Human Rights

Trafficking in human beings as a form and manifestation of modern slavery

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Trafficking in human beings as a  form and manifestation of modern slavery

At the dawn of the XXIst Century the world continues to be plagued by the phenomenon of human trafficking. Its widespread dissemination all over the world is a matter of great concerns for the Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organisation-AAPSO-since it embraces several fields of the social fabrics, manifesting in different forms in human activities: trade and commerce, tourism, agricultural exploitations, entertainment activities, all are object of such abominable practices as human trafficking.

Together with arms, drugs, diamonds, coltan or other strategic mineral resources, human beings are trafficked for high-profit gains;

Together with multinational corporations, mafia-networking groups, organised crimes associations, high level politicos of many countries are involved in trafficking in human beings.

Facts speak for themselves. According to the United Nations some 30 million women and children across the Asia-Pacific region have been trafficked over the past 30 years, victims of the largest slave trade in history. Across Africa, there are an estimated 80 million child workers, a number that could rise to 100 million by 2015.

We remember the suspected slave vessel "Eterino" in Benin, Africa, which highlighted the misery of child slavery.

We remember that some 15 000 children were sold in Ivory Coast and were made to carry out backbreaking work, tilling fields, kept on farms as prisoners, beaten and sexually abused.

We remember those parents who sold their offsprings, some as young as 12 years old, to dealers for around 15 dollars a head!

We also remember the statement in Le Monde about illegal adoption of children in Guatemala: 80% of the proposed for adoption were carried out by illegal dealings in clandestine cassa cunas (orphanages) where children were abducted or being bought in derisory price and sold for 20 000 or 30 000 dollars. It is likely that such case might happen in other corners of the globe.

And we are inclined to consider the taking of hostages using ransom and blackmail, as another form of trafficking in human beings.

Judging from its practices, nature and manifestations, human trafficking is a modern form of slavery. The worst forms of trafficking in human beings, like in children, appear in what is largely known as forced labour. This includes slavery, prostitution, employment in the drug trade and other criminal activities, occupations that are extremely dangerous to children's health and security. Most of the children are sent to other countries for domestic service, or put to work on plantations, in petty trade, as beggars and in soliciting. The trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation is on the rise in Asia and in Africa as well.

Not surprisingly, the impoverished nations in the Third World constitute a breeding ground for traffickers all over the world. Many reasons influence this phenomenon: poverty, mainly in underdeveloped countries; inadequate educational oppportunities; ignorance among families and children about the risk of trafficking.; migration of adults from villages to urban slums; high demand among employers for cheap and submissive child labour; ease of travel across regional borders; the desire of young people to travel abroad; lack of, or inadequate political commitment, legislation and judicial mechanisms to deal with child traffickers. These are factors among many others which to some extent constitute part of ingredients of negative effects of globalisation. The latter,thus, becomes a fertile ground for the practices of trafficking, facilitating the setting up of gang networks across the globe.

Developed world doesn't stay immune from the plague of trafficking in human beings. As The Economist puts it, America is a " prime tourist destination". It is also a prime destination for much less happy people. Facts revealed an undisputable reality, that young women and girls from developing countries have been lured from their towns by an international gang or mafia of traffickers. They are smuggled to the United States and forced into prostitution and sweat shops. Some sources said that, every year, State Department estimates about 50 000 people, the vast majority of them, women and children, are forcibly trafficked into the United States from all over the world- Eastern Europe, Asia, Central America, Africa. Citizens from developed countries sent abroad are often subject to denunciation for sexual exploitation. And no less wellknown case in this respect is what is known as "confort women" with respect to Japanese and Korean citizens.

Europe also is home for human traffickers. Britain, for example, once an avid promoter of the abolition of slavery, and a country that prohibited the slave trade in its own territory, is clandestinely receiving in the XXIst century the inheritance that its ancestors left in Africa. Sources indicated that young African adults and children are victims of a network that offers a life of luxury and a privileged education with distant relatives or family friends living in Europe. What they encountered, however, was not what they expected. Those seeking for luxury ended up to be beaten, battered, sequestered, violated, or forcibly executing tasks dangerous for their health; never-paid for their activities. Similar cases are appearing in many parts of Europe: women from Eastern European countries working in the prostitution business in Western Europe.

The cheap cost of labor force stirs the enthusiasm of multinational corporations to embark in trafficking in human beings. In Africa, for example, international industry is one of the causes of the human trafficking problem. Some 15 000 children are working in virtual slavery in the Ivory Coast, producing cocoa that accounts for at least half of the world demand for chocolate. These multinational corporations encourage more and more other Third Word nations to cultivate cocoa to lower price on the world market.. The race for huge profits doesn't know borders. According to the United Nations, over the last year, at least 700 000 men, women and children were bought, sold, transported and detained against their will throughout the world in conditions akin to slavery.

It is worth mentioning the worst conditions of trafficked children in many countries. They often work between 10 and 20 hours a day, carrying heavy loads and operating dangerous tools. They often lack adequate food and drink, which leads to death, illness or accidents. Such conditions may facilitate the dissemination of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS which Africa, for example, bears the bulk of the effects of this disease.

Enrollment of children into army is also object of trafficking. Children are cheap, obedient and easier to condition into unthinking obedience and fearless killing. Some of these children are forcibly abducted, either from schools or refugee camps to be recruited as child soldiers or messengers in conflict areas. The plight of these child combatants is especially poignant. They are kidnapped at an age as early as five or six, forced to be drugged, to terrorize, to kill. Worst, many have no recollection of their families or where they are from.

Corruption, bribery and complicity which gangrene security services of many governments in the world, all are ingredients involved in the transaction of human trafficking. The spread of the mafiosa-networks of organised criminals all over the world has led high ranking officials from many countries to secretly and unscrupulously embark on trafficking activities. In this regard, the governments seemed to be impotent. Independent organisations are under threat if they dare to reveal any suspected activities of trafficking.

The very aspects of human trafficking are clear. The difference between trafficking and commerce is fading in, since the object of transaction here -the human beings- is treated as commodities, measured according to their capacity to satisfy specific interest and usage, their "values" depend on their physical characheristics. The fact that the object of human being, its core value, its faculty to reasoning, its conscience, its very dignity and personality, are being sold during the process of transaction leads to the conclusion that trafficking in human beings is a crime against humanity.

Highly concerned about the magnitude and impact of trafficking in women and children, AAPSO proposes the following:

-An international network should be set up to monitor, track down and send to trial those criminals of human trafficking. Such network should be placed under the aegis of the United Nations. The UN should be urged to use all appropriate measures at its disposal.
-Governments directly involved or proved as accomplices in human trafficking should be severely sanctioned.
-The International Criminal Court is an appropriate instrument to deal with this matter.
-Close collaboration of the governments with civil society or grassroot organisations which are very aware of the issues should be reinforced ;
-AAPSO urges governments all over the world to create favorable conditions to human standards of life for their own citizens.