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.
As victim count continues to rise, its difficult to see how such great numbers of men, women and children are bought and sold every year. Trafficking can be found in many forms, including: prostitution, slavery, or forced labor (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). It wasn’t until the 1980’s that international human trafficking became globally noticed. With the lack of government intervention and control in several nations, and the free trade market, slavery once again became a profitable industry (Harf and Lombardi, 2014). As previously mentioned, easier movement across nations borders is one of the outcomes of globalization. It is also what makes human trafficking so easy today. It is estimated that about 20.9 million people are victims across the entire globe (United Nations Publications, 2012); trafficking accounts for 32 billion dollars in generated profit globally (Brewer, n.d). 58 percent of all human trafficking was for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and of this 55-60 percent are women (United Nations Publications,
“Human trafficking coerces and persuades their victims to cross national borders in search of new jobs and better opportunities and after that they are forced into some sort of labor bondage” (At Issue: Human Trafficking 1). Even though trafficking is a problem in almost every country; poorer countries have a bigger problem with it because they are more desperate for work. Just in 2000, the U.S. enacted their first federal anti-trafficking law, called the Victims of Trafficking Protection Act (At Issue: Human Trafficking 1). Trafficking has just begun to receive notice on how big of a problem it actually is. “Proponents of strict anti-trafficking initiatives say that laws and prevention against trafficking are necessary in order to stem the growing tide of large scale organized crime that profits off of smuggling and trafficking” (At Issue: Human Trafficking 1).
Sex trafficking is a human right issue which breaks the slavery violation in the UDHR. It 's going on in many countries like Thailand and is happening to young children. This should be stopped because its inhuman and no child or person should have to go through it.
In comparison, many other countries have geared towards adopting policies that deal with human sex trafficking. The European Union’s tactic to trafficking begins from a gender and human rights perspective and focuses on prevention, prosecution of criminals and protection of victims. These ideals can be reflected in Directive on trafficking in human beings adopted on March 21, 2011. Much like U.S foreign policies dealing with human trafficking, the Directive focus is committing to the prevention of and fights against trafficking in human beings, and to the protection of the rights of trafficked persons. Within the Asian continent twenty-three out of the twenty-seven countries opt to adopt specific legislative provisions to fight human trafficking
In today’s society, where there is political and civil instability in the nations of the world, many citizens become subject to human trafficking. Human trafficking has rapidly grown into a transnational issue. Transnational crimes are often a result of an organized criminal group. These criminal groups quickly exploit the citizens of an unstable country and will send them to other countries while using upgraded technology and the rise of global trade to their advantage. Aside from human trafficking, it also can involve the movement of firearms, vehicles, drugs, or human body parts. Many believe that human trafficking is slavery of the modern-day. Many nations have come together to work on ways to prevent and protect those subject to trafficking.
Summary: We see that there are many different aspects and types of human trafficking that everyone should be made aware of. As a whole human trafficking is a lucrative industry raking in $150 BILLION globally. The impact that this industry has on its victims is
The products of human trafficking cannot be ignored. Human rights are being violated, diseases are being transmitted, and the current laws are ineffective in preventing human trafficking and protecting its victims. Although there are many victims now, it may increase exponentially in the future, creating bigger problems. Before the number of victims increase and before more people start to lose faith in the U.S. government, it is imminent that the Trafficking Victims Protection Act be amended.
... not stopped will shake the foundation of our future. This 'market' has forced men, women and children from all around the world into sexual exploitation as well as physical exploitation. Although certain countries and international organizations are putting in effort, for public awareness and are trying to stop human trafficking from progressing, a lot more can and needs to be done. Strict international laws and tougher sentences for these offences need to be put in place, with harsher punishments for individuals and groups who violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to estimates, human trafficking is the fastest-growing area of organized crime (United Nations, 2002). It continues to be overlooked by international authorities to this date and international organizations need to step up and handle this issue before it continues to rapidly grow.
