Child Soldiers: The Hidden Form of Human Trafficking

In recent years so much attention has been directed toward international trafficking of women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation and other forms of forced labor that additional forms of trafficking, although they do occur, have been overlooked. It is unclear whether they occur less frequently than other forms of trafficking, or whether they simply have received less attention. Exploitation of child trafficking in armed conflict is one of these forms of human trafficking that is often over looked.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defines a “child solider” as “Any child – boy or girl – under 18 years of age, who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity … and anyone accompanying such group other than family members.” Kidnapping and forced or illicit recruitment of children for use in armed conflicts are estimated to affect around 300,000 children throughout the world. According to the United Nations, there are indications that cross-border trafficking of child soldiers is increasing in West and Central Africa as a result of an elaborate international organized criminal network.

The problem of trafficking child soldiers is most extreme in Africa, but countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America also uses child soldiers. The use of children in government, military, or rebel armies extend beyond the task of carrying weapons and fighting. Children serve not only as soldiers but also as spies, cooks, porters, sexual slaves, and human land mine detectors. Children have been reported to fight on the front lines, have been sent in to mine fields ahead of adult soldiers, and have been used for suicide missions. Young children, ages seven and eight are recruited or kidnapped to begin serving their military apprenticeships as messengers or carrying food, ammunition, and as porters. Most child soldiers are between the ages of 14 and 18; however, children as young as nine have been used in combat.

In Africa, it is estimated that there is 100,000 child soldiers currently active in Burundi, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, and Uganda. The 20-year war in Uganda between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) claimed more than 20,000 child soldiers, many whom were kidnapped. In 2007 the LRA forcibly recruited children from Southern Sudan. Up to 2,000 women and children are believed to remain in LRA camps. Moreover, thousands of young child refugees who have survived the war in Darfur are being abducted and sold as child soldiers to militias operating in the vicinity of the refugee camps. Boys between the ages of 9 and 15 have been taken forcefully from their families in refugee camps in Chad and been trafficked to militias.

In Asia, children are serving in armies in Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Some of the worst offenses involve the government of Myanmar whose army regularly uses children to fight ethnic armed groups and regularly recruits children ages 12 to 18. The United Nations also reported about the recruitment of children in Pakistan from religious schools (“madrassas”), by militant groups to carry out suicide bombings. The Taliban is reported to have used child soldiers in Afghanistan as suicide bombers. They have forcibly and voluntarily recruited children in southern provinces and parts of Pakistan.

In Latin America, in one of the longest-running battles between government and armed opposition forces, lasting 50 years, children in Colombia have been driven by rural poverty to voluntarily join and have been recruited and used by both the government army and rebel forces. The children were forced to lay mines, carry explosives, work as guides and messengers, and fight in combat. The children were also used by government forces to gather intelligence for opposition forces.

In the Middle East, child soldiers are reportedly deployed in Israel, Iraq, and the occupied Palestinian territories. The NGO War Child reports that “children in these areas are encouraged to commit suicide attacks or are used as a human shield,” (War Child, 2007).

While large numbers of children have been forcibly abducted in some countries, not all children have been kidnapped or fraudulently recruited. Some children join rebel forces voluntarily as a means of survival in a country or region affected by poverty and lack of education or jobs. A study of child soldiers carried out in Columbia by the NGO War Child identified a number of reasons why children voluntarily join militias, which include cultural, ideological socioeconomic, protection, and revenge. Children may voluntarily join armed groups because of social economic pressure, or in the belief that the group will provide them with security and/or food, or to avenge the death of their family members killed by armed groups or government forces.

Human Right Watch, which has interviewed child soldiers in Africa, Asia and the Middle East reports that children typically make obedient soldiers. They are physically vulnerable and easily intimidated. To prove their allegiance to the armed forces, children are sometimes forced to commit atrocities against their own family or neighbors. These practices help ensure that the child is stigmatized and unable to return to his or her home community.

