Human Trafficking~

INTRODUCTION

Human trafficking is the widespread crimes around the globe. Human trafficking can be said as the practice of humans being tricked, lured, coerced or otherwise removed from their home or country, and then forced to work with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. The practice is considered to be trade or commerce of people, which has many features of slavery, and which is illegal in most countries. Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminals in the world together with the drug smuggling and other criminal organization as well. Trafficking is a lucrative industry. In some areas, like Russia, Eastern Europe, Hong Kong, Japan, and Colombia, trafficking is controlled by large criminal organizations and always been associated with crime actives.

Basically, women are particularly targeted by traffickers, especially for the sex industry. Often, the traffickers promise of good jobs or opportunities for work or a better life, and then force the victims to become prostitutes. Through agents and brokers who arrange the travel and job placements, women are escorted to their destinations and delivered to the employers and end with the sex slaves. The major factor that leads to human trafficking is that of the poverty. Poverty in certain countries has forced people to sell their children and wives in order pay debt and so on due to the poor living. I mostly focus on the women and children trafficking as they are always been discriminated and have a high rate of becoming slaves.

In addition to that, I also focus on how human trafficking effected globally and focus on the relationship between terrorism and human trafficking. I also discussed about the violation of human rights as the human trafficking is totally violates human rights.



BACKGROUND

WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING?

According to the definition by United Nation, human trafficking refers to the “movement of the people violence, deception, or coercion for the purpose of forced labor, servitude or slavery-liked practices”. It is known as slavery because the traffickers use violence, threats, and other form of coercion to force their victims to work against their will. ( Sandra Keefer, 2006). This is mean that the traffickers control their live and their freedom is in the hand of the traffickers. Thus, human trafficking as define by the United Nation is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. ( Sandra Keefer, 2006).

In addition, trafficked persons are often treated as criminals, rather than as victims of crime, they have no freedom and it is the worst than the old types of slavery. Many of them especially women and children are subject to become sex slavery. Human trafficking is not a new issue, in fact, it is the largest criminal activities in the world. Every country in the world is affected by these crimes. The challenge for all countries whether it is rich or poor, is to target the criminals who exploit desperate people and to protect and assist victims of trafficking and smuggled migrants.

In addition, women and children are more being trafficked compared to men. Basically, women are being forced to the sex industries as sex slaves. The major reason is that of poverty that these women had face forced them to involve in this sex industries. Mainly, women always been discriminate in the society, thus, they are always being abandoned especially in the poor countries. Moreover, due to the extreme poverty, the parents are willingly selling their children in order to survive. The State Departments conservative estimate calculates that 2-4 million people are trafficked annually, but some estimates range as high as 27 million. 800,000 people are trafficked across international boarders each year; 80 percent woman and 5 percent children. According to Condoleezza Rice, as many as 17,500 people are trafficked to the United States each year. The United Nation’s Protocol to Protect puts the number of people the victims of human trafficking at any given time at 12.3 million. (Armstrong,2008)


CAUSES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING

1) Poverty

The main problem of and causes of women and children trafficking is poverty. Poverty forces women to work and earning money in order to survive. Women that live in the poor country are much more affected by this and force them to sell their children and becoming the victims of the traffickers. The economic crisis for example is more affected the poor women. The economic crisis has made it extremely difficult for families to survive on a single wage, forcing additional women into the labor force to meet the rising cost of living and the decreased wage-earning capacity of man due to the unemployment or wages cut. ( Visvanathan,Duggan,Nisonoff & Wiegersma, 1997,p.267). This situation had force women to find a job in order to support their family and they willing to do anything including selling themselves to the traffickers that promise them a good job. This is how the traffickers control over them and sell them as a sex slaves and so on. Exporting women is a big business. It actually gives profit not only to the traffickers but also to the country as they are searching for a hard currency due to the fact of the global sex trade. It also

In addition, not only women are the victims of the poverty, but also the children. Parents who can not afford for their children will sell their children in order to survive. And these children then will become slaves and work to the labor force outside the countries. Trafficking of children often involves exploitation of the parents' extreme poverty. The latter may sell children to traffickers in order to pay off debts or gain income or they may be deceived concerning the prospects of training and a better life for their children. Trafficking always violates the child’s right to grow up in a family environment. Children who have been trafficked face a range of dangers, including violence and sexual abuse.

2) Lack of political, social, and economical stability or political conflict.

