Human Trafficking as 21st Century Form of Slavery

Most of us think of slavery as something that took place hundreds of years ago, but slavery is still taking place on a large scale in the 21st century. These modern day slaves are the victims of the growing international practice of human trafficking. As this form of modern-day slavery continues to become a global problem, it is becoming better known (International Organisation for Migration, 2003). The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the depth and breadth of the problem, and to consider some ways in which it may be combated.

The UN defines trafficking in persons, also known as human trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or the use of force or other forms of coercion, or 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 or 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. Trafficking differs from smuggling in that whereas the trafficking of human beings involves the exploitation of the migrant, people smuggling simply implies the procurement, for financial and material gain, of the illegal entry into a state of which that person is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident (Interpol 2004b).

While the predominant form of slavery -chattel slavery- that was prevalent throughout history (and still exists today) involved legal ownership, human trafficking is the predominant form of slavery today. ATrafficking in persons does not necessarily involve legal ownership over the people in question, but uses other mechanisms to control the victims, and to extract labor from them, whether in the form of labor in sweatshops or sexual exploitation and forced prostitution@ (Ellerman2002:2). The mechanisms used are force, fraud or coercion.

This modern form of slavery is not only viewed as a transnational crime, but also an enormous violation of human rights. Today, trafficking in persons is a fundamental and crucially important challenge in the areas of human rights and law enforcement. While human trafficking has a devastating impact on individual victims, its impact also undermines the safety and security of all the nations it touches as it is a global health risk and it fuels the growth of organised crime.

Trafficking in people (and people smuggling) has become the third-largest source of profits for organized crime after drugs and arms, generating billions of dollars each year (Miller 2004:A25). A growing number of criminal networks world-wide are showing an increased sophistication with regard to moving large numbers of people at higher profits than ever. In fact, these have become the most profitable crimes in the world today. UNICEF put the global value of human trafficking at over $12 billion a year (Tyler 2003:3). Economist Jaddish Bhagwati (in Scheper-Hughes 2003:199) refers to the rotten trade, that is all kinds of trade in bads - arms, drugs, stolen goods, hazardous and toxic products as well as traffic in babies, bodies and slave labour as opposed to ordinary and normative trade in goods.

The number of victims of trafficking began to grow in the 1990s but the clandestine nature of trafficking as an organised crime makes it difficult to determine the extent of the problem or to discern accurate figures of how many people are affected by this phenomenon Boe (IOM 2001:4) observes that the trade in human beings Ais more pervasive than we think, and much more than meets the eye@. Conservative estimates indicate that there are 700 000 to 2 million people trafficked each year. Other sources suggest that the number could be between 1 and 4 million (US State Department 2003). The majority of the victims are women and children; 35 percent are under the age of 18 (Global March 2004).

People trafficking and smuggling syndicates are still benefiting from weak legislation, huge profits and the relatively low risk of detection, prosecution and arrest compared to the other activities of transnational organised crime (Interpol 2004a). Ellerman (2002: 2) states that in terms of risks to the traffickers, to the actual organised crime groups, sex trafficking presents a much lower risk than either arms deals or drug trafficking. It is speculated that sex trafficking will take over drug trafficking in the next decades as the second largest criminal industry as, unlike drugs, bodies can be sold several times.

Traffickers are easily able to take advantage of the vulnerabilities created by war, endemic poverty, minimal education, unemployment, and a general lack of opportunity for the majority of the population. This means that traffickers usually prey on individuals who are poor, frequently unemployed or underemployed and who may lack access to social safety nets - predominantly women and children in certain countries. Victims are often lured by false promises of good jobs and better lives and then forced to work in brutal conditions.

Victims are forced to toil in sweatshops, construction sites, brothels and fields. Many victims are subjected to threats against their person and family, violence, horrific living conditions and dangerous workplaces. Some victims have responded to advertisements believing that they will have a good job waiting for them in a new country. Others have been sold into this modern-day form of slavery by a relative, an acquaintance or family friend.

