Human Trafficking Persuasive Essay

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Country to country, person-to-person, human trafficking is becoming a bigger and bigger issue all across the globe, including right here in the United States. Human trafficking is said to be a form of modern-day slavery, subjecting its victims to commercial sex, debt bondage, and forced labor through force, fraud, or coercion. There are often no easily identifiable victims as they come in all ages, genders, and races. There are said to be at least 2.4 million victims of human trafficking across the globe at any given time, leading to profits of $32 billion for the criminal masterminds behind such trafficking operations, making it the second most lucrative criminal industry behind narcotics. Despite the abundance of victims, it is estimated that fewer than 30% of all countries report at least 10 trafficking convictions a year, and 20% of countries do not even have an offense for trafficking. An additional 20% of countries have an offense for trafficking but still report no convictions of the offense. Without an organized coalition to help prevent such atrocities, it is left up to national governments to come up with solutions for their respective nations, and many governments do not possess the know-how or effort needed to combat these crimes. However, all hope is not lost and there have been advances towards the prosecution of human trafficking cases. In 2000, the United States passed the “Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000” (hereinafter referred to as TVPA) which was drafted with the purpose of offering protection to people who are in the country illegally and may be victims of human trafficking. In order to be granted relief under “TVPA”, victims must prove that they were trafficked and submit to prosecution of hi... ... middle of paper ... ...f human trafficking. The lack of a provided definition for human trafficking within the Rome Statutes makes it extremely difficult to encompass varying complexities of human trafficking. The case analysis shows that human trafficking cases should meet the required elements to classify it as a crime against humanity and thus place it within the jurisdiction of the ICC. However, this makes it even more important to address the problem of a lack of definition for human trafficking. In order to solve this problem, the ICC needs to adopt a separate provision for trafficking of humans and adopt one of the definitions of human trafficking already in use via the TVPS or the Palermo Protocol. An ascertainable and broad definition regarding human trafficking will help bring such atrocities before the ICC and render actual meaning to the Rome Statute’s enslavement provision.

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