Human Trafficking

   

In recent years smuggling of human beings across the international border has grown rapidly from a small scale cross border activity affecting a handful of countries into a global multimillion-dollar enterprise.  The spread of smuggling need to to be understood in the context of globalization and migration. Better life, economic instability, poverty, political and social unrest are all incentives responsible for migration. The United nation defines human trafficking as:

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 exploit.

The most common types of human trafficking involves:
Forced labor:  most common and spread around the world.
 Debt Bondage: It involves working a person forcefully to pay the debt.
 Sex trafficking:  It involves forcefully participation in the commitment sex act. Mostly women and children are the victim of this.

          

Human trafficking involves forced movements. Sometimes people are kidnaped outright and taken forcibly to another location. In other cases, trafficking makes a false promise to victims to providing jobs such as models, dancer, or domestic work. Most of the time traffickers directly access to victim families and offer high paying jobs. After providing a service, they trap their prey by charge an exorbitant fee for those services, and create debt bondage.

Human trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labor is believed to be one of the fastest-growing areas of criminal activity. Victims are usually vulnerable, or they became prey to traffickers in some situations due to parents illness, economic circumstance, financial burden, family breakdown. 

In South Asia, human trafficking is complex and multifaceted both a development and criminal justice problem. There is extensive trafficking of women from Bangladesh to India, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE. A small number of women and girls are trafficked through Bangladesh from Burma and India.  Young boys are trafficked from Southafrica to UAE, Oman, Qatar, and forced to work. In the United States, women and girls make up 80% of the people trafficked transnationality.

 To stop human trafficked Federal Anti-Trafficking laws was passed. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 is the first comprehensive federal law to address trafficking in persons. The law provides a three-pronged approach that includes prevention, protection, and prosecution.  

The organizations which are trying to fight or stop human trafficking as follows: 

•  Trafficking policy and advocacy: Polaris Project
• Second Generation Trafficking: Prajwala
• Statelessness and Child Trafficking: COSA
• Trafficking of men and young boy: Urban Light
• Child Labor: Goodweave

The Issue of Choice: The Empowerment Foundation

"In order to combat one of the cruelest problems in the world today we must create alliances," says Rickey Martin, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and twice Germany winner.

In the end human trafficked can be controlled through public awareness, outreach, education, and advocacy campaigns. Moreover, the government should make such a policy that will protect the victim by providing shelter, health, psychological, legal, and vocational services. Destination countries mat need to reassess strategies to ensure they confirm the international standards and provide better protection to victims of trafficking.