Countries are classified as countries of origin, transit or destination. In the country of destination, trafficked persons are usually exploited by their recruiters for financial profit, and are sold or leased to others. Such persons usually hold their victims under conditions of physical captivity, and use of force, threats, debt bondage, and coercion to subject them to different forms of exploitation.

While victims of trafficking are primarily from developing countries like Asia, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Latin America and Africa, trafficking is also found in developed countries, in countries where governments abuse human rights and in countries where the governments human rights record is generally excellent. Countries of origin are generally marked by economic and political instability.

The trafficking of persons leaves no country untouched. The widespread global nature of the practice is well documented by Global March (2004:1-78):

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh (about 40 000 children from Bangladesh are involved in prostitution in Pakistan) Belarus, Belgium (both a transit point and destination for trafficking in women and children), Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei and Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Columbia, DR Congo, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea (DPR), Korea (Rep), Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico (the number one centre for the supply of young children to the USA. The majority are sent to international paedophile organisations), Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nepal (carpet factories employ children - common sites of sexual exploitation by employers and recruitment centres for Indian brothels), Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia (An estimated 1 000 to 1 5000 children smuggled to Saudi Arabia from India during the Haj season). Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa (an IOM report (2003a) released early this year states that South Africa* has become a key hub for slavery in Africa), Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Surinam, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Macedonia, Thailand, Togo, Turkey (a major destination and transit country), Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Zambia.

Forty five of Africa’s fifty four countries are involved on human trafficking and South Africa is a major receiving and transit destination ((Kiremire 2004). South Africa, despite boasting one of the most progressive constitutions, does not have legislation outlawing trafficking in humans for sexual – or any other forms of - exploitation.

The most lucrative part of trafficking involves sex trafficking, and the trafficking in women and children for the sex trade has emerged as an issue of global concern which is facilitated by porous borders and advanced communication technologies and is becoming increasingly transnational in scope (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes International (ECPAT) 2004a:1). Sex trafficking includes forced prostitution, bride trafficking, child prostitution and child pornography (Ellerman 2002:3; Boe, IOM 2004:4).

Girls as young as twelve years old are sold to traffickers where newcomers, usually virgins, are repeatedly raped. This is the seasoning process where the victims spirit is broken so that she becomes easier to control. The cage brothels in Bangladesh are well documented - where victims are kept in cages. Commenting on the tender age of the victims, Gedda (2003:1) observes that AThe victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the worst of life: an underground of brutality and fear.

According to Anti-Slavery International the trafficking of children has assumed frightening dimensions (IOM 1997). Child trade is a huge business, with billions of US dollars in annual turnover worldwide. ECPAT International, a Thailand-based international based NGO which monitors the commercial sexual exploitation of children reports that despite many efforts by dedicated groups and individuals the sexual exploitation of children is a phenomenon that is increasing in scope.

Thousands of children are being reduced to commodities in a trade in human misery. They are bought and sold to satisfy perverted sexual appetites, to provide slave labour, or, worst of all, to be harvested for their organs and body parts so that the rich and their children can live at their expense (Tyler 2003:3). The flow of organs and other body parts tends to imitate the flight of capital – from the impoverished South to the North.

It would appear that, regardless of the continent, wherever child traffickers see potential for their business, their recruiting methods follow a similar pattern. Recruiters target impoverished rural areas in the poorest countries - make friends with the parents, give false promises of jobs and education for the children in the cities and pay money to the parents. Often parents, knowing what is waiting for the children, let them go. Very often children are sold by their own parents or other relatives.

Although children are trafficked largely for sexual exploitation, they are also trafficked for many other kinds of exploitation: Many children and minors are end up working in slave like conditions as household servants, in plantations or on construction sites; others are forced to join organized begging groups. Global March (2004:5) reports that about 50-100 boys, aged about 8-15, some even younger, are being trafficked from Bangladesh to the Gulf States for use as camel jockeys in the Gulf States.

