by Doris Abdullah, Church of the Brethren United Nations Representative

The nurse looked at the face of the young girl wrapped from head to toe in white gauze and tape. The chart listed her name as Jane Doe and her age of 12 /15 had a question mark beside it. The policewoman spoke up to say: “Lucky she is alive. We found her in a dumpster beside the highway.”

The above composite of a girl child found beaten and near death occurs all to frequently in rural areas, near small towns and cities around the world. Jane Doe is a victim of human trafficking and she can just as easily be found hospitalized in Cincinnati, Ohio, Lima, Peru, Tokyo, Japan, Melbourne, Australia, Jos, Nigeria, Bangkok, Thailand, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Ghouta, Syria or Moscow, Russia. Human Trafficking, also known as Modern Day Slavery, is a worldwide phenomenon. Slavery and slavers taskmasters are as old as human civilization. Modern day Human Trafficking is driven by high demand, high profits and low risk. The high demand comes from manufacturers making shoes and clothes, agriculture producers, corporations in mining, small fisheries, and the demand for body parts and sex. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and other reporting agencies estimate the worldwide profit for Human Trafficking to be as high as $150 billion annually. (1)

It is not possible to consent to slavery. A trafficked person is devoured of personal freedom. The trafficked person is bought and sold against their will. Violence and the constant usage of violence is the weapon of trafficking. Trafficked persons are held in forced bondage for exploitation. When violence does not restrain, slaves are held by ropes, handcuffs, in cages and chained under locks and keys. The trafficked person’s loss of freedom comes by means of forced abduction, fraud, deception and/or coercion. Trafficking is the complete control over another person for the sole ill purpose of exploitation. The traffickers uses their human bondage until they are used up thereby condemning the trafficked person to death. The only way out of bondage is to escape or be rescued.

Slave auctions are mostly held in secret, but law enforcement have carried out trafficking raids in exclusive hotels and even in the VIP lounges of major airlines in cities around the globe. In addition auctions over media are used for clandestine advertising and specification on types of slaves’ available. The media is also used to lure children, girls and women into slavery. Girls and women are often lured by the false promise of a job and a better lifestyle. Girls and women represent 79% of the trafficked victims world wide. The high demand for a large supply of slaves has resulted in more than 30 million persons being held in human bondage across our world. Some United States reporting from 2012 to 2016 estimated 600,000 to 800,000 persons being trafficked within the country. (2) The overwhelming amount of those trafficked in the US are females and half of the females are estimated to be children. If we use the high of 800,000 and 80% of them females, we are speaking of 320,000 slave children in the United States. (3)

Trafficked children and women for sexual exploitation are not sex workers. They are sex slaves and they are victims of exploitation. Abducted and seduced children are robbed of an education, stunted in their physical growth and robbed of their childhood innocence. They are used for child prostitution and in child pornography and child labor. Children born of rape, poverty, disabled children and runaway children are most vulnerable to be trafficked. Children are also easy to discipline and are usually to afraid to complain or escape from slavery. Abducted and coerced females are forced into prostitution. Slave women are often tattooed which further diminishes them as a human being and serves as a reminder that they are the property of others. The Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others UN General Assembly resolution Preamble states: “Whereas prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community.”(4) Sex trafficking in children and women has been estimated to be a $100 billion dollar a year industry.(5)

Girls and women are also abducted, trafficked and forced into early marriage and domestic servitude. Undocumented and even documented females are vulnerable to exploitation as domestic slaves, because of deportation fears, language barriers among migrants and immigrants in addition to being debt bondage victims. The demand for labor in the agriculture sector drives males and females trafficking in the United States. Domestic or labor, the slave is paid for only one time, and the cost of a slave is cheaper than paying wages. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the period 2013-14, show an increase in trafficking for labor, just slightly behind sex trafficking.(6) 63% of the data show that the slaves were men. Violence, playing on the immigration status as well as perpetual debt when wages were paid. The producers and miners impose fees for mandatory transportation, food, communication and housing cost which prevents indebtedness and freedom from ever being realized for those entrapped in bondage.

Men makes up 82% of those trafficked for organ removal. Organ trafficking has been reported to be greatly under reported and remain hidden underground. The skill set involved to remove organs involved the criminal help of professionals from the medical sector. The demand for organs far out pace the supply. The US Department of Health and Human Service from January, 2014 reported: 120,999 persons were waiting for organs, but only 10,587 donors were registered. (7)

The face of Human Trafficking display gender-based violence and cultural norms in addition to pay gap, gender poverty, lower employment opportunities, and women employment in unregulated and informal sectors as domestic helpers and agricultural which increase their vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation in our industrialized country. A citizen that was made aware of human trafficking made these remarks. “I never thought there was human trafficking (in Ohio). The problem was in front of my eyes. I just did not pay attention.” (8) We all must open our eyes and become aware of Human Trafficking. Stop Human Trafficking

References

1. UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Global Trafficking Report

2. Human Rights Trafficking Fact Sheet NO 36

3. The Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons

4. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish trafficking in Persons, especially women and children, Supplementing the UN Convention against Trans National Organized Crime, 2000 (Trafficking Protocol)

5. UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Global Trafficking Report

6. Country Profile North America Trafficking GLOTIP 16

7. HHS The US Department of Health and Human Services

8. HTS-2016-Annual Report-Ohio Trafficking

Other References

1. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sales of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography in the United States Najat Maalla M’Jid

2. Terminology Guidelines for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse Adopted by the Inter-agency Working Group in Luxembourg 28 January 2016

3. US State Department Document Report 2016

4. ILO International Labor Organization

5. Human Trafficking Trends (Polaris Project)