extent to which the country is a country of origin, transit, or destination for severe forms of trafficking
2. The extent to which the government of the country does not comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards including, in particular, the extent of the government’s trafficking-related corruption
3. The resources and capabilities of the government to address and eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons (DOS, 2008)
Countries may be ranked on a different tier each year based on performance for the year evaluated. Those ranked at tier 1 are in full compliance with minimum standards to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute cases. Tier 2 countries are those that have made some efforts to combat trafficking but have not met the required standards. The tier 2 watch list is for countries that are meeting minimum standards to comply with TVPA requirements but there are a large number of severe forms of trafficking cases, there are few prosecutions of cases, and there is little evidence that efforts have been made by way of prevention. Tier 3 countries are those that not only have not met the basic standards but also have not indicated an attempt to do so (DOS, 2008).
Forms of Trafficking
The most commonly known forms of trafficking are labor trafficking and forced prostitution. Involuntary servitude requires that laborers work for long hours in often deplorable conditions for little or no pay. They may be deprived of food, water, or sleep (Barrows & Finger, 2008). They are under constant supervision, not free to leave, and most female victims of labor trafficking are subjected to sexual abuse (Bales, 1999 and U.S. Department of State (DOS), 2008). Forms of sexual exploitation could include forced prostitution, exotic dancing, stripping, or pornography (Hughes, 2003). Research by Spear (2004) informs that in 1995, Snakeheads—an Asian crime syndicate, smuggled more than 1000 Asian women into the United States. The women were regularly traded between local and out-of-state brothels to avoid detection and because customers got tired of the same women. The women lived in brothels described as prison compounds and suffered beatings, forced abortions, and isolation. One girl was kept in a closet for 15 days for trying to escape (Spear, 2004).
An unhappy customer may result in beatings and torture by the customer and also by the pimp. Bales (1999) recounted the story of a woman who tried to escape from a brothel in Thailand.
The pimp beat her and then took her into the viewing room; with two helpers he beat her again in front of all the girls in the brothel. She was locked in a room for three days without food or water. When she was released she was immediately put to work. For most girls it becomes clear that they can never escape. (Bales, 1999, p. 58)
Traffickers sometimes use advertisements to recruit women to work as waitresses, household help, nannies, or even mail-order brides. Popular areas from which to traffic brides are poor regions of China’s inland provinces, where poverty causes women to become more vulnerable to trafficking (DOS, 2008). As China’s economic development has soared, some experts believe that the kidnapping and sale of women has increased and that such trafficking may account for 30% to 90% of marriages in some villages (DOS, 2008).
Children are some of the most vulnerable and are therefore the easiest prey for traffickers. Some forms of labor require small hands or bodies to perform skills proficiently. Children have been used as camel jockeys, brick makers, and laborers working on farms and fishing docks, as means to financially support their families (DOS, 2006). In underdeveloped countries, desperate parents too poor to support their families may sell their children in exchange for a nominal amount of money or sell a daughter to a would-be husband in trade for a few sheep or a goat. Parents may not be aware they are selling a child into slavery or that they may never see their child again. Once the child belongs to the trafficker, the child is forced into involuntary servitude and is placed at high risk for sexual abuse and exploitation.
Child sex tourism involves people who travel from their own country to another and engage in commercial sex acts with children (DOS, 2008). Some customers, especially Chinese or Thais, will pay up to $2000 to have sex with a virgin because they believe their sexual virility will reawaken and life will be prolonged (Bales, 1999). Some men prefer sex with virgins because they believe the risk of acquiring HIV would be very low. Other customers, positive for HIV, believe that having sex with a virgin child cures the disease (Bales, 1999). DOS estimates that 2 million children worldwide are engaged in the transnational sex trade.
Another form of child trafficking is the increasing use of children by armies, militias, and rebels in global conflict zones (Beyrer, 2004). DOS reports that the majority of child soldiers range between 15 and 18 years of age, but some may be as young as 7 or 8. Children are especially vulnerable for recruitment into informal paramilitary groups and “have been used for nightmarish tasks that include the clearing of landmines, use as porters and servants, and for sexual services” (Beyrer, 2004, p.16).
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