More and more reports are coming in of children being kidnapped and killed for the removal of organs for transplant, skin for use in witchcraft or making magic charms (Keremire 2004) or for sacrifice in traditional rituals - the case of the torso of a young boy, ‘Adam, found in the Thames in London was well documented. As with trafficking in general, the sexual exploitation of children takes place in both developing and developed countries.

While poverty is often a catalyst in sexual exploitation, it does not adequately explain the commercial sexual exploitation of children - addiction to drugs, discrimination against girl children and simple materialistic greed are others. The armed conflict which is taking place in parts of the world also contributes largely. Children are often separated from their parents in the chaos of conflict and displacement; still others are left as orphans. Unaccompanied children are vulnerable and at risk of sexual abuse or exploitation. Escalating incidents of conflict around the world have left ever growing numbers of children exposed to exploiters. Disappearances have been reported from refugee camps in Kosovo and Africa. Children have been trafficked from conflict situations to work in relatively safer countries, eg from Myanmar to Thailand, from Georgia to Turkey.

A wide range of individuals and groups contribute to the commercial sexual exploitation of children. In addition to the child sex offender, persons involved in the commercial exploitation of children may include parents, family members, community leaders, private sector and organised criminal networks (ECPAT International 2004a:1). Deception is often involved; however, some parents knowingly sell the children to traffickers. A German mother and her boyfriend offered the womans 8 year old daughter for sale on the auction site eBay. An Internet user alerted police when she say a picture of the girl with the sales pitch Ayou can play with her and Areal working toy and a starting price of 1 Euro (Pretoria News 2004a).

A recent article in the Guardian newspaper reported the case of a retired Italian couple who had been arrested for buying a three year old Albanian boy, paying $6 000 to the trafficking gang that specialised in under age merchandise. The boy had allegedly been traded for a colour TV set by his father (Tyler 2003: 2). In a typical child-trafficking scenario, the recruiter may earn between $50 and $20 000 per child delivered to an employer. Profit varies according to the source countries. An African child trafficked to the US might net between $10 000 and $20 000 according to the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service (Hooper-Box 2004a).

Community leaders in some countries are often indirectly or directly involved and are aware of agents recruiting in their villages, but ignore them in order to receive the money. ( NGOs in Nepal are countering this by introducing a community surveillance system, mobilising over 13 000 local women, and also teachers and local authorities).

More and more it is becoming apparent that organised criminal networks are involved in procuring and channelling vulnerable young women and children towards coercion and exploitation and in perpetuation of such exploitation. The reasons are clear: the profits are substantial: It has been established that trafficking for prostitution, controlled by organised crime rings from the former Soviet Union, is a multi million dollar business. Because of the criminal and hidden nature of the practice, it is difficult to determine the number of children who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation (ECPAT International 2004b:1).

Commercial sexual exploitation seriously compromises a child's right to enjoy and lead a productive, rewarding and dignified life and has life threatening consequences for the physical, psychological, spiritual and social development of children. The most immediate danger exploited children face is physical violence where beatings and rape are daily occurrences. Children are even more vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV infections and AIDS, as their body tissues are more easily damaged. They are not in a position to receive education about AIDS and safe sex practices much less negotiate safe sex practices like the use of condoms. In one instance, seventy percent of girls rescued from a brothel in Italy were infected with HIV.

Kristof (2004e) observes that at its worst, the trafficking system takes innocent girls, imprisons them in brothels to be raped repeatedly and leaves them dead of AIDS by their early 20s - and yet there is far less international effort to save these children that to save the Brazilian forest. Women and children who are survivors of the modern form of slavery have little recourse to the sort of specialized care necessary for persons who have been exploited physically and sexually (IOM 2004:2).

Organ trafficking has become an international trade. A simple query on the Google search engine produces numerous Web sites professing to sell various body parts for up to $125 000 (Vaknin 2004.) The commodified kidney being the primary currency to date. Organ transplantation today is a significant and established part of therapeutic medicine, with good - and improving - survival rates for patients and transplanted organs. Organ transplants differ, however, from most other medical procedures in that they must be removed from the body of a living or dead human being (Foster, 1997:139). The spread of transplant capabilities has created a global scarcity of transplantable organs.