The political instability is also the main problem that leads to the human trafficking. The countries that are undeveloped most probably lead to the human trafficking due to the fact that they have high rate of unemployment. The political conflict leads to the economic decrease of the country where the other countries refuse to invest in that country that has a political instability. The gross domestic product (GDP) will decrease thus affect the development of the countries.

Moreover, the discrimination against women is also one of the factors that lead to human trafficking. Women have been discriminate for decades. Women always been left behind men and being oppressed by men. This is actually the major factor that leads to human trafficking among women when they think that women are not valuable, but only for sex trade. Women are unequal to men in all these places both under law and in life. (MacKinnon, 2006,p.105).Women also being left in term of education, thus make them being abandon in the society and hardly find a job in order to survive, thus make them easy to sell themselves to the traffickers.

3) Lack of effective anti-trafficking legislation

The lack of anti-trafficking legislation creates a huge problem since there is no restriction on that. Human is still being trafficked domestically and internationally without any restriction and it affected the country itself by distorting the development of that country. In addition, women particularly are more affected by these, as they are everywhere overwhelmingly responsible for family and household maintenance and because there is no restriction on this matter, the crime continuously happened in most countries rich and poor.


GLOBAL IMPACT OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Human trafficking is the increasingly widespread form of international criminal and it has given many impacts domestically as well as globally. Human trafficking happens to be a serious problem that should be taken into consideration among all people around the globe due to its impact on international matters. There are several consequences of the human trafficking which are:-

1) Impact to the international and national security

Human trafficking can give impact to international security. Human trafficking basically related to international organized crime. After the attack of September 11, the war on terrorism has been spread widely. Human trafficking is also related to terrorism where it is believe that the migration of the people are involved in terrorism and the money made from human trafficking are linked to funding terrorist attack. This is also discussed about the issues of migration, where people migrate across the border and this affecting the national security. Thus, it is believe that human trafficking is relating to terrorist movement that can lead to terrorist attack. It is maybe the criminal’s agenda to enter one’s country in order to attack those countries. It is the global threat that should be taken as a serious problem by everyone.

In addition, the transports of people annually across the national border have made significant influence to the national security. These people may involve in terrorist activities due to the fact of the national security attacked. Terrorism is really dangerous not only to that country but also to all people around the world, as it can give a broader impact to the whole system of the country, thus can distort the development of that countries for example the attack on the World Trade Center had leads to the economic destruction this due the fact that the Bush administrations focus more on the war on terrorism. It not all that, all the country around the world also been affected, this is because, as we all know that U.S is the ‘truly superpower’. The U.S is an extraordinarily wealthy and powerful state. Due to the September 11 attack, U.S was in recession and it is joined by all the world’s major economies. Thus, it means that, the migration of the people across the national borders may lead to the terrorism that can affect the whole society.

2) Impact on the human health

In addition, besides terrorism, human trafficking may also affect human health as well. The sex industries for example may bring many contagious diseases to the people’s health. The spread of HIV and AIDS for example is the main problem that is caused by human trafficking. Women are trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labor in factories or as domestic servants and because of this, the spread of HIV and AIDS is wider. This actually can affect the human health thus, also affect the national development as well. UNAIDS estimates 5.4 million people were living with HIV in the Asia Pacific region in 2006, with anywhere between 140,000 and 610,000 people dying from AIDS-related illnesses. That makes it the world's second largest number of people living with HIV after sub-Saharan Africa, where 25.8 million people are infected with the virus.

The sex sector is never give benefits but disasters. The spread of AIDS actually can affect the economic of the countries. The countries have to spend a billion in order to overcome these issues. Thus, it also distorts the human development due to this factor. The number of women infected with HIV in some African Countries is high, particularly in the urban area. The extreme poverty, lack of resources and the heavy burden of work are the actually caused for women to be infected by AIDS. As discussed earlier, these women will have no choice because of their poorness, thus forces them to sell themselves to the traffickers in order to survive and these may lead to the spread of AIDS. ( Visvanathan,Duggan,Nisonoff & Wiegersma, 1997,p.305)

3) Impact on the Human Rights





Human trafficking actually violates human rights. The sex abuse among women is totally violates women’s rights. The status of women must be clear because women are also a human being that should be treated equally. The trafficking of women for the sex slaves and sexual exploitation is an organized, criminal phenomenon that has given bad consequences for the safety, welfare and human rights of its victim. Not on a women but also the children as what have been mention that human trafficking is totally violates the basic human rights.