Stories have surfaced of the manipulation of children by supplying them with drugs to make them fearless. The United Nations reports that others are given drugs and alcohol to agitate them, noting that this makes it easier to break down their psychological barriers to fighting or committing atrocities. At the same time, children are trained to obey orders to kill and maim. Failure to do so may result in their own death. One 16-year old child soldier described his experience “The first time I went into battle I was afraid. But after two or three days they forced us to start using cocaine, and then I lost my fear. When I was taking drugs, I never felt bad on the front.” In Uganda one 16-year-old girl testified to the cruelties she endured when a boy tried to escape:

“One boy tried to escape, but he was caught. They made him eat a mouthful of red pepper, and five people were beating him. His hands were tied, and then they made us, the other new captives, kill him with a stick. I felt sick. I knew this boy from before. We were from the same village. I refused to kill him, and they told me they would shoot me. They pointed a gun at me, so I had to do it… After we killed him, they made us smear blood on our arms. (U.N child soldiers stories).

Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, was 12 years old when rebels killed his family and most of the people of his village. He was forced to fight with the rebels as a child soldier until he was “rescued” by the government soldiers who fed him, protected him, and gave him AK47. Ishmael was told to fight for the army or be killed by the rebels. Ishmael and other child soldiers were given marijuana and a drug known as “brown-brown” a mixture of cocaine and gun powder to enhance the effect of marijuana. Under the influence of drugs Ishmael reports that he was “not afraid to kill or be killed” (Beah, 127).

Because child soldiers have often committed such atrocities, questions arise in their villages and countries concerning their degree of responsibility. They are often treated as criminals rather than victims of trafficking. Whether children join armies voluntarily or not, the U.N. Trafficking Protocol views this as trafficking regardless of the conditions under which the children were recruited, even where there is no use of fraud or deception. All children under the age of 18, regardless of why or how they joined the armed forces with which they worked or fought, are victims of trafficking.

SOURCES
Beach, I. (2007). “The Making and Unmaking of a Child Soldier.” International Herald Tribute. January, 13. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/world/americas/14ihtweb.0113soldier.nytMAG.4195623.html
Child Soldiers: Global Report may 2008. http://www.childsoldiersglobalreport.org/.
Cross-Cutting Report No. 1 “Children and Armed Conflict” April, 15 2009 Security Council Report. Retrieved from http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/site/c.glKWLeMTIsG/b.5099181/k.A91/CrossCutting_Report_No_1brChildren_and_Armed_Conflictbr15_April_2009.htm Human Rights Watch. “Facts about Child Soldiers.” Fact sheet retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/03/facts-about-child-soldiers
http://watchlist.org/reports/pdf/PolicyPaper_09.pdf
http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/chilsold.htm
United Nation “Child Soldiers Stories” http://www.un.org/works/goingon/soldiers/stories.doc%20-%202005-11-11
United Nation Report. Retrieved from http://daccess-dds-ny,un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N07/656
UN Security Council Resolution 1612 and Beyond: Strengthening Protection for Children in Armed Conflict. May 2009
War Child. (2007). “Child Soldiers: The Shadow of Their Existence,” Retrieved from http://www.warchild.org/news/projects/ChildSoldiersReport_/childsoldierreport_.html.
Wessells, M. (2007). Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection. Boston: Harvard University Press.

ORGAN TRAFFICKING

Organ trafficking is perhaps the least profiled form of human trafficking. There has been no empirical research, but individual stories and investigations of illegally harvested organs surface on a regular basis. With the improvement of health care, life expectancy has increased resulting in a large population of older people. Simultaneously, medical and technological developments have facilitated the transplantation of organs, which has become a rather routine procedure. This normally would not present a problem, except for the fact that demand far exceeds the supply, and the shortage is acute. Between 1990 and 2003, kidney donations in the United States increased by 33%, but people awaiting a kidney for transplant increased by 236%.