According to Karin Lehnardt from Fact Retriever in “five years or less, it has been predicted that human trafficking will surpass the drug trade”. As indicated on hopeforjustice.org, noun human trafficking is “the illegal movement of people, typically for the purpose of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.” If one was to know how large the drug trade is, you would understand how devastating this statistic is. “Human trafficking has become a modern form of slavery”, quoted from the Polaris website. People around the globe consider this trade because it is a multi billion industry for criminals that reject the independence of about 20.9 billion people. Human trafficking involves women, children as well as men, but the human traffickers are rather known for kidnapping women. When the victims are being used as slaves for someone else’s personal use they are also being physically and mentally abused by their overseer to rip apart their self esteem and confidence. These helpless victims are commonly kidnapped, taken by force and drugged and shipped off to another country to be taken advantage of as sex slaves
Human trafficking, a form of modern day slavery, affects more people than you could imagine. The United States is known for freedom, human rights, and the pursuit of happiness; however, there are many victims of human trafficking that have been stripped of their rights and freedoms. The Victims of Trafficking andViolence Protection Act (VTVPA) of 2000 defines human trafficking as, the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery (Kotrola 8). Human trafficking is a devastating issue many Americans have problems addressing;
“Stolen people, stolen dream” is the brutality faced by numerous, vulnerable, gullible children in the black market around the world even in the admirable United States. Trafficking of children is the modern day slavery, the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. More than ever, it has become a lucrative method that is trending in the underground economy. A pimp can profit up to $150,000 per children from age 4-12 every year, as reported by the UNICEF. Also, according to the International Labor Organization statistics, “There are 20.9 million victim of human trafficking globally, with hundreds of thousands in the United
One reason why human trafficking is a serious crime that many people are unaware of is because it secretly takes place in the United States. Between 2007 and 2012, there were reports of 9,298 different cases of human trafficking (Polaris Project). An example of how unknown this topic is is that 41% of sex trafficking cases and 20% of labor trafficking cases were proven to have United States citizens as victims (Polaris Project). And this is only what we know so far. There are thousands of cases that we don’t know about. Many people also don’t know that men, women, and even children are also taken hostage by human traffickers. An example of this would be that out of those 9,298 cases that were reported, women were victims of sex trafficking in 85% of those cases. Men were victims of labor trafficking in 40% of those cases (Polaris Project). Approximately 300,000 children are at risk of being prostituted in the United States (U.S. Department of Justice). Children are even more under the radar than we know about. On average, one in three teenagers on the street will be lured toward prostitution within 48 hours of leaving their home (National Runaway Hotline). For example, two female friends who were minors ran away from home and were prom...
In the international effort to prosecute human trafficking, several guidelines and definitions of human trafficking have been provided:
Human Trafficking is a world-wide undetected problem. Over the past 10 years, 2.4 million people across the globe have become victims of human trafficking, and 80 percent of them, woman/children, are being exploited as sexual slaves. Majority of victims trafficked into this worldwide industry are Eastern European citizens. Eastern European citizens from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary are the most common victims of human trafficking in Europe. Human Trafficking is known as the “slavery of modern age.” Human rights are being violated everyday in this organized crime. The number of humans trafficked has been on the rise over the last few years, and there are possibly hundreds of thousands cases unreported (The EU’s dirty secret.) The secrecy and invisibility of the trafficking trade highly contributes to the growth and success of this organized-crime business. While the trafficking of woman and children in Europe may not immediately affect American lives, the illegal kidnapping, enslaving, and exploiting of people is a horrific human rights violation that all members of the American democracy should be concerned with.
This stems from victim’s fear of coming forward due to the chance that the government will not protect them and they will again be trafficked, according to many campaigners and activists who’ve had experience dealing with the victims and their trauma. On this note, under the assumption that other nations are experiencing the same struggles, SOCHUM and the UN itself should start imposing international laws that could compel a nation’s government to protect the victims, as well as creating a joint program with UNODC to extend the reach of the Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking. The joint program could possibly pair with the statutes passed by SOCHUM and allow governments to have reserves to draw from for victim protection. SOCHUM could also begin a joint program with the General Assembly’s First Committee, the Disarmament and International Security Committee to help prevent human trafficking by targeting at-risk areas and setting up sting operations to draw the offenders