What is human right? Human right is establish in order to protect the right of the people. human rights refer to the basic right and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression and thought, and also the equality before the law. In addition to that, poverty is also directly linked to the questions of rights. Poor nations are in no position to exercise their right of free expression in international level especially if they are heavily indebted to international banks an so on and these factor affected women very hard. Women will be discriminate by paying the lower salary and so on and as mentioned earlier, this is what lead to the women trafficking that is totally violates the women’s right (as the rights of the women have been long time violated due to this poor living). Children that have been trafficked also being manipulated by these people, and they have no right to live as a human being rather than they have to be slaves and live in the dark. These is actually violates their right as they can not have the right to live as a normal children.

SOLUTIONS

In order to stop human trafficking that gives so many impacts to the global world, some strategies should be taken. This is to ensure that the widespread of these criminal organizations is prevented and the dignity of human being is preserved. There are several ways to stop human trafficking that are being done which are :-

1) International movement to eliminate trafficking in women

The realization by the international community is important in order to know that trafficking represents violence against women. In 19993, the United Nation World Conference on Human Rights, which took place n Vienna, spelled out the concept of human rights and pointed the elimination of trafficking in women as one of the subjects to be addressed in solving the problem of violence against women. The General Assembly of the United Nations also adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against women as violence in the society.

The platform from action adopted by Beijing conference, points out 12 area of violence against women that should be concerned which among them are :
1) Punishment of perpetrators through both criminal and civil laws
2) Dismantling networks in trafficking
3) Cooperation with NGO’s in providing social, medical and psychological care for victims and
4) Educational campaigns to prevent sex tourism and trafficking. (Yayori Matsui, 1996,p.30)

2) Take preventive strategies

This is including increase more programs on human trafficking. Non governmental organizations and human rights commission should be more alert in order to combat human trafficking as well as to promote peace in the globe. The United Nation also should be more alert in order to stop human. In addition, the public should be more aware and understand the effect of human trafficking and the cooperation between institutions and development agencies are very important to stop human trafficking. As mentioned earlier, human trafficking violates the basic human rights especially women and children where their rights have been abuse. Women are more affected by these, women are violated in many ways, from dehumanization to sexual murder, but sadly said, these issues have been taken seriously by none. What does it mean to recognize a principle called human right that does not really apply to the systematic violations of the dignity and integrity and security and life of over half the human race? Is it death of a full human being is less serious to them? Therefore, the human rights commission and other non governmental organization should take these issues as serious issues in order to protect human being from being abused.

CONCLUSION

Human trafficking had given a huge impact globally and the most hit by that are women. Human trafficking also gives a huge impact on international security. It also leads to terrorism that becomes a big threat to the whole world. In addition, human trafficking also violates the basic human rights where the victims are mostly being abuse by the traffickers. The have no right to live and do whatever they want. Women and children are the most victims and become the targeted of the traffickers. Women especially has been trafficked as a sex slaves and it is absolutely violates women’s right. There are many reasons that forced these women as well as children to be sell to the traffickers, one of the reasons is that of poverty. Extreme poverty actually forced women and children to look for a better job in order to survive, thus, they believe anything that have been promised to them.

Moreover, human trafficking has become as a global threat as its leads to terrorism. After the attack on the World Trade Center, the world has been shocked by the terrorism and people around the world live in constant fear. Terrorism always been associated with human trafficking as the people that come illegally may form the ‘terrorist organization’. People should take the issues of human trafficking as a serious problem due to the fact that it can give a huge impact to the political, social, as well as economic. Furthermore, human trafficking has ‘taken away’ the right of the people as a human, especially women that mostly become sex slaves. Women should be protected not to be exploited or abused or trafficked for sexual enjoyment. Where do international human rights law and humanitarian law stand on this? “ A human is not one who is sexually and reproductively violated”

By : Nor Hazwani Bt Mat Rashid

REFERENCES

Armstrong. (2008). Human Trafficking : Retrieved August 9, 2008, from http://www.internatinalaffairs.suite101/

Baylis, J. & Smith, S. (2006). The globalization of world politics. New York: Oxford University Press.

Keefer, S.(2006). Human Trafficking and the Impact on the National Security for the United States, : Retrieved March 15, 2006, from http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin

MacKinnon,C,A. (2007). Are Women Human? And other Internatonal Dialogues. USA : Harvard University Press

Yayori Matsui.(1996). Women in the New Asia. London : Zed Books Ltd

Visvanathan,N & Duggan, L & Nisonoff, L & Wiegersma,N.( 1997). The Women, Gender, and Development Reader. London : Zed Books Ltd