The shortage in organs donation is due, in part, to religious beliefs that the body should be buried intact. In addition, there is a fear of hospitals intentionally allowing patients to die to harvest their organs for paying patients. The waiting period for an organ form a cadaver, usually a kidney (Which accounts for the most sales of organs throughout the world), varies from one country to the next. In the U.S and Britain, the average wait is two to three years. In Asia the wait is eight years. In the Gulf States the wait is even longer. This long wait has led many in need of a kidney to try to obtain one from a live donor.

While organs harvested from deceased donors are packed in ice and transported around the world by plane, the harvesting of organs from a live person involves the travel of both donor and/or recipient to the place where the transplant will occur. The discussion around the phenomenon is not about the trafficking of organs, per se, but the trafficking of human beings for the purpose of organ removal. This is considered human trafficking even when the donors agree to voluntarily sell their organs. The trade of kidneys from live donors generally flows from poor, underdeveloped countries to rich, developed countries. China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Egypt, Brazil, the Philippines, Moldova, and Romania are among the world's leading providers of trafficked organs. China is known for harvesting and selling organs from executed prisoners, the other countries have been dealing essentially with living donors, becoming stakeholders in the fast-growing human trafficking web.

Kidneys very according to their abundance and bring their donors different amounts, depending on where the donor is living. According to one expert an African or Indian kidney may bring the donor as little as $1000. A Filipino kidney is worth slightly more and could bring the donor $1,300; A Moldovan or Romanian kidney is worth $2700; Peruvian or a Turkish kidney donor can command up to $10,000. or more. Sellers in the United States can receive up to $30,000. This is just the offering price and the actual price paid to a donor can decrease dramatically depending upon supply of organ.

In addition, there are organ brokers who recruit donors from bars, flea markets and slums areas in poor countries. This crime, unlike other forms of trafficking, cannot take place without the participation of professional medical staff operating in hospitals or private clinics. In India, police arrested middlemen, donors and several doctors including a transplant surgeon, as well as, the principal of the Government Medical College. Police estimated that between 1997 and 2002, 31.4 million dollars changed hands between the donors, middlemen and doctors. The organ seller, poor migrant laborers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states, were paid between $525 and $1,050, while the recipients were charges between $104,600 and $209,200 dollars.

Not all donors consent to sell their organs. Persons can be kidnapped, killed or sold for their organs. The United Nation reported that in regards to trafficking in children for the purpose of organ removal, although there is no conclusive evidence, a number of reports indicate that many abducted or missing children have subsequently been found dead, their bodies mutilated and certain organs removed. Another method of obtaining an organ is through deception or coercion. A person is told that he/she will be donating blood and is then coerced into selling a kidney. As was the case in the Philippines, police near Manila raided a house and freed nine men who were being held by a gang that lured them with the promise of good jobs. Instead they drugged or forced them, sometimes by gunpoint to agree to “donate” a kidney. In the state of Tamil Nadu, India, 71% of the 305 respondents in a study of kidney sellers were women. 60% of women and all of the men were street vendors. Some of the women reported that they were forced to sell their kidney by their husband. Other studies have found that many organ sellers in India are women, and in some cases the kidney may be sold to pay for the dowry for a daughter’s wedding.

The most common form of trafficking in organs involves cases in which the donor and recipient agree to the sale. While donors may initially consent to selling a kidney, buyers exploit their desperation, poverty, and ignorance. The organ trafficking expert, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, identified a case in Tel Aviv Israel where a mentally deficient criminal sold a kidney to his lawyer who then paid the man half of what was promised. In another case in Canada, a man received a kidney from his Filipino domestic worker. He justified this “donation” using the argument that “Filipinos are people who are anxious to please their bosses.”

Exploitation extends beyond the mere fact that the donors are not adequately advised of the risks or compensated for the loss of a kidney. Victims of organ trafficking may be promised complete post operation medical care, but this rarely happens. Organs Watch, which conducted research on organ trafficking in countries around the world, found that none of the donors interviewed had been treated by a doctor a year after the operation, despite frequent complaints of weakness and pain. Some had even been turned away from the same hospital that had performed the surgery. Police in Punjab India reported that donors were not provided proper postoperative care, were thrown out of the hospital one week after the surgery, and were threatened with imprisonment for participating in illegal organ transplant. As a result many poor organ donors suffer painful complications and infections without any medical help. In addition, many kidney sellers develop health problems, such as high blood pressure and urinary tract infections.

