Human Trafficking: A Global Issue

An issue that many people living in Westernized societies believe to have ended more than a century ago is human trafficking; contrary to this assumption, it continues to thrive to this very day and has emerged as a major global issue with significant social, economic and health implications.  Human trafficking is the illegal transnational movement and trade of people for the purposes of servitude and an issue that direly needs to be addressed by governments and the United Nations.

 As the United Nations state, a global issue is ‘a broad description that is often used to explain matters of great social concern that affect human populations locally and are shared among diverse human societies within our global community.’ A perfect example of this would be human trafficking. Victims come from virtually all developing countries and are exploited, for instance sexually, and trafficked to nearly everywhere in the world, although primarily to developed countries. Each year, roughly 820,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders.  The US government has estimated that tens of thousands of victims, such as Southeast Asian manicurists, Mexican workers, or underage American prostitutes, are trafficked annually to and within the USA.

A large factor that facilitates this is globalization, defined as worldwide integration and development; it’s a modern phenomenon that catalyzed trafficking, and helping it become a worldwide issue by the mobility of capital and the openness of political borders. Furthermore, human trafficking is becoming ever more global because markets are expanding to respond to the needs of buyers. For example, women trafficked for the purpose of the sex trade primarily originate from Eastern Europe, Asia or South America and are destined for buyers in Europe and North America. Globalization further impacts trafficking with the spread of ‘global culture’, giving the impression in impoverished countries that life is better elsewhere and will improve their economic situation if the employ themselves transnational. Modern day technology and underground economic financial resources provide traffickers an easier way to shield their activities, and so, with the growth of new inventions and needs, human trafficking has become a steadily expanding international issue.

Although many Canadians are not witness or fully aware of human trafficking, it is very much around us and impacts nearly everyone either economically, health wise or security wise.  The most blatantly impacted by this modern day slavery are, of course, the victim’s, who suffer various mental, physical and emotional impacts because of this egregious crime. Trafficking threatens border integrity, as millions of people are transported annually across international borders through bribery and false pretenses, which jeopardizes national and international security, since many of the world’s major traffickers are connected to organized crime groups. Additionally, especially in the sex trade, human health is imperilled through the spread of HIV/AIDS and other life –threatening STD’s. This impacts the victims, their clients, their clients’ partners and etc. Economically, some believe it is okay to use forced labour, given that it gives them a higher   profit-such as in many construction companies. This has a huge impact on other citizens in need of employment. Also, it impacts tax payers and their money if the illegal citizens aren’t paying for taxes and using our services. Most importantly, this impacts our global human conscience morally and ethically, since many believe that any form of slavery is simply an ordeal of our past, when in fact it is alive and thriving.

Animoto 

A form of modern day slavery, which dates back to biblical times, human trafficking still continues to thrive, although many are under false pretenses that it is no longer an issue. Differing from actual slavery, human trafficking is illegal and without approval or consent of the government. Although the term ‘human trafficking’ became a common label in the 1990’s, not many took it into consideration that it was occurring not only in impoverished developing countries, but also in powerful nations like such as Britain and North America. Unfortunately, even in Canada it is thriving-many women and children, especially Aboriginals are at risk or are already victims. Given that there are three classes of trafficking, sex, forced labour and bonded labour, they all commenced at different periods of time. Some believe that the debut of forced labour was the Portuguese and Spanish when invading South America, which influenced the African-American slave trade in the 16^th century. Furthermore, the sex trade was first identified as ‘white slavery’ in the 1800s, started later on in history.  

So what can we do to solve this? Governments alone cannot fix the issue at hand, although they can ensure that there is less corruption within their borders by creating stricter policies and being more selective in hiring their officials. The United Nations can do much more, entering different countries. Finally, things like social media and activists can also impact the efficiency of the nations addressing human trafficking.

People are not commodities to be bought and sold. And as humans with conscience and moral; while human trafficking may not impact us directly, it is a global issue that we need to attend to and care about. The victims of this horrendous trade endure physical, sexual and emotional abuse and hardships from which many do not recover. Additionally, this is happening within our borders too and affects our countries security, safety, health and overall well-being.  A global issue not often discussed, human trafficking has been a part of humanities history for well too long and has long-term impacts on victims, families and nations.

http://find.galegroup.com/gic/docRetrieve.do?searchPageType=BasicSearchForm&inPS=true&prodId=GIC&userGroupName=edmo88552&docId=CP3208520059
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking

https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/index.html

http://www.humantrafficking.org/

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/ht-tp/htta-tpem-eng.htm

http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/An_Introduction_to_Human_Trafficking_-_Background_Paper.pdfAnimoto Human Trafficking