The scarcity of transplantable organs together with the legal principle that has gained legislative approval throughout most technologically advanced societies, that is that the removal of an organ from a living or deceased person for transplant purposes must be a free and altruistic act of generosity and the consequent criminalisation of the sale or purchase of organs for transplantation have given rise to a large-scale circumvention of laws governing human organ transplants, particularly by organised crime.

The criminalisation of the sale of purchase of organs for transplantation by nearly all Western nations, however, have resulted in a worldwide shortage of organs in the face of an escalating global demand that as Foster (1997:140) points out, has been exacerbated by advances in pharmacology - better immunosuppressant drugs, and by improved medical transplant procedures.

In the Middle East, for example, from the Gulf States to Israel, transplantable cadaver organs are extremely scarce owing to religious reservations, both Jewish and Islamic (about the ontological status of the brain dead donor), and to the elaborate religious protocol for the proper treatment and burial of the dead.

The global shortage of transplantable organs has networks of organized crime (and so called body mafia) have given rise to ambulatory organ buyers, itinerant kidney hunters, outlaw surgeons, medical technicians, makeshift transplant units, and underground laboratories.

For the last twenty years organized programs - transplant package tours - (transplant tourism) have carried affluent patients from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait initially to India for transplant and later to Turkey, Iran and Iraq and, most recently Russia, Romania and Moldova where kidney sellers are recruited - sometimes coercively - from army barracks, prisons, unemployment offices, flea markets, shopping malls and bars.

Transplant package tours are arranged in Europe, North America and Japan to take transplant patients to China where their surgery is arranged, with the complicity of Chinese doctors and surgeons to coincide with public executions that provide the primary source of high lucrative transplant organs. Condemned prisoners are reportedly intubated and surgically prepped for harvesting minutes before execution.

In India, trading a kidney for a dowry has become a common strategy for parents to arrange marriage for an otherwise economically disadvantaged daughter. One-kidney shanty towns have sprung up on the peripheries of Manila and Thailand to service the needs of Saudi and Japanese transplant patients and, in recent years, a growing number of North Americans.

Indeed, the poor man's and womens kidney has become the ultimate collateral against debt and destitution in many parts of the world. Scheper-Hughes (2003:199) sees the division the world into two distinctly different populations of organ suppliers and organ receivers as a kind of globalised apartheid medicine that privileges one class of patients, organ receivers, over another class or invisible and unrecognised non-patients, about whom almost nothing is known. Scheper-Hughes (2003:199) observes that in general, the circulation of kidneys follows the established routes of capital from North to South, from poorer to more affluent bodies, from black and brown bodies to white ones, and from female to males.

Women are rarely the recipients of purchased or purloined organs anywhere in the world. Willing seller and willing buyer apart, the number of people- especially children- who are tricked or coerced into parting with a kidney, or killed for their organs is growing. Malunga (2004) observes wryly that in South Africa, where there is a thriving illegal market for internal organs, “We already have enough problems with highjackers taking us to the cleaners for our vehicles. Now we will have to worry about our eyes or our kidneys or livers being sliced out for a quick transplant.”

There was a report in a South African newspaper, ThisDay, earlier this year of a nun at a Mozambican orphanage who had reported to the authorities that children were disappearing from the orphanage - in fact, were being kidnapped and killed for their organs. In the Pretoria News of Monday18 May 2004, a few lines appeared - Brazilian Catholic nun Maria Elilda dos Santos, who last year accused a South African farmer of child and human organ trafficking in Mozambiques Northern province, Nampula province, has left the country claiming Mozambican authorities pressured her to leave.Marina Rini of Terre des Hommes (cited by Tyler 2003:3) says that AWe know that gangs offer children for sale dead or alive. We can only conclude that the missing children die or are killed for their organs.