SOURCES
Fisanick, C. (Ed). (2010). Current Controversies: Human Trafficking, San Francisco: Gale Cengage Learning.
Gentleman, A. (2008). “Kidney thefts Shock India.” New York Times, January, 30. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/world/asia/30kidney.html.
Obi, N. I., Das, E., & Das, D. K. (Edts). (2008). Global Trafficking in Women and Children, New York: CRC Press.
Rother, L. (May 23, 2004). “The Organ Trade: A Global Black Market; Tracking the Sale of a Kidney On a
Path of Poverty and Hope. “The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/world/organ-trade-global-black-market-tracking-sale-kidney-path-poverty-hope.html.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (2005). “Organs Without Borders.” Foreign Policy, 146, 26-27. Retrieved from http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2005/01/05/organs_without_borders.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (2000). The Global in Human Organs. Current Anthropology, 41(2), 191-224.
Zhang, S., X. (2007). Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings, Connecticut: Praeger.

Sex Slaves Trafficking

The U.S 2010 Traffic In Person report (TIP) reported that 12.3 million adults and children are in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution around the world; 56 percent of these victims are women and girls. According to the 2009 United Nations “Global Report on Trafficking in Person” 79 percent of persons trafficked are used for the sex industry.

When we hear of slave prostitution we think of girls who are abducted or sold by a member of their family; enslaved and trafficked to other countries, forced into prostitution. Some think of illegal immigrants who were smuggled to developed countries and forced into dept bondage prostitution to pay off their dept. Yes, these types of enslavement do exist, however, there are many women who enter countries legally looking for a better life and find themselves enslaved into prostitution. Lena’s story shows the other side of human trafficking and illustrates how many women are deceived and promised legal, good paying jobs. They leave their countries and families behind seeking a better life and find themselves enslaved and trafficked all over the world.

Struggling to support herself and her daughter on meager earnings that were not enough to survive, Lena explained how she left her home in the Ukraine and become a sex slave. An acquaintance had told her there were restaurant jobs that paid $200 a month. To Lena, who was barely able to support herself and her young daughter on $15 or so a month, the job seemed too good to be true and it was. The acquaintance, she later discovered, was a recruiter for the sex trafficking industry. Lena left her daughter with her parents and along with a friend and a third woman drove with the recruiter to Yugoslavia. “We trusted her,” Lena stated “I was a little afraid, but the desire to have a good life was much stronger.” Upon their arrival, the recruiter took them to a rundown restaurant and introduced them to the owner who offered to take them to another town where there were jobs. He took them to a nearby town and moved them into a small apartment where ten other women were already living. Their seeming benefactor was actually a Yugoslavian human trafficker. The other women told Lena and her friend that they had been imprisoned in the apartment and raped and abused there. Lena and the other young women had been sold into enslaved prostitution. This was the first of dozen or so times Lena was sold and resold, moved by traffickers from Yugoslavia through Albania and eventually Italy.

Lena is one of the increasing numbers of women who are successfully lured by traffickers into a global sex trade. Lena was captured not just by an individual recruiter, but ultimately by a multibillion-dollar trafficking industry that relies on a large supply of women and girls for its considerable profits. Lena’s story describes an all too familiar scenario, whereby a person with lesser resources, usually from poor or unstable countries, are either taken by force or persuaded to migrate for jobs in new town, country, or region. They are frequently misled, for example, the job may not exist or maybe different from what they have been told. The job virtually always includes some kind of exploitation, usually prostitution, and almost always, terrible work and living conditions. While many men are trafficked for labor, the exploited in the sex trafficking industry are primarily women and children.
The Face of Slavery

Long Pross was beaten and tortured daily by her brothel owner who gouged out her right eye.

