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Modern day slavery

Posted on: April 13, 2008

Human trafficking is the employment, transportation, harboring, or receipt of populace for exploitation. It is anticipated to be a $5 to $9 billion-a-year business. Human trafficking denies people of their human rights and freedoms, it is a global health risk, and stimulates the expansion of organized crime.

According to U.S. government, around 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year and millions are trafficked within the countries. Around 80 percent of transnational sufferers are female, and up to 50 percent are minors. Most females are trafficked into profit-making sexual exploitation.

In June 2001, two Indonesian women, who paid $3,000 each for a falsified visa, airline tickets from Jakarta and the promise of a well-paying restaurant job in New York, escaped from a Brooklyn brothel. They had arrived in New York only to find that their “debt” had increased to $30,000. The men waiting for them at the airport also threatened to kill them if they refused to work as prostitutes, according to the Brooklyn Rail.

U.S. Government has employed some stern and major actions to battle trafficking in the country. Few examples are as under:

• Congress approved legislation so that Americans who sexually prey on children abroad can be prosecuted and sentenced to as many as 30 years in prison
• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) certifies trafficking victims to make them eligible for qualifying for the same assistance available to refugees. HHS is also runs a major public awareness campaign to alert victims in the U.S. that help is available through the hotline number 888.3737.888
• The Department of Defense has executed a zero-tolerance stand against any actions by Defense personnel that add to human trafficking and institutes a service-wide obligatory training program
• The Departments of Labor and Homeland Security, USAID, and other government agencies are executing action plans to combat human trafficking

Very little reliable data exist about the correct level of this crime. Many countries do not have anti-trafficking laws and, therefore, are not able to provide clear figures. But, it has been clear that women and girls are maximum at risk and so are young boys. Many girls and women are being trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and it is a major possibility that they are forced into unprotected sexual acts with multiple partners, and this is a significant factor in the spread of HIV. HIV/AIDS has received little attention in efforts to address trafficking in persons, and therefore at the moment specific HIV/ AIDS prevention and care services are the need of the hour.

While a number of national HIV/AIDS have plans including policies and programmes addressing sex work, issues such as trafficking in persons, coercion into sex work, rape and sexual violence are typically not addressed. Common responses addressing HIV/AIDS have slight impact on trafficked persons due to the underground nature of human trafficking, and because people who have been trafficked cannot be reached. More focused action, exclusively addressing people susceptible to human trafficking, needs to be immediately developed and executed.

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