Despite the number of anti-trafficking organizations, Ellerman (2002:9) speaking of the position in the United States, reports that progress in dealing with trafficking is painfully slow. This he attributes to the fact that initiatives have been top down. Legislation may be passed but at the level where trafficking actually takes place, which is in the local communities, there is little or no awareness, there is no funding and there is no training. He argues further that the key issue is not only to make community members aware of the issue and talking about the issue but getting police and local government aware of the issue, especially local law enforcement.

Given the struggle of developing countries to end human poverty and strive toward the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (cf UNDP 2003), state-provided social services in the large majority of countries do not lie in the near future. The prevention of human trafficking requires several types of interventions (Human Trafficking.org 2004:1). Some are of low or moderate cost and can have an immediate impact, such as awareness campaigns. The Stiftelsen Kvinnoforum (1998:13) observes that civil society will have to bear the brunt of the responsibility of filling the gap of social services needed. There are very few Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that take on the issues of trafficking and the sexual exploitation of women and children.

1. Organising social support and practical assistance for victims of trafficking (rescue campaigns for sex slaves, safe shelter, legal aid, money for basic needs, medical services, counselling). 2. Advocacy work and campaigning on national and international levels in the fields of legislation and litigation, social policies, assistance programmes and strengthening political commitment to combating trafficking in women, for example campaigns to add to the definition of refugee status the notion of sexual oppression. 3. Public relations, documentation and information services, training and educational programmes, 4. International networking aimed at long term strategies.

Social movements have, over the years, been successful in breaking the silence about many social ills. Through collective efforts, such movements create awareness, build shelters, safe houses and crisis shelters. Dr Carol Allais has been a member of the Department of Sociology since 1983. Her fields of interest are Industrial and Organisational Sociology, the Sociology of Development and Leadership. She is an alumnus of the United Nation’s International Leadership Academy. She is also a member of the International Advisory Board, Presidential Classroom, Washington, DC and a memberof the Advisory Board of the Global Leadership Forum, University of Bahcesehir, Istanbul.

Emphasizing:

>>>>It seems that rich oil islamic states are the primary buyers in all of this...

Did you notice this line?

>>> Saudi Arabia (An estimated 1 000 to 1 5000 children smuggled to Saudi Arabia from India during the Haj season)<<<<

The Haj is used for smuggling.

To his great credit, Pres. Bush mentioned the slave trade either last year or the year prior at his UN General Assembly Address. If he can follow up on this and make he could be the Wilberforce of his generation.

Note how many of the basic reasons why this is done run counter to traditional Judeo-Christian morality. Undermine that morality and what happens?

12 posted on 01/17/2005 10:11:51 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny (The enemy within, will be found in the "Communist Manifesto 1963", you are living it today.)

No values = no family unit.

But I believe the human trafficking is rampant due to money.

The pharm companies keep their research facilities in places like Puerto Rico and Canada to avoid FDA Regs...

Big money in body parts.

Porn industry makes a lot of money.

The sex tourism industry, big money.

Companies going off shore and using cheap labor.

Our moral values is about the only thing that keeps this human trafficking in the black market vs. the open market.

Yes, but our human values used to translate into harsher laws to more effectively fight these things. My assertion is that (A) the idea that "you can't legislate morality", (B) the idea that "what two adults do in private is their own business", and (C) that morality is relative aren't helping and may be hurting.

Actually Socialism is the 20th, and 21st century form of slavery..
The slavery spoken of here is and has always been slavery by people all over the world.. even by American Indians.. ugh!.. Native people.. slavery is not rare.. Slavery to government through democracy is very widespread.. especially in Canada and URP.. who seemed to have learned NOTHING from Russia and China.. even federal workers and senior citizens in the United States are governmental slaves.. and would FIGHT you, if you tried to FREE THEM.. actually the federal workers are a special priviledged class of slave.. and paid very, very well..

15 posted on 01/17/2005 10:30:07 AM PST by hosepipe (This propaganda has been ok'ed me to included some fully orbed hyperbole....)

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