Sexual exploitation of women and children is not a social vice limited to third world or tourism dependent countries. Both developed and developing countries have this problem to some extent. It is even happening inside the U.S. mainland. On December 17, 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the breakup of a large prostitution ring involving more than thirty children as young as twelve forced to have sex at truck stops, hotels and brothels. Multiple indictments were made against traffickers in states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan for bringing children across stateliness for prostitution.

In a recent expose, Dan Rather calls Portland, Oregon, “Pornland, Oregon” because of the prolific legal and illegal commercial sex industry there. Alongside the strip clubs, sex shops, and adult women in prostitution, girls as young as 10-years old are being bought and sold for sex. Traditionally these kids have come from the foster care system, runaways from abusive homes, or have been kicked out by negligent parents. The demographic of child sex trafficking victims in America is changing. More of the kids police are finding come from middle class homes in nice neighborhoods. They have concerned, involved parents. But still, they end up sucked into the world of forced prostitution.

How does it happen? Take the story of Sue and Ron, Sue and Ron learned about child sex trafficking the hard way, when their 16-year-old daughter got sucked into the industry. At first, she came home from school with a boyfriend, a little older than her, but polite enough. He'd eat meals with her family and hang out at her house, like any normal teen relationship. But Sue was uneasy and one day she warned him that if he ever hurt her daughter, he'd have to pay. After that, the teens moved in together and he convinced Sue's young daughter that the only way for them to be able to live together and survive, was for her to sell herself.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this story is the ease with which you could substitute Portland for any other U.S. city. Pimps pick up teen girls in shopping malls. They meet teens on Facebook and lure them from their homes. They recruit through schools and movie theaters all over the country. These pimps recruit girls as young as 10 years old into prostitution because there is a long, long line of men willing to pay a premium to have sex with them.

A Western man negotiating for a young Thai girl (far right), who clutches the arm of her trafficker. After settling on a price, the man left with the girl, and the trafficker left with her payment. Photo courtesy of the U.S. State Department.

The women and girls who are sucked into enslaved prostitution are trafficked nationally. They are abused, tortured, and are kept isolated, imprisoned and sometimes killed. Also, most of them end up HIV positive. This is happening everywhere in the world, and no country, city or family is immune to this growing problem.

To report an instance of suspected trafficking, please call the HOTLINE: 1.888.3737.888

Sources
Associated press, “Major Child Prostitution Ring Broken: 31 Indicted,” San Diego Union Tribute, December 17, 2007.
Hughes, Donna. The Natasha Trade: Transnational sex Trafficking, NAT’L INST. OF Just. J. January 2001, at 9, available at www.ncjrs.gov/
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/may08/humantrafficking_050908.html
http://www.humantrafficking.org/uploads/publications/2007_agreporthumantrafficing2006.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-rather/pornland-oregon-child-pro_b_580035.html
Lee, Maggy. Human Trafficking. Portland: Willan Publishing, 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr4xnWa1R2MPhoto from www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04kristof.html?_r=2&ref=human_trafficking

Child Salvery; Camel Jockeys

It is an accepted truth that slavery and human trafficking exists in the twenty-first century. Because of exposure by the media and the internet, more people are becoming aware of this practice. Today, more than 27 million people are enslaved worldwide. The exploitation of children is probably the most shocking form of slavery in the world. Trafficking children for the purpose of slave labor, pornography, and prostitution has brought global media attention to the problem. However, other types of child exploitation receive little to no attention. Making children camel jockeys is one type of child exploitation that has escaped worldwide attention.

In the Middle East, especially in the Gulf States there is an active child slave trade. The United Arab Emirate (UAE) exploits children mainly for camel jockeys. Camel races are among the most popular sporting events in that region. Children as young as three-years old are used to ride camels because of their small size and weight. Although slavery in the UAE was outlawed in 2003, the Gulf region still finds it more profitable to continue this centuries old practice of buying children from Indi, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Asia and Sudan. Many of the children are kidnapped; many are sold into slavery because their families are too poor to support them. It is estimated that as many as 5,000 children as young as two years old have been kidnapped or bought to be used as camel jockeys. South Asian boys in particular are recruited because they tend to be the cheapest, weigh less and tend to scream louder at a higher pitch than most adults, causing camels to run faster.

