Human Trafficking
Human Trafficking: A Violation of Human Rights
Trafficking in persons (TIP), a threat to the lives and rights of human beings, is a multi-dimensional phenomenon occurring worldwide. The most recent United States Trafficking Report (June 2008), released by Condoleezza Rice, estimates that 800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders each year.[1] In actuality, the number of persons trafficked is substantially higher; the TIP report does not include the vast numbers of people trafficked within their own countries. Human trafficking is also severely under-reported because of its highly illegal nature and because victims are often times too afraid to report such a heinous crime.[2]
Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations estimate the actual number of trafficked persons to be at least two million. The International Labor Organization (ILO) associated with the United Nations (UN) gauges that there are about “12.3 million people in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, and sexual servitude at any given time.”[3] Despite any ambiguities in these numbers, two statistics are agreed upon: approximately 80 percent of the victims are girls and women and about 50 percent are children.[4]
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What is Human Trafficking?
Human trafficking is seen as “modern day slave trading.”[5] The UN defines TIP as the “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons” by means of threat, coercion, or fraud for the “purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include…the exploitation of the prostitution of others…forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery…[and] servitude.”[6] Thus, there are two forms of TIP: sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Sexual exploitation includes “abuse within the commercial sex industry,” while exploitation through labor includes “traditional chattel slavery, forced labor, and debt bondage.”[7] They both involve moving a person from one place to another through force, coercion, and violence to exploit a person for profit.[8] Victims are subjected to one or both of these forms.
