Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is the commerce and trade in the movement or migration of people, legal and illegal, including both legitimate labor activities as well as forced labor. The term is used in a more narrow sense by advocacy groups to mean the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery, forced labor (including bonded labor or debt bondage), and servitude. It is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, with the total annual revenue for trafficking in persons estimated to be between $5 billion and $9 billion. The Council of Europe states that "people trafficking has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade, with a global annual market of about $42.5 billion." Trafficking victims typically are recruited using coercion, deception, fraud, the abuse of power, or outright abduction. Threats, violence, and economic leverage such as debt bondage can often make a victim consent to exploitation.
Trafficking in people has been facilitated by porous borders and advanced communication technologies, it has become increasingly transnational in scope and highly lucrative. Unlike drugs or arms, people can be "sold" many times. The opening up of Asian markets, porous borders, the end of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the former Yugoslavia have contributed to this globalization.
Some causes and facilitators of trafficking include:
- Lack of employment opportunities
- Organized crime
- Regional imbalances
- Economic disparities
- Social discrimination
- Corruption in government
- Political instability
- Armed conflict
- Mass resettlement for large projects without proper Resettlement and Rehabilitation packages.
- Profitability
- Insufficient penalties against traffickers
- Minimal law enforcement on global sex tourism industry
- Legal processes that prosecute victims for prosecution instead of the traffickers
- Poor international border defense
Human trafficking is not a standalone issue. It is closely related other issues that threaten security well being of the victims. Victims are exposed to continuous threats of physical violence by traffickers to ensure compliance. Many are held in bondage and beaten to suppress resistance. Other threats include absolute poverty due to wage deprivation. They are unprotected by labor laws, and long working hours as well as lack of holiday is common. For example, 15 is the standard working hours per day among Chinese victims in France. In Japan, Thai trafficking victims also complained of breach of work contracts, non-payment of wages, mandatory night work and poor accommodation.
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