Being a camel jockey is a seven day a week job, all year round. Children are forced to work up to 18 hours a day even in extreme heat, which most people in the Gulf States would strive to avoid. The children are maltreated: they are woken up in the middle of the night to clean camel dung with their bare hands. They are regularly beaten to keep them in line or if they do not perform well enough. Some are sexually molested by the trainers. In addition to enduring inhumane living conditions and beatings, the boys are intentionally starved to keep their weight down. Weak from undernourishment, some are maimed or killed while trying to pilot the 1500-pound camels.

The children are tied to the camels’ back with Velcro so they won’t fall off. However, according to a report from the London-based human rights group Antislavery International, it is not uncommon for children to fall off or get dragged along, sometimes to their death. A Pakistani boy who worked five years as a camel jockey, starting at age 4, remembers the race as noisy and dangerous, where more than 50 camels with screaming children strapped onto their backs would run. He personally saw about 20 children die, and more than a dozen injured every week. He recalls: "There was this one kid whose strap broke at the beginning of the race. His head was crushed between the legs of the running camel.” Once the race has started it cannot stop.

Many of these under-aged riders have been left to die from the terrible injuries suffered on desert race courses without any medical treatment. To the owners, the camels are valuable assets worth millions of dollars; instead the children who are viewed as cheap and expendable. With camel racing heavily patronized by the UAE's oil-rich rulers, who have least respect in the legislature, thousands of enslaved children face a bleak and dangerous future.

In 2004, a Pakistani human rights attorney, Ansar Burney, finally succeeded in bringing the problem of child slavery to public attention in the UAE. After spending two weeks filming this form of slavery in action, Burney convinced Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Nahyn of Abu Dhabi to see the film. The film exposed the bare facts of the trade and all who viewed it were horrified. In March 2005, The Emirati Sheikhs pledged that they are going to put a stop to the practice. They set up refugee homes for the boys while an attempt was made to find their families. However, many were too young when they became slaves even to remember who they were or where they came from, which is why so many of them are still in the UAE.

In June 2003, the new rules published by Emirates Camel Racing Federation (ECRF) stipulated that it is illegal for a child under the age of 15 or weighting less than 45 kilos (99 Ibs) to be a camel jockey. However, the rules are being ignored and the allegations remain that the Emirate government has acknowledged that many racers are too young and weigh too little but avoid stopping the traffic of child slaves because they themselves are camel and slave owners. Even though the practice was outlawed again in 2005, this does not mean that it no longer exists. Correspondents say that while the UAE has banned the use of camel jockeys under 15, the laws are openly disobeyed, with even televised races showing small boys riding the huge animals.

Burney estimates that there are more than 40,000 children are being used in the Middle East and North Africa as camel jockeys. Burney reported that "During training races they often fall down and are badly injured... Because it is illegal to keep underage jockeys, they never receive medical treatment and often suffer prolonged pain and some of them even die," However, there is a glimmer of hope in stopping the use of child slaves in the Gulf. In May 2005, the Government of Qatar announced severe punishments for the use of underage children as camel jockeys and ordered to replace the children with robots. The Qatari government and the Ansar Burney Trust plan to establish a centre in Qatar for the treatment and rehabilitation of the children rescued from camps in this country. The Ansar Burney Trust is currently in the process of persuading other Middle Eastern countries to follow the example set by Qatar and the UAE; and ban the use of underage children as camel jockeys.

Sources
http://www.ansarburney.org/human_trafficking-children-jockeys.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4063391.stm
http://www.uaeprison.com/trafficking_in_persons_united_arab_emirates.htm
Obi, N. I, & Das, E, & Das D. K. Global Trafficking in Women and Children: New York, CRC Press, 2008.
Tenaglia, M. Global Viewpoints: Slavery. San Francisco: GALE CENGAGE Learning, 2009.

Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery

“The victims of modern slavery have many faces. They are men and women, adults and children. Yet, all are denied basic human dignity and freedom. … All too often suffering from horrible physical and sexual abuse, it is hard for them to imagine that there might be a place of refuge.”

— President Barack Obama

Imagine being sold by a member of your family and ending up a sex slave in a brothel at the age of ten or working in a sweat shop all your life. Imagine being stolen from your family at five years old, sold into slavery and ending up working in the handmade carpet industry, or enslaved as a camel jockey. Imagine leaving your family and country seeking a better life and ending up as a slave labor or forced into prostitution. This is modern day slavery. Today, slaves come from all races; all age groups, and all types and ethnicities. Unlike historical slave masters who took pride in the ownership of slaves as a sign of status, today’s human traffickers and slave holders keep slaves hidden, making it more difficult to locate victims and punish the offenders.

In 1999, a teenage girl was taken from a Haitian orphanage and smuggled into Miami, using phony documentation. She was forced to work as a domestic servant for up to 15 hours a day, seven days a week. She was never paid, not allowed to go to school, occasionally beaten, and subjected to other inhumane treatment. After suffering for nearly six years, she managed to escape in 2005. This March, justice was finally served when three of her captors were convicted in the case. This is just one of millions of heart-breaking human trafficking cases in the world.

Trafficking in human cargo, whether the victims are males or females, adults or children involves the movement of people internally or internationally for some form of work, which may be legal or illegal and under highly exploitive working conditions. Today women, men and children are trafficked across borders and domestically for farm work, factory work, domestic servitude, camel jockeys, forced marriage, mail-order-brides, forced prostitution and for harvesting human organs.

The United Nations’ protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking of humans, especially women and children defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of the 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 payment or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.” The June 2007 Trafficking in Person Report (TPI) published by the U.S. government defines human trafficking as “the use of force, fraud, or coercion to exploit a person for profit. A victim can be subjected to labor exploitation, sexual exploitation, or both.”

Global human trafficking in its various forms is big business. The U.S 2010 TIP reported that 12.3 million adults and children are in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution around the world; 56 percent of these victims are women and girls. TIP estimated profits from human trafficking at 32 billion per year, with the largest share coming from the sex trade. According to the 2009 United Nations “Global Report on Trafficking in Person” 79 percent of persons trafficked are done for sexual purpose. The award-winning documentary Born into Brothels reveled children as young as infants are sold into sexual slavery.

According to a U.S State Department study in 2006, it is estimated that 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States from overseas and enslaved each year. The sale of people into sexual slavery is not an international phenomenon alone. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) collected data and conducted interviews with hundreds of American teenagers who were bought and sold in U.S. prostitution rings. They often were drugged and forced into sexual encounters with strangers while their captors collect the money. In addition to sexual slavery, agriculture is another major area of human trafficking. An unknown number of victims of forced labor in the U.S are tending and picking our fruits and vegetables. An investigative report by the Palm Beach Post reveled the working conditions of migrant farm workers in Florida. It reported that the farm workers live in some of the worst housing in the country. They live in aging, rat infested trailers, owned by slumlords and rented by crew leaders eager to make a buck off poor migrants.

Each year human trafficking and slavery in America generate millions of dollars for criminals who prey on the most vulnerable; desperate, uneducated, and impoverished immigrants seeking a better life. The promise of good jobs and economic opportunity serve to lure men and women to what they believe will bring them better life.

Resources:

FBI Human Trafficking webpage/Human Trafficking An Intelligence Report

http://www.humantrafficking.org/
http://www.polarisproject.org/
Lee, M. (2007) Human Trafficking. Portland: Williams Publishing.
Obi, N. I., Das, E., & Das D. K. (2008) Global Trafficking in Women and Children. New